the Poison From My Brain

And some more

2011-04-03T22:27:00.001-07:00

Here are some more color-heavy pieces:

A few new pieces

2011-04-03T22:26:00.001-07:00

Here's some actiony stuff:

I Suck

2011-03-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

Because I forget to save things.
This was done. Completely done. Lines cleaned, colored, shaded, everything.
Thank god it's just some picture of Goldar from Power Rangers, and not something important. Lesson: learned.

Youtube and ratings

2011-01-11T20:32:00.000-08:00

Random thought.

Imagine angry shouting emanating from the bottom
of this image

Youtube has been quietly endeavoring over the past couple years to improve the quality of its comment sections by reorganizing how replies are seen by viewers. Uploader responded comments first, followed by highest rated, followed by the riff-raff beginning with the most recent.

Definitely an improvement from the wild west it used to be, but I think they can do two better.

Number 1 (since conversation strings have never worked properly anyway, so who cares about order really), give individual members the option to view comments sections from highest to lowest rated in the riff-raff section, rather than only by date+response. Don't make it default of course or a popularity contest will ensue, but having that option will decrease the number of viewers who are seeing knee-jerk replies in favor of thoughtful ones.

Number 2, and this will require some actual *gasp* honest-to-god programming so I won't hold my breath - weight the video uploader's vote higher than everyone else's. Significantly. As in, don't make it double or triple, make it a percentage. Count them as +20% or +30% of the total (don't listen to my numbers, I don't know how statistics work). This is THEIR video, and they should have the option to guide conversations and topics, and kill strings that get in the way. You could singlehandedly eradicate Random Religion Arguments under videos about pandas if you did this. It's a conveniently pre-limited power too, since it only works when an uploader is voting a comment under their own video, which makes it impossible to game the system in a significant way. Just make sure - and Youtube, I know you hate this shit but you have to do it - that you TELL PEOPLE YOU DID THIS if you do it. It can mean the difference between a championed change in policy and an obnoxious mutiny. But either way, it would ultimately be for the best if it was enacted.

All and all, it's number 2 I like the most. 1 is mostly superficial, and would change nothing for the majority of members. Both would help, though.

Some random character designs 2

2010-12-01T00:19:00.001-08:00

Some random character designs

2010-12-01T00:18:00.001-08:00

That

2010-03-20T16:23:00.001-07:00

Just a random drawing.

Dinosaur Ninja

2010-03-19T00:22:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I shouldn't need to explain this.

Tough Bun

2010-02-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

A sort of Pinkish tribute to Bun Bun from Sluggy Freelance, and a Christmas gift I sent to one of my friends.

Oh yes, and it's occurred to me that Lent has started. My! How time flies. Guess I have some catching up to do.

No One Will Ever Take Them Down

2010-01-25T23:40:00.000-08:00

The Power Lies On Their Si-ee-yai-ee-yai-ee-iiiiiide!
Go Go Power Rangers!

- and so forth.
I feel like there's potential to make actual sense of The Power Rangers, and turn it into something that's both cool AND vaguely logical. Which isn't to say it wasn't fun the first time around, but to actually be able to imagine that story playing out in the real-ish world, rather than the cartoony, ridiculous one it was originally set in...I'd like to see that. I think it could be done.

Maybe not quite as bloody as this depiction, but on that same level at least.

Norman's Coat

2009-10-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

He sells a lot of things...

Bonus points if you can identify everything!
(which shouldn't be too hard, since I left out a lot of things I could have included)

Deleted Scene From A Seventy-Four-Year-Old Film

2009-10-19T23:00:00.001-07:00

One of the blogs I follow posted a story about how a Marx Brothers fan just discovered an unedited version of "A Night At the Opera" in Hungary, of all places. The originating story can be found here. This is pretty impressive considering a) The censorship board was particularly harsh back then, especially when it came to subjects relating to political hot-zones (ie. Italy), and b) Hungary wasn't exactly that hip to modern-at-the-time cinema, but mostly c) film wasn't treated with half the care it is now. That we even have prints of the current versions of these old movies is a miracle in itself. Discovering a more complete version is akin to finding out your parents never sold your now-priceless comic collection, or something.

Anyway, I made a tribute in comic form.

Parson from Erfworld

2009-09-12T22:10:00.000-07:00

I did this as guest are for Rob and Jaimie of "Erfworld" during their summer updates:

You can read the chapter it applies to, the other summer chapters, and the comic itself here: http://www.erfworld.com/
It's fairly boop-damn awesome.

