Sketchcrawl 12.5

Last weekend was Sketchcrawl 12and a 1/2 sketch at home.

Our apartment isn't much fun to draw... but I probably wasn't looking very hard. Our dog Mongoose is fun to draw though, so here he is. I need to draw him more, I haven't accurately captured his cuteness.

I'm in a rut right now... these things happen from time to time. Usually it's a good sign because it means that I have a bunch of ideas in my thick Cro-magnon skull of where my drawing should be, and it's not there. Thus, the struggle begins. I think we all go through it. It's good because it usually leads to a "breakthrough" in drawing, draftsmanship, technique, whatever, but until you get to that point, it's painful. These two Mongoose drawings I did are okay, but everything else I've done this week is garbage. Hopefully I'll just keep slugging away and get back on track. Good times.

Molly and Her Dress of Souls

This painting is called Molly and Her Dress of Souls.

Acrylic on illustration board.

I went through a lot of sketches on this one. I forgot to bring them in to be scanned though so, I will have to post those at another time.

This one has been tough to capture as a scan, maybe a photo would be better. I did a lot of glazing in her dress in an attempt to give it an eerie depth.

In other news...

She said yes!

UPDATE!!!

Here is the progression of the sketches...

It started with a tiny thumbnail.



A bigger drawing, but it didn't feel right...



By this point, I was happy with the skulls idea so, I just focused on the girl...





Then I started wondering if I needed other elements to the composition, so I added a branch and falling leaves, Tadahiro style.



I quickly came to my senses though and decided that was distracting from what I initially intended.



By this point things weren't working so, I tried something fairly different from the rest. I rejected it, but looking at it with fresh eyes... I may turn this into a different painting. There's something that I like about it now.



Finally, I came to the image I wanted. As you can see, I still did some last minute tweaks by redrawing the face in the final painting.



That's it. There are probably 8 more sketches that I didn't even bother posting because they were only slight variations on what's already here.

KUPD again

Hey there blogosphere. Is it still called the blogosphere, or has technology already moved on from that? I think someday no one will know what anything is called because things are advancing so fast, their names will change before we even know what it is.

Well, no new work yet so, here's another KUPD comic from 2004. This time I decided to explain why Holmberg's nose is like it is. I think this was inspired by that independent two divers trapped in shark infested waters movie that was out around that time that I never saw... or it was shark week on discovery... or I just watched Jaws...or I just read Old Man and the Sea...or I was thinking about that shark tattoo that I designed for someone many moons ago or, or, or...

It was interesting, well to me any ways... I was reading something that Charles Schulz had written the other day. He was talking about how many young cartoonists approach the creation of a daily comic strip in the wrong way. I won't go into detail, because I will OF COURSE forget something, but the gist was as follows... don't keep trying to make a statement, make it funny to begin with and eventually, the characters will start dictating what you do. That's not it exactly, but it's what happened with these "strips" that I was drawing. I started to treat them very much like a newspaper comic strip. I caricatured the personalities of the guys on the radio, and one day, these drawn personalities took on a life of their own. It was no longer only a commentary of what happened on the show, but the characters started dictating what would happen.

This strip is a perfect example of that. At least, as far as I can remember. There was no real reference to this idea on the show, it just popped into my head, and it was the caricatured/simplified personalities that developed from these characters that dictated this story to me. It was a strange realisation, that the characters were informing what I would draw, and not content from the show. There were still drawings inspired from something said on the show, but the characters definitely took on a life of their own.

It taught me this, that if I put my mind to it, I could probably draw and write a daily strip. A MASSIVE undertaking I realise, but the fact that these characters were in essence "writing for me" showed me that it is possible to sustain stories in that format. Yes, lots of amazing cartoonists have done it, but I always thought that I would run out of ideas. This showed me it was possible, now the only problem is to create characters of my own... ones that will sustain and generate tonnes of stories... where's Bill Watterson when you need him?

Cowboy

Cowboy Carl says HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Uncle.

Marilyn Manson

It's been busy the last little while so, no new posts. In the effort to AT LEAST get SOMETHING up, I'll post an old drawing. I'll have new stuff soon, like the painting I have sketched out and hope to start this weekend!

I think I mentioned before that when I lived in Phoenix, I did work for a radio station. In truth, probably the greatest rock station ever, 98 KUPD. You can listen to them online now...

Any ways, I used to draw comics on their site, inspired by their morning show. It was a great gig. They pretty much let me do WHATEVER I want, a rarity to say the least. I only ever had one drawing rejected, and that was because it dealt with the FCC at the peak of their fining insanity. Other than that, I had free reign.

Above was a comic I drew for when Marilyn Manson came into town. The bald guy is Holmberg (it's his morning show) the guy that tackle Manson is Eric or, CREEPY E. He's their van driver, hander out of morning prizes and generally angry comedic relief for the show. Missing is Brady, I'll post a comic with him later.

I tried to do different things. It was a great way to practice my story telling skills in a short form, as well as try different techniques. A lot of them were single panel gags, but I started to get into working on more of a Sunday page layout. I think this Manson comic was more of a Jim Mahfood type set up like the "Stupid Comics" strips he does for the Phoenix New Times.

Oh yeah, I should probably explain the ending. Holmberg back in the day had a band called UNCLE JESSE, no not John Stamos with a mullet but the old guy from Dukes of Hazzard. NO! The real one, that was on TV. Right, the one WITHOUT the lead headed pop princess with the creepy dad. They were an Alice in Chains cover band... mainly... I think they played a lot of Winger as well. I kid. Just Alice in Chains... and Journey.

KUPD was good times. I used to get to go to free shows, including the one mentioned in this comic. I recommend, if you ever have the opportunity to see Marilyn Manson, DO IT! He puts on a GREAT show. It was a unique experience, and maybe the only satisfying work experience I have had in my artistic career... although, it wasn't REALLY work.

*sigh* Good times.