Very sad news this week, One of my personal inspirations and favourite artists - Mr. Frank Frazetta has passed away. His work has been a definitve link between artists and dreamers for decades and is one of the main reasons I picked up my first fantasy novels as a kid. He challenged me to create the heroic , to push boundaries and to see beauty even in darkness. He will be sorely missed.

Below is an obituary published this week.

Obituary for Frank Frazetta, 82,

 celebrated comic artist and

illustrator

By Terence McArdleWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 13, 2010

Frank Frazetta, 82, the celebrated comic artist and illustrator whose ax-wielding muscular warriors, scantily clad heroines and ferocious beasts of prey graced numerous science fiction and fantasy novels, died May 10 at a hospital in Fort Myers, Fla., after a stroke.Mr. Frazetta, who started as a pencil-and-ink comic book artist, painted movie posters and rock album covers, but he was perhaps best known for the cover illustrations to the paperback reissues of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series and Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan and Pellucidar series.Mr. Frazetta’s drawings were credited with renewing the popularity of the character, a mainstay of the 1930s pulp magazine Weird Tales. He helped define the illustration style for the fantasy sub-genre known as “sword and sorcery.”

Describing Mr. Frazetta’s bold, sexually charged style, the author Donald Newlove wrote in 1977, “There’s no love of decay and fetidness — his swamps and jungles are soft green, lush, aswirl and gently vivid, germinal . . . a perfect setting for the erotic.”

Mr. Frazetta was one of the first artists in paperbacks and comics to negotiate the ownership of his artwork — a move that worked out well for him. The cover painting for a 1966 Lancer books edition of “Conan the Conqueror” sold for $1 million in a 2009 auction.

Although he left comics work in the 1960s, his later paintings influenced such artists as Richard Corben of Heavy Metal magazine and anticipated a trend toward painted graphic novels.

Inspired by Tarzan

Frank Frazzetta — he later dropped the second “z” in his surname — was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Feb. 9, 1928. As a child, he was inspired by the drawings of Hal Foster, whose work on the Tarzan comic strip would anticipate many of Mr. Frazetta’s jungle scenes.

For DC Comics, he drew the Shining Knight and, for EC Comics, he illustrated a series of science fiction stories. He had his own short-lived racing car strip, Johnny Comet, in 1952. The same year, he joined cartoonist Al Capp as an uncredited artist on Lil’ Abner, a position he held into the mid-1960s. He painted a Mad magazine ad parody in 1964 — featuring Beatles drummer Ringo Starr in an endorsement for Blecch Shampoo — that caught the eye of United Artists films. The company hired Mr. Frazetta to do a painted poster for the film “What’s New Pussycat?,” a 1965 comedy written by Woody Allen.  His later film poster credits included Roman Polanski’s “The Fearless Vampire Killers” (1967) and Clint Eastwood’s “The Gauntlet” (1977).  His work also appeared on album covers for such hard rock acts as Molly Hatchet, Nazareth and Yngwie Malmsteen — though he professed disdain for most rock music.His illustrations inspired new interest in the Conan the Barbarian franchise. Marvel Comics launched an ongoing comic book series in 1970s, and there was a 1982 movie directed by John Milius with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role.Not that I could ever redo Frazetta on film — he created a world and a mood that are impossible to simulate,” Milius recently told the Los Angeles Times. He added that his goal in “Conan the Barbarian” was to tell a story shaped by Frazetta and composer Richard Wagner.

After a stroke in 1995, Mr. Frazetta, a right-handed artist, continued to work first by penciling, then by teaching himself a left-handed handed brush technique.

His wife of 53 years, Eleanor “Ellie” Kelly, who served as Mr. Frazetta’s business partner, died in 2009. Survivors include four children, Alfonso Frank Frazetta, known as Frank Jr., and William Frazetta, both of East Stroudsburg, Pa., Heidi Grabin of Englewood, Fla., and Holly Frazetta of Boca Grande, Fla.; three sisters; and 11 grandchildren.

Now that I no longer have to keep my “Big rare” piece in secret (and unfortunately so as It didnt get done in time for the Herdstone competition!) I would like to present what I have been working on:

First up - the Morghur rebuild:

 Before I took the first picture I had already rebuilt the staff and repaired the claw hand which wasnt too bad. The pins were still there they just had to be realigned reglued and straightened a bit.

After that I had to do some straightening on the seriously mangled horn. I think I got it back into a reasonable shape though it will never be symmetrical again (meh… symmetry is for suckers I always say!) I am just crushed that I am going to have to repaint this as it was a BEAST the first time (and not in a good way) Ah well. This will be the most difficult part of the repair.

Here you can see the section of the arm that I will have to rebuild with GS - this should be the easiest of the repairs and the easiest of the repaints

So thats where he is right now!

Second the Jabberslythe!!! In the original “what to use for a jabber model” topic  I had actually made the suggestion of working with a blight drone from Forgeworld. The more I thought about it the more I really did like the idea - so I got one and did it myself!

In the end I had to extend the length of the whole model - using a reshaped “fan” section to create the extra matching armour segment along the back and sculpting in the torso (?) extension below (you can see in the pic beneath that I matched it up pretty nice).

I then chopped out the lower front end of it, adding in the mawlock mouth parts and resculpting the tech sections and lenses to be more organic.

 I used shaved and corrected balrog wings which still have some more updating/smoothing work to be done on them. I am still going to replace the wing tip claws with small nid ones that should match the front leg (?) parts. I have also used GS to create a texture over the nid armour plates to give them a finish more like that of the back armour since the pics were taken.

Here it is sitting in a box of junk waiting for me to finish it!

I will post a few more as it gets done and will show a few more angles of the body resculpt etc.

AND:   SUPER THANKS again to those who voted for me in the Herdstone  award for best army blog - much appreciated and glad that people like what I am posting - if there is anything important that you want me to discuss or elaborate on please do not hesitate to ask!

THINGS TO COME:

New ungors!
More Jabber!
Morghur Updates
More work on finishing/editing my mino herds
Several other armies (40K EVEN!) which I am (finally!!!) completing
And - dependant upon the synergy between the new edition and our army - more gors!!!! New models to finish old units.

Happy easter all!

SO many updates to come - Life has really held back my hobby time but things here are well. I have a couple of things on the go which had to be kept under wraps for contest rules but I will be able to share soon. Looking forward to it!

So here is a belated Christmas card to all my readers….

Here are a couple pics of my son on Christmas morning (at my parents house) and while I was taking care of him on my own through the holidays….

I did manage a few random hobby things but not much (finished glueing arms on the dark elf bloodbowl team I made for a kid at school etc.) and I played some Dark Heresy with my buddies who came home for Christmas (oooh radicals handbook and dark conspiracies for Christmas……Drool!!!!)

Best gift of the season though goes to my wife who has agreed to purchase me a custom figure case from battlefoam to carry my beastmen in - more on this whole process to come in the next few months when I finalise which size/spaces I am going to need for new beasts army book stuff……

Otherwise we should now be back to buisness as usual - a new beasts post for next week is already prepared and the one for the week after is coming along nicely. I will continue blogging these for a bit in anticipation of the new book and will also update on my bloodbowl team in the next while.

Also please do check out my Bloodbowl League Blog Crusadercup.blogspot.com which is updated weekly during our season!