An Abrupt and Massive Adjustment of Scale

2009-07-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

While flying back to LA, we happened to pass within sight of an outbound flight. I'd been staring at this cloud formation for some time, but it was only with the other airliner's passage that I truly understood how goddamn HUGE it was. I was working from the assumption that it was maybe a couple blocks wide; it turns out you could probably fit most of Manhattan in that thing, without even including that vast stratus sitting behind it. People: clouds are not small things.

I did the lines immediately; I did the colors recently.
The ground should actually be much bluer than that, from 30 thousand feet. But any more than that and in a still image it would probably just look like we were flying over water with weird grid lines.

Film Scribbles

2009-05-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

Three major scenes from each Act of a film:

Tug, The pin, Coffee and Pie (Coffee and Pie Oh My), and of course, the kid who hates everyone, all scribbled together.
I'll let you guess the movie.
I worked out all the compositions with my hands in the air and one eye closed.

Busy

2009-04-25T00:04:00.000-07:00

I've got, like, three complex drawings I'd love to work on, but my free time lately has been taken up by more important things.

Me as a bee?
You decide.

I can feel my barely tenuous grasp of Flash slipping with each attempt I make to do this test thing I've been given. I don't know if it's some ingrained push-back against the presence of technology that doesn't adhere to the same logic I'm used to, or if the program is literally just an unintuitive, user-hostile piece of shit. Whichever the case may be, I'm beginning to get concerned that I've hit a brick wall in my understanding. Nothing is syncing up. Even the things I thought I knew. Or assumed I knew.

I wonder how much weight they put on the test. How impressive would I have to look regarding my other artistic examples before taking the test is irrelevant? And for that matter, if I really pushed myself and figured this thing out and got an awesome result, would that put me at a disadvantage if I looked to competent with the program they're intent on teaching me?

Questions within questions; symbols within symbols.
Hmm.

Lent #46 – EASTER!

2009-04-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

I told you to mark them:

Merry Easter!

"BUNNIES!" part deux.
I'm a man of my word:
http://econniff.blogspot.com/2009/02/lent-1.html

Lent #45 – Wire

2009-04-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

What this project is coming down to

I think a good 25% of the images I made for this are Red themed. And I think the rest are either blue or black themed. Ladies and gentlemen: my color palette.
Thank you and goodnight.

Lent #44 - Wh...what. What is this.

2009-04-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

It's . . . right.

Breakitdown!
imageshacked, cuz blogger just can't handle the hottness that is my art.

Lent #43 – Adventureland

2009-04-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's a good movie.
...This is not a scene from it.

But you'll definitely leave the theater with this image in your head.

Lent #42 - And in Fields

2009-04-07T11:28:00.000-07:00

You could get lost

I was going to put a spooky wormhole in this image, but it came out terribly (some things in PS are just too friggin technical for me), so I left it empty. Just a quiet environmental study. Practice with textured brushes. Playing with green. I feel like there are waaay more shades of green than there are shades of everything else.

..like, not specifically in this piece, but in general. That exist. In nature.

Lent #41 - Friendly Titan

2009-04-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

A good start to a more complex picture:

Hold on, little dude!

"Waaaaait a second!" I hear you cry, "Isn't Lent 40 days long?? Did you screw up or sumthin? WTF mate?" And so, for my no-doubt-confused non-christian friends out there, here's the low down: Lent is comprised of 40 days. Yes. But Lent, by decree of the ancient papal church, long ago, cannot fall on any Sundays, because those are ALREADY holy days, and...I guess there was some kind of conflict of interest in the holy beaurocracy. Sooo, lent is actually 40 days + 6 days.

Teeeechnically, you don't necessarily need to recognize your Lenten fast during Lent-entwined Sundays, but mind you, these rules were put into place back when the ENTIRE DAY of Sunday was given up to prayer, bible reading, and listening to dudes talk in dead languages. So there would've been no time for fasting, you see? Whereas these days, that sort of thing doesn't work anymore, so the fast is generally upheld. Cuz why not?

Fun fact for the day.

I haven't done cross-hatching in ages.

Lent #40 - Letterbox

2009-04-05T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'll give you a minute to think about it,

connect it to the title.

You now have leave to groan, and/or get pissed off.
There HAS to be a better way to selectively blur parts of an image in photoshop. And one day I will find it. ..Or Adobe will just make it suck less to blur things. Whichever comes first.

Lent #39 - Wrong Side of the Tracks

2009-04-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

"Cuz the tumblin' dice
And the luck of the draw
Just leads us all"

Camper Van Beethoven - When I Win the Lottery

I think today was "New Drifter Day" in Sherman Oaks, cuz I saw a ton of unfamiliar faces behind garbage-filled shopping carts going up and down Ventura. I wonder if it's a seasonal thing.

