Fat guys and birthday cakes

I don't know what it is, but this seems to be a recurring theme in the cards I draw for my friend's birthdays. Guys jumping out of birthday cakes. Guys you definitely DON'T want to see doing any such thing. Most friends send you cards with pretty girls jumping out of cakes, I send fat hairy guys. Some pal I am. Maybe it's funny because we used to work with the guy in the cake. The things I'll do to elicit a giggle...

Dumbest post EVER

It should have been this...



This entry is an impression of the last entry.


Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. BLAH BLAH. Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Thumbnails

So I did this drawing last year I think... maybe it was before that. Doesn't matter...Or does it!? Maybe my memory is shot. Old age is setting in? Oh god, what if this is it? I thought I was still young, but really I'm on the downhill slide. It's over, I'm past my prime I'm... Well, I'm lucky I'm not some sort of hypochondriac otherwise, this lack of clear memory might bother me.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah... I did this drawing a while ago and people kept asking what the story behind the drawing was. I started thinking about it and this has been swimming around in my head for a while now. I think this is that story. The beginings of a 3 page story. Here are the thumbnails, more to come once the wedding stuff slows down.

Thumbnails, an interesting term. Artists know what it is, not exclusively of course, but it seems to throw a lot of people off. "What does planning have to do with your thumb nails?" I've been asked that before. I guess every industry or skill has it's own terminology, this is one of ours. I was going somewhere with this, but the train of thought has pulled out of the station. Does that make it more of a non sequitur now?

Any ways like I said, more to follow. I'm not sure what I want to do next. Larger, more detailed thumbnail/roughs or just go to the pencils on the final page. I think there are going to be a few panels that are going to cause some drawing issues for me and I would like to work them out before I erase a hole in the final page, but that brings with it the risk that the final drawings will be stiff from repetition and transferring the work. Don't want to lose that spontaneity. Oh well, I'm sure I'll figure it out before the next post.

Good luck figuring out what's going on in these, lots of replacement panels etc. Will give you a blurry question mark as to where I'm going, but maybe when it's done you'll go "Oh, I see what he did. I see what that was." Or, it might end up like LOST where you're all "Huh? That's it? What about the smoke creature, and that giant foot statue?"

Geez, does this guy ever shut up? He posts these tiny little drawings that don't even make sense, AND he wants me to read all of this rambling crap?

This is stupid...

Why did I draw the girl, the background characters AND the background in full detail, just to blur them out and stick a face in the foreground? What an unexpected direction this all digital image took. I don't know what I'm doing.

They Come In Thr33's

So I kind of lack creative discipline. The plan was to work on an idea I have for a short comic story this weekend. Well, instead, I had this image pop into my head and I had to paint it. Sometimes I totally lack focus. I guess I should just be happy that I did SOMETHING.

I have no idea why this painting is called THEY COME IN THREE'S, but that's what it's called. I guess there are three floating rocks, but the "three's" isn't in reference to the rocks in the painting. What's the deal with me and floating rocks by the way? This isn't the first image to have a floating rock in it, and I seem to draw them fairly often. What does it all mean? I have no idea... guess I just think they're cool.

This painting pulled together pretty quickly, I did a little thumbnail here...



Then, I did the final sketch, here...

Digital Paint

So, like I said in my previous post, I have been fighting a bit of a block. I took a different approach this time. It may turn out to be more of a distraction than a solution, only time will tell. I started doing quick digital "paintings." No roughs, no prelim drawings. Just blocking in shapes in photoshop and builing it until I get somewhere. This one is a little more drawn, but the lines were knocked in after the shapes and forms were set with blocks of colour. Get's me thinking a little differently which is good... I think.

This took about 1 1/2 hours. I think my next one I might try a bit more rendering, but try to keep it simple. Or maybe I'll just go nuts with the texture. I'm trying to approach these as more detailed colour keys, but not full blown rendered images.