Modofly – { feuilleton }

More Steampunk and the Crawling Chaos

Yes, it’s these again, and no, I’m not posting them because it Christmas (although you probably don’t believe that). This is the first opportunity I’ve had to add the designs to CafePress after letting them sit for a while seeing as they’re all still available on Modofly’s book range. I’ve had queries recently for the Steampunk designs as poster prints so these are now available in the usual CafePress sizes of large, small and mini. There’s also a range of CafePress t-shirts, and if you’d like one of those they have a bewilderingly extensive choice. The four pieces are:

• Steampunk | CafePress shop
• Steampunk Redux | CafePress shop
• Steampunk: Life in Our New Century! | CafePress shop
• Nyarlathotep: the Crawling Chaos | CafePress shop

While we’re on the subject of Coulthart merchandise, I haven’t mentioned that I’ve discontinued selling signed prints for the time being so CafePress is now the sole place to get a print of anything. I’ve been so busy recently that keeping up with print orders was becoming a serious problem, in addition to never having been very lucrative in the first place. CafePress has excellent printing and can produce things at a large size a lot more cheaply than I’d be able to manage. This doesn’t rule out signed prints altogether but in future they’ll probably be strictly limited editions, signed and numbered. Any developments along those lines will be announced here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• New Modofly books
• Nyarlathotep: the Crawling Chaos
• Steampunk Redux
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts

New Modofly books

Steampunk: Life in Our New Century!

I’m behind on work updates again. Still being very productive on a range of different fronts—mostly book and CD design as usual—but the workload means that site updates tend to suffer. Anyway…

This new Steampunk illustration was a quick piece done at the weekend to accompany an article Jeff VanderMeer is writing. The collage came out better than expected considering it was pretty much slammed together in an afternoon. Coincidentally, the same weekend there was a request from Modofly for new designs to adorn their range of bespoke notebooks. The last Modofly design I produced was also a Steampunk one (depicting Jeff’s Steampunk formula) so I quickly worked this up into a new book design. I’ve also slightly reworked the Nyarlathotep design done earlier this year so it fits Modofly’s book format. When I get the time I’ll be making some Cafepress products from these designs; I’d like to see both of them as posters for a start.

Update: Jeff’s article, which includes two of my illustrations, is now posted here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Nyarlathotep: the Crawling Chaos
• Steampunk Redux
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts

Steampunk redux

The Steampunk design I created last year for Modofly (based on a formula by writer Jeff VanderMeer) is given a new lease of life with this colour version. Modofly produce decorated Moleskin books with a range of designs from some very talented artists. Previous graphics were laser-etched onto the boards but they’re now able to print in full colour which is obviously to everyone’s advantage. This is available now in two different book formats. And while we’re on the subject, a reminder of Dana Mattock’s incredible Steampunk Frankenstein casemod at Flickr. His photos of my Steampunk print are now posted.

I’m planning more designs for Modofly and would have had some ready now had the past few months not been so hectic. In a similar mode (as it were), I’m also planning some T-shirt designs for Kingstrike. More about these later.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Steampunk framed
• Steampunk Horror Shortcuts

New things for December

Lord Horror (1997).

Time for an end of year news round up.

• As mentioned earlier, issue 11 of US horror magazine Penny Blood features a look at Savoy Books and David Britton’s Lord Horror mythos. The magazine is now on sale and includes comments from Savoy’s Michael Butterworth and myself.

• I was interviewed last month by Creative Review, the UK’s leading design mag, as their January 2009 issue includes a feature on Barney Bubbles. This is also now on sale although I’ve yet to see a copy so I don’t know how much of what I was saying made the cut. I did finish by calling Barney B a “true pop artist” and I see they’ve used those words as their sub-heading so that may be one contribution.

• Back in the USA, book chain Barnes & Noble have licensed my 2004 Cthulhu Rising picture for an HP Lovecraft reprint. Not sure when that’s appearing yet. The same picture (which is also my most popular print) was licensed earlier by a Romanian publisher for (surprise) a Lovecraft collection. I’m told that volume will be published in May 2009.

• Finally, the recent Steampunk design which Modofly are now selling on their laser-etched Moleskin books will be appearing shortly in a surprise location. More about that later. I’ll probably be doing some prints and CafePress stuff with this picture eventually but for now Modofly has the monopoly.

Posting here may be rather sparse over the next couple of weeks since I’m very busy work-wise just now. So don’t be surprised if there’s a long run of picture-only posts. December and early January are often slack and moneyless so it’s good to be busy.

Steampunk Horror Shortcuts

Time again for some work updates and other news. I mentioned in August that this Steampunk design—created to illustrate a formula definition of the genre by Jeff VanderMeer—was originally going to be a T-shirt. That idea fell by the wayside when an opportunity arose to submit it to Modofly who were asking for Steampunk-related work for a new line of their laser-etched Molekin books.

I’m pleased to announce that the books are now done and on sale at the Modofly store. These are available in two sizes, large (5.25ins x 8.25ins; 13.3cm x 20.9cm) and small (3.5ins x 5.5ins; 8.9cm x 13.9cm), $36 USD and $22 USD respectively.

Next up is issue 11 of Penny Blood, an American horror magazine due out shortly which includes a feature on David Britton’s Lord Horror character and runs through the often tormented history of Savoy Books. Savoy’s Mike Butterworth and I were both interviewed and the piece should also include some comments from Keith Seward whose Savoy title, Horror Panegyric, examines the Lord Horror mythos. They don’t say yet when the magazine is out but it’s available for pre-order now.

While we’re on the subject of his lordship, I recently updated my pages for the Reverbstorm comics with a lot more samples taken from the re-scanned and re-lettered artwork. Work is still progressing on assembling the definitive single-volume edition of Reverbstorm as time permits. I’ve finished work on all seven published issues and am now engaged with the eighth and final section. More about that, and Reverbstorm itself, at a later date.

Finally, there’s another new CD design out, my fourth this year and there are more on the way; I’m starting to feel prolific. As can be seen from the cover, this was a very minimal job. A Made Up Sound is a pseudonym of Dave Huismans, aka 2562, whose excellent Aerial album I also designed. Shorctuts is a collection of electronic sketches and Dave took the moodily anonymous photographs himself.