Lent #38 - Mr. Sixteen Bitman

2009-04-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

He sees a world you can never understand.

Yesterday's pic's background gave me the idea to try this out using the square brush. I think I faked the 16-bit look pretty well, considering it's a several hundred kilobyte PNG image created with one of the most advanced 2D art programs on the market.

Mr. Bitman says "Heddo" by the way, and offers you some of his snot as a greeting. Take it, or he will be offended.

Lent #37 - Sinister Mastermind

2009-04-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Can't say he doesn't have good taste.

I'd like to use this guy someday. He's got that typical "I'm clearly evil, in the 'buying out mom and pop stores' kind of way." which just begs to be turned into a necessary ally to a hero.

His right foot refused to cooperate with me, unfortunately.

Lent #36 - Iiiiiit's . . . a dragon.

2009-04-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

(sings) Buurninating theee...ethereal plai-ain.
Or somethiiing.

Snaky dragon thingies and some color experimenting, of the sequin school of background texturization. Question for my audience: is this dragon pissed at YOU, or does he have an itch just between his eyes? Hard to say.

Hard

To

Say.

Either way, I wish him all the best.

Lent #35 - FROOOG!

2009-03-31T11:59:00.000-07:00

Eww, coooool!!!

Done quickly, colored even quicker.

Lent #34 - Hey there, miss. Like a cigah?

2009-03-30T23:59:00.001-07:00

"Why, yes. I do."

Really? Cuz you're more like a pancake if you ask me.

Nuff said, Groucho. Nuff said.

Lent #33 - Leap of Fence

2009-03-29T23:58:00.001-07:00

Ho, there sir!
Running away or running after?

A locked fence is like faith. It's easy to assume there's something on the other side, but you have to leap it in order to know for sure.
. . . They're also both good things to have if you're running from the cops.

Lent #32 - Residential Sketchin

2009-03-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

That's how he waves

This is a quick sketch of one of the residents of my apartment complex, whom I'm relatively familiar with. He's a pretty laid-back dude of something-or-other descent, who is a pretty big fan of cigars and managing restaurants.

Lent #31 - Sketch-o-matronic

2009-03-27T23:55:00.000-07:00

"Potpourri" is the word you are
looking for here.

Dude in the bottom right - he could totally become syndicated.
So easy. But the kicker is the kicker.

Lent #30 - Oh The Hazards Of Love

2009-03-26T23:24:00.000-07:00

Father don't you fear

Your children all are here.

The Decemberists – my opinion of whom is usually mild – have released an album called The Hazards of Love. And it is awesome. It's Old Skool high fantasy rock opera, with ballads and reprises and deliberately ambiguous narrative and ALL that shit. My favorite is the third movement of the title song (SUCH an homage to The Wall's naming conventions it's ridiculous). The song is sung entirely by a children's chorus, who are playing the part of the vengeful ghosts of The Rake's children, whom he murdered in cold blood earlier in the story. This one in particular was just so sweet, I had to do a sketch about it.

And thus.

PS - also, I'd like to give somebody nightmares. So, here, click on this:

Lent #29 - Noirette

2009-03-25T23:54:00.000-07:00

She had such potential. Instead she's shootin' folks in back alleys.
I blame video games.

Why is it gumshoes have the loudest inner dialogues? I imagine more of their movies would have happier endings if they'd just turn down the volume of their thought processes. Seriously.

Lent #28 – Vector Dame

2009-03-24T11:52:00.000-07:00

Rain

Figured, if I'm gonna play with vectors, I may as well do it proper and use illustrator. *inhales* Ahhhhhhh, I forgot how much I enjoy using this program. Breath of fresh air, I tells ya.

Lent #27 – Vector Sea

2009-03-23T22:48:00.000-07:00

It was windy today.

All done in vectors, believe it or not.
Nary a brush stroke in sight, far as the eye ken see.

Lent #26 – Anime can suck it

2009-03-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

Dude's about to fuck some
shit up in this bitch. Naruto best watch his-self.

This took me fifteen minutes, and yet it manages to be cooler looking than any anime action shot I've ever seen. And do you know why? Can you tell me why that is, even though this is essentially the same sort of pose you might expect an anime character to take? Anyone? Anybody?

Because anime fucking sucks.

Thank you and goodnight.

Lent #25 – Overcast

2009-03-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

...
Man's little day what clouds o'ercast!
How soon his longest day is past!
All-conquering Death, in solemn date unfurl'd,
Comes, like the burning desert blast,
And sweeps him from the world.

– Thomas Love Peacock, Palmyra

There's something about overcast skies that I just love. Can't say what. But they, for some reason inexplicable, feel so much more real than clear skies do.

