Paintings & Brainfarts

NotWhyYou
They're not Neds, they're just having a good time. Inspired by listening to Glasvegas and the Rifles and other things.

Coraline Homage
I made this firstly as an invte for Nikitta's 8th birthday part, then stripped the text and made a poster for her.
She is obsessed with Coraline and in a way, she is Coraline as much as Nuala is Ponyo. I did very little, just shameless photo composite
type work but it made her very happy.

Chittering

Balor of the Evil Eye
I was working on a game design for a while called Cythraul that would have pit the Celts against the Fomorians, Balor was the Fomorian leader

Dru Vid
From the Cythraul game design, Dru Vid means Oak Knowledge, the word Druid comes from this and means they understood the world around them.
Kings were ranked below the Druids, battles couldn't start until they gave permission, the Celt society was organized so that intelectuals and artists
were placed above even the kings who lived in fear of being satarized more than being killed in battle.

Grumpy Bear
Another Cythraul piece, I imagined him a guardian of some remote area the might require the player to go to and gain allegiance with it.

Highland Bull
Another Cythraul piece, I thought the Fomorians might have tamed a few in order to travel the frozen north lands and the taming of these types of mythical
beast could have been central to the players successful progression through the world. Warriors are good to have on your side but 50 feet tall monsters are good too.

This was the first Cythraul piece I did ( or the 2nd!? ) , I think I came up with the idea of the game while painting it

I like abrastract pieces, I can just let go.

Reprieve
This was the first thing I painted after I had recovered from Carpal tunnel release surgery on both my wrists in 2004. I'd been losing the use
of my hands steadily for the last couple of years, couldn't do art very well, struggled to open bottles or open doors. It was a scary time.

Nikitta in her Halloween costume in 2005

Kirsten checking out on how wee Nikitta was doing, it was her first week of life and the cats were about to be ignored for a while.
I don't think I've captured any other moment as well as this in my paintings.

Another piece from Cythraul, the Boars were as tied to Celtic Mythology as the cow is to the Hindus, this one was based on Twrch Trwyth
who destroyed most of the country in the Arthurian stories.

More Fomorian beasts making their way down from the frozen northlands toward the Celts

The original inks were done by Pesti but I loved this piece so much I asked to color it up, which was great fun.

Scottish Places

Dunure Castle, Kirsten and I used to plan on retiring to one of the wee houses there one day

Dean castle park in Kilmarnock, we walked here often when Kirsten was pregnant with Nikitta in 2002

Kirsten and I beneath Dunskey castle. We planned the rest of our life together there on our first week together, we didn't realise it but we did.

Kirsten got fixated on the Scottish sheep when we moved back to Scotland, these ones were on the moors of Loch Doon

Since childhood I had the recurring dream of running and fighting for my life in the middle of some huge battle around a castle.
When I returned from Germanyto Scotland in 2000, I watched a documentary about the Johnstone clan which charted our history
over the previous 900 years. It related the tale of a large Johnstone clan war with 2 other Clans at Caerlaverock Castle.
So I went there because I recognized it as the castle I had been dreaming about (despite not having been there).

Misc Pieces

I did this when thinking about Nikitta being born soon, just came out this way. In my defense I would only
point out that David Lynch made Eraserhead to deal with his fears about becoming a father...

Brainfarts

I made this one while waiting for Nikitta to be born, realized afterwards I was drawing myself

This is how good stories end

This is one of my favorite pieces, its nothing fancy but its very like a recurring dream I used to have

Another self image piece I guess