I'll have to return to this pic one day and de-fog it up. Also, make that tree look less like I dropped green cotton balls on some paper.

Lent #24 - Etch

2009-03-20T16:40:00.000-07:00

A drow king of ghosts and regret, stalking the nether as his legends and myths fade from memory and page, his lands long removed, his people long passed, his power long waned. A true Ruler Of Nothing.

As much a scribble as the thing you see before you now.

Lent #23 – Air Brush

2009-03-19T23:55:00.001-07:00

I really was looking for something.
He was very helpful.

Air brushing: the trailer park of coloring styles.
Hence the character design. I decided on this over an actual trailer park, figuring that would belabor the point. And god forbid I do something like that.

Lent #22 - WATCHOUT

2009-03-18T23:28:00.001-07:00

Jack (JackJack Jack)

Lent #21 – Oirish

2009-03-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

Quick 'n dirty shamrock.
And for the record: people who use four-leafed clovers to signify St. Patrick's Day just don't get it.

Lent #20 – Lameness, or a thickly vieled parody?

2009-03-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

I know what you're thinkin', you're thinkin', "Oh that Eugene, phonin' it in again" But probably with more "g"s and less apostrophes. Instead, though, I challenge you to consider this: think of all those shirts out there with odd, almost-but-not-quite recognizable images, whose heavily funded and overpriced marketing department THRIVES on their very indecipherability. "The image is because!" They'll claim, gleefully. Whatever the fuck that means. These images are, like the one above, touted like an iconographic Avatar some unknown culture's god, isolated from composition, context, or even texturization; perfect unto iteslf, or so it's assumed by way of majority consensus and commercial suggestion. Then they hike the price until it becomes expensive enough to be important, and suddenly it's the new Thing Of The Week.

Now...I suppose the Hot Topic generation has pretty much anihilated this form of psychological terror that shirt makers visisted upon the late 90's. "Thanks be to God!" you might declare, but O! I say unto you: lament instead. For within this demon's ashes rises another. In place of meaningless symbols, we now have artificially-weathered, faux-retro, sentimental references to the crappy shit we watched when we were too young to be capable of separating delicious pizza from quality narrative. Will the suffering never end? Will it?

It willn't!

Actually, I still can't separate delicious pizza from quality narrative, so maybe that's just a thing.
Forget I said any of this.

Lent #18 and Lent #19 – Pac The Devourer + Fealty

2009-03-15T17:07:00.000-07:00

Annoyingly, yesterday's image didn't appear on the site for some reason. Whatever, here it is:

Mind-shattering Terror.

And here is today's:

Sometimes life throws things at you
that you just have to roll with.

Just random fun, followed by more random fun.
What more can you ask for, yeah?

Lent #17 – dubbya-eye-pea

2009-03-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

Studying fabric, how it falls, that sort of thing. I wasn't actually doing this for my lent series, but I nearly forgot about that today, and since I was already messin' wit this, I figured I'd post a WIP, construction lines included.

Lent #16 – Composition Study

2009-03-12T23:46:00.000-07:00

Phoning it in.
It's not even a very good composition - that horizontal line is too close to the center, and lames it all up. Bisection isn't necessarily bad, but it has to have a clear purpose, because our eye doesn't consider centering to be aesthetically pleasing without a really good argument.

Lent #15 – Japanese painting style

2009-03-11T23:56:00.000-07:00

(not actually Japanese)

Squeaking this in at the eleventh hour.
Literally.

So, apparently here, I've managed to draw something that evokes the idea of traditional Japanese painting, without actually looking anything like traditional Japanese painting. Even remotely.

Oh, and that character in the upper left is purely a gimmick symbol that I completely made up without any prior research. Which I consider much safer than using a character that I think means something through half-assed research. Of course, either way, there's still a pretty good chance I'm offending somebody's mother.

In other news, I've decided to go back and start giving all these posts subtitles, so that people aren't forced to remember which ones they love and hate based on numbers.

[EDIT] In other other news, as of this post, I've now posted more sketches in the three months of 2009 than I posted in the ENTIRETY of 2007. Nice.

Lent #14 – Paint Splotch Simulation

2009-03-10T23:29:00.000-07:00

And sometimes you feel like Blah.
I remember, back in my younger days – maybe six or seven, who knows...my childhood is a blur at this point, I blame it on the loose women, fast cars, and hard drugs that made up my grade school years – I had this little spin-art playset thing. It came with a palette of acrylics, a ream of paper, and a device that let you spin said paper. I seriously doubt I ever used it for it's actual purpose, though. There was something just too cool about the look paint had when it pooled, congealed, and intermixed into a rainbow of hideous colors God never meant us to know. I'm pretty sure I ruined half the ream, most of the paint, the device's machinery and a significant portion of my bedroom carpet in one single bout of playtime with that thing.

Ahh, but the memories last a lifetime...

What was I talking about again?

Lent #13 – Still Life? More like Still BORING. Oh snap!

2009-03-09T21:40:00.000-07:00

"Fruit so delicious it strains at the skin"
Still life. Why? Because sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you feel like a boring, lame thing that isn't a nut.

Lent #12 – Duel To The Death

2009-03-09T00:08:00.000-07:00

Showdown.

Obi Wan did it. Batman did it in the animated series. Optimus Prime did the exact opposite. But frankly, not enough fights to the death happen near open pits of lava. And this has GOT to change. I'm just raising awareness, really.

Lent #11 – This is What's In Rancid Vinegar

2009-03-08T03:11:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about the game FlOw, and creating the illusion of depth. And so I made a creepy-crawly petri dish. This is technically being posted a day late, because it's past midnight, but it still counts as Saturday to me. "Today"s sketch will have to wait till it's actually today.

Lent #10 – In Russia, The Drawing Sketches YOU

2009-03-06T23:11:00.001-08:00

Sketches for THE MOTHERLAND!!

There were a lot of directions I could've gone with this. I mean, it was originally just contour practice of my hand, y'know? Well, then I got to shading, and then I went overboard on the chiaroscuro, prompting me to just turn it a solid black, then I took out the dark, cloudy background....and before you know it, I had me some Old Skool propaganda. Go fig.

VIVA LA SKETCHVOLUCIÓN!!!

Lent #9 – "Büding," technically

2009-03-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

"Booding!"

That is all.

Lent #8 – This Just In...

2009-03-04T23:18:00.001-08:00

This is a chicken sandwich.

In other news, this is a potato:

(potato)

Henry Miller?

2009-03-03T22:50:00.000-08:00

There's apparently this author named Henry Miller. He wrote a book called "Tropic of Cancer" This is all I know. Oh and this:

In his dissent from the majority holding that the book was not obscene, Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Michael Musmanno wrote Cancer is "not a book. It is a cesspool, an open sewer, a pit of putrefaction, a slimy gathering of all that is rotten in the debris of human depravity."

This is by far the greatest unwitting endorsement for a novel that I have ever seen in my life. I MUST find and read this book now. Ir just has to happen. Even though I know I'm in for a world of disappointment, I don't care. I mean, how can anything ever live up to that statement? "Mein Kampf" hasn't been described that derisively! Frankly, Mr. Musmanno set the bar for this story above and beyond all possible expectations.

But I just have to know.
I think, this weekend, I'll hunt down that and "Battle Royale" - which I never even knew began life as a novel. This way, I can finally start my collection of "Novels banned in certain parts of the U.S."

Lent #7 – Late Morning; Spring

2009-03-03T22:13:00.001-08:00

And so, this lonely flower rounds out a week! So far so good, yeah?

Yeah!

Lent #6 – Pay No Attention to the Girl Behind the Scribble

2009-03-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

I do not know what this is. It just happened.
Hey, I promised to do a new sketch every day; I never promised it would actually be good/make sense/contain anything coherent.

Lent #5 – Oh Shit DICE!

2009-03-01T16:12:00.000-08:00

It's horrible! It's awesome! It's

This was Kevin's idea for a home game. Just a giant box of around 900 dice. And a three hundred page rule book that doesn't make any sense. I would buy ten.

Lent #4 – UPA

2009-02-28T16:41:00.000-08:00

A quick, UPA-style character bust. Played around with color combinations a lot with this one. Hmm, I should do one where it's the same image repeated with different color pallets. It would be a non-pointless variation on that thing Andy Warhol liked to do.

Lent #3 – Silver Screen Protagonist

2009-02-27T20:55:00.001-08:00

A phrase which, by all accounts, would make for an awesome Song Title.

Whipped out a random dude, no construction lines, no character design, just nose-eyebrow-cheek-eyes-chin-head-tweak-BAM. And I played with gray-scale shading a little, since my pittsburgh picture turned out so well (speaking of, I need to upload that here at some point). I think I like it. May consider experimenting more with this.

Today I ate Salmon for lunch. It was delicious. It really makes me wonder how much our ancestors totally sucked at cooking fish, that they considered eating it some kind of sacrifice.

Lent #2 – Under Construction

2009-02-26T22:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Lenten sketch has me testing out lines of action. Or, I suppose, more accurately: membranes of action. One thing Aladdin taught me, it's that rugs make for great tools of expression.

Lent #1 – BUNNIES!

2009-02-26T00:01:00.001-08:00

It shall start with bunnies; it shall end with bunnies.
Mark mine words.

Technically already a day late. By two freakin minutes, too.
Hm.

I've decided that, for Lent, instead of giving something up or some other boring thing, that I'd update my Sketchblog with a new sketch every day for the 40 days (Sundays excluded, of course [not really]). Lent isn't really so much about sacrifice as it is about discipline, anyway. Its intent is for practitioners to emulate the start of Jesus' career, not the end. So what better why to participate than testing my artistic endurance? Perhaps not an overly-fantastic feat for those cartoonists with a daily-updated comic, but for me and my slow, plodding nature...it's a different story. Will I make it? No sé, mi amigo. No sé.

But regardless – A-Waay weee GO!

How I Would React

2009-02-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

In the event I'm ever party to a home invasion, this – it turns out – is what I would do:

^^ True story.
(not a true story)

Here's what happened: I'm lounging in my living room on Friday, reading a book, my roommate's getting food in the kitchen, when out of nowhere, our door opens up. Someone is clearly entering our apartment, who is not me, and who is not my roommate. Neither of us had invited anyone over, nor were we expecting anybody. So what do I do? I say, "Hi!"

Yes, I said hi.

At this point (though it should have been much, much earlier. Like - at the point when she looked at the room number earlier), the person walking in suddenly realizes she's in the wrong apartment, appologises, and leaves. All-in-all, I'd we all left the situation better people. The anonymous girl had a sharper understanding of the building's layout, my roommate had a new appreciation for the word fear, and I now know the first thing I'd do in case the apartment is burglarized while I'm in it. Not too shabby, and I got comicking practice out of it to boot.

(edit) My roommate suggests that I crop the final panel so it only shows my head. I agree, but only because that gun I drew is hideous.

Ooooo....Fontilating!

2009-02-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

Hooray for free Font customization!

A throwaway pic - I just wanted an excuse to play with the font I made of my own handwriting. Overall: pretty sweet. It needs some work, especially the lowercase 'h', which probably should be re-drawn entirely (waaay too much convex on the outside of its hump). Lot's of kerning issues too (like with the 'g'), not sure what to do about that aside from readjust them manually every time I type. That aside? Pretty sweet. I can't believe how MUCH it looks like I physically wrote on the page. My god, my proposed comic is suddenly three and a half times less likely to fail miserably than it was yesterday! Holy shit.

Here, now YOU try! –
http://www.yourfonts.com/print.html

Basically, you DL either the .pdf and print it out to write on, or do what I did and DL the two image templates and do this in photoshop with a wacom. Then handwrite away. If you take the first route, you'll need to scan the template back in (300 DPI, as a .jpg). Then you just upload the image files and wait, like it's some kind of font microwave. Then download the .ttf and put it in your font library! Yay!

And it's so incredibly free!

Harold

2009-01-26T22:40:00.000-08:00

From the department of characters that don't require five hundred iterations to get right:

At least initially, his purpose in the comic will be to act as an archetype. Betcha can't guess which one!

Seriously. Guess. Right now.
Go on.

I'll give you a hint: say his name.
You win!

A Vicious Cycle

2009-01-19T00:15:00.000-08:00

I was walking down Ventura blvd the other day when, before my unsuspecting eyes, I beheld the very definition of "COUNTERPRODUCTIVE" –

I love this stupid town sometimes.

Gradiance

2009-01-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

Lame Cali image I did, referencing today's sky at dusk.
By their nature, gradients are tacky. The trick to keeping their tackiness from shitting up your picture? Subtlety. This, for instance, is a four-color gradient, with a fifth color that gradiates to transparency on either side layered on top, to add the slight reddish hue. Otherwise, the vanilla and the blue would turn greenish where they meet.

Norman Yoddar: Locked In

2009-01-05T23:27:00.001-08:00

In an effort to not entirely waste my time while in Pittsburgh, I did some Norman sketching to see if I could finally lock him down. And BOOYAH Bitches! Say hello to Norman Mk 5 – now AKA Norman gen. 1 – whose template I will officially consult to make this comic, once I've scripted enough of it to be comfortable jumping in and doing that sort of thing.

ALSO:
Fun fact for the day – the sentence, "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo." is grammatically correct. Go ahead an look it up. I dare you.

I've seen this before

2008-12-22T00:10:00.000-08:00

WIP: skin tones are nowhere close to done.

This is one of those images where I swear I've seen it before. Maybe 65 times, at least. I imagine WiRED could devote a forty room gallery entirely to images that look like this. And yet, if I were to actually try to intentially find something resembling this, I would fail miserably. And that would annoy me.

So I drew it myself, instead.

Norman Yoddar: getting closer

2008-12-06T05:16:00.001-08:00

Mk 4 is the closest I've gotten so far to what I think Norman needs to look like.
Previous versions:
Mark 1
Mark 2
Mark 3

..that was unnecessary. I appologize for that.

F. Krueger

2008-10-31T20:21:00.000-07:00

That's how we're first introduced to the demon's name in the first film. It was written on the inside of his hat. "F. Krueger" Then the main characters proceed to tell a ghost story in his boiler room. Because that's truly the kind of movie it was.

Done in just under an hour.
Again, red and green - perfect Halloween colors. Christmas screwed this holiday over, if you ask me. One nice thing about Freddy is you never have to worry about getting his face right, because even the films don't really know what Freddy actually looks like. Or they just can't decide. Here, lemme give you some examples.

These are all Robert Englund as Freddy. I swear:
Freddy mk1
Freddy mk2
Freddy mk3
Freddy mk4
Freddy mk5

It's not even like they get progressively better as they go on. They're just different. *shrug*

To be honest, I'm happier with the blood splatter I made than the actual image. But fuck it, it's Halloween. Plus I love the Fred man. Though, for my sake, please don't click on the image to make it bigger. You'll just make it worse :p

Some old school Logo Art

2008-10-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Did this a few years ago as a slate for mah brah. "Drive-By Pirate Productions" I think was their name. Don't quite recall what it was used for. Something hilarious, probably.

I only just rediscovered this one a couple days ago, and what struck me most about this piece was how much I still like it. I mean, black, white, and red got together like PB&J, but aside from that, the composition really just works. And there's something cool and absurd about a hook holding a gun in an impossible way, like, if you only gave this a passing glance you'd probably smile and not know why. Plus the piece conveys a good sense of motion on top of all that. In fact, the way I layered it, I probably could have created actual motion if I'd had the time and the know-how (I do now, but eh).

Had I done this today, though, there are a few things I might have changed. The gun is a bit TOO perfect, I think. I almost looks like I just blacked a photo (I didn't). Also, the arm is longer than I'd like it. I'd rather see more of the empty red field on the left, to leave room for the typography.

Lovecraft, eat your heart out

2008-10-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

DISTURBING.

I've been reading a lot of comics lately. Many of them are on subjects that I'm unfamiliar with, which is a cool way to learn new things. But one in particular is on a very familiar subject: dinosaurs. It's called Dawn Of Time and there's almost no dialogue, which is awesome. Also - it's got a great artistic style to it. Another awesome thing, is that in the Blog section, the author - Michael Stearns - manages to find some really interesting and surprising stuff about this otherwise familiar subject. One of those things is the recent discovery of how Pterosaurs prefer to spend a lot of their time on the ground when they hunt, and various other neat things. The long-winded article is here.

And how they go about walking is about on par with how I imagine the heralds of the Old Gods would look: like a terrifying mixture of a carnivorous giraffe and a tripod from "War of the Worlds"

Spider Hawk

2008-10-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

Did this in the vein of those old biology field papers that only exist in text books anymore. They always made me feel like one of the major qualifications for getting into the field of biology back in the day was artistic skill. What's that, you know how to identify every insect in the northern hemisphere? Whatever. Oh, your patience and keen eyesight allowed you to identify four new species in the past year? Not interested. Wait a second...you can draw? And you're especially talented at that sort of three-tone sketching where the image sort of just disappears past the detail area? Great! You're hired!

Oh, except, instead of doing one of a regular bird, I did one of a bird that has a spider head. It was fun. Reminded me of Lovecraft. His descriptions were always so dry; remind me of this sort of thing. A cross between disturbing and academic. Which is almost more horrific than posing it cinematically, because here the image is so frank. You don't really process it all at once because it's presented in such a boring way, and that lets it plant the seeds of dread for later.

Though I think it would work better if it was just a little more alien. The way the spider head looks in profile is just a tiny bit too close to how the bird's head would look in profile, and I think that's working against it. But whatever, it was fun. Plus, it's the rare image where I can tag it "black and white" AND "color" without lying.

Also, in the service of being old timey, signed it, "Lord Eugene D. Conniff, Esq."
cuz they gave out lawyer's certificates like chewing gum back in the 1800's. Or so I imagine.

Holiday Spirit

2008-10-15T23:47:00.000-07:00

I should play more with red and green palettes for Halloween stuff. That's a color combination that needs to return to its roots in horror. God damn christmas and its thieving. The random-looking red jaggy thing comes from something I used to love doing with the primitive art software we used back in grade school. Unfortunately, photoshop is too advanced, and normalized a lot of the crazy pattern making I was doing with the select tool, forcing me to layer multiple copies of the image to get the complex effect I was familiar with. Sad that it takes extra effort in the most advanced art software of the day to do the same thing someone with fifteen year old software could do in a couple clicks. Oh well. I was feeling nostalgic, and screw it, it worked.

I'm gonna have to remember the technique I used for the "eye" things. Could come in handy later for making moons on cloudy nights.

Click on the image for full-size, if you're having trouble seeing the green. 'S super dark/subtle. My bad on that. I secretly hate your eyes.

In other news, orange and yellow is for lame-os.

change

2008-10-13T21:54:00.001-07:00

Changed the layout. Not sure if I like it yet.
Gonna sleep on it, I think.

Cast Light, Dark Room

2008-10-13T19:05:00.001-07:00

Lighting test done after staring at my livingroom ceiling for too long in the evening. Primarily to capture the odd blue cast spreading into the edge of the shadow. I still don't think it's right. But I was curious, so it was worth it.

BigAngry

2008-10-10T19:31:00.001-07:00

He was grumpy to begin with, and then you stole his popsicle, you asshole.

Lots of people like to give big guys screen-filling power shots. And I get that. You want him to look towering and mighty. It makes sense on paper, after all. Different, less drawn-on paper, I mean. But truthfully, this (up there) is the composition that conveys the better sense of biggness. The more the top-end of the image overtakes the bottom-end, the heavier the image will feel. (Sky=Heavy to our eyes. They're adorable and primitive that way.) And when you're forced to use the character's own shoulders as the horizon line to eyeball that measurment, well, then you know you've won.

That said, even though art teachers always seem to claim that this horizon placement rule is universal, I can't help but wonder if the rule diminishes the more vertical the canvass is. Part of the impact with something like this, after all, is the panoramic view.

I did this using the vector tool in Photoshop. Why photoshop and not illustrator? I don't know. Maybe because I'm an idiot. Maybe because I just hate myself that much. Maybe because I'm in an unhealthy parasitic relationship with clipping masks. Who can say.

Go Go Sugar Babiez yeah!

2008-10-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

My good friend, associate, and unwilling business partner for my black market cheese operation started a webcomic. You can find it here:

Sugar Babiez

And for those of you who are continuity purists, the start of the complex story he's begun to weave (this is a lie) can be found here. I recommend reading from beginning to end simply because that's how long it will take you to wrap your mind around Bob's twisted, twisted sense of humor. Also, because it's hilarious.

Basically, it's a strip-style comic like you'd find in your local newspaper. That is, if your newspaper was run by a murderous version of Daffy Duck. Bob's explanation, found on the site, explains it well, I think:

Welcome to a land inhabited by creatures known as Sugar Babies. Sugar Babies are born in a facility in Sugar County known as The Garden. Sugar Babies need sugar to function properly. Sugar Babies are born for the sole purpose of glorifying their creator The Sugar Goddess.

So there you have it. Now go and read it.
There will be a quiz tomorrow.

Moving at the speed of art

2008-10-07T23:38:00.001-07:00

Usually, when I'm in an artistic slump, I have a tiny, angry, nebulous mini-me (The Shapeshifter archetype. Thanks Karl Jung!) that hides in the darkness of my mind, and who beats me the hell out of it. I keep it chained to a far corner because it's pretty negative generally and that sort of thing isn't healthy. But it's helpful. Except lately, outside forces have begun contradicting it.

I noticed it first when I was home a few weeks ago - and also once or twice on facebook. A few of the people who read my sketch blog (This should read "THE FEW people who read my sketch blog." Seriously, if you're reading this, you're probably also one of the people I'm talking about) have commented that I'm rather 'prolific' artistically. Saying things like, "man, how do you do it?" and crap of that nature.

I find these comments baffling.

See, from my perspective, I am very much NOT prolific. In fact, the only thing that keeps me from saying I'm the slowest artist ever is my roommate – who has taken two years to do a pencil drawing of Ludacris saying, "Bless this muthafucka" in a romanesque Jesus pose – and he's yet to get further than a small squiggle on the upper-left corner of the paper, which I think may have been an accident. In any case, I definitely take a close second.

Now...I could take these new observations to heart. Oh, that would be easy! Hell, maybe I AM prolific! An artistic beast even. I mean, look at all this shit I've drawn! I could fill a fuckin cement truck with this! And then pave the god damned south-bound 405 with my god damn art! That would be glorious! I would single-handedly solve the freeway traffic problem, as no car, no citizen of this good state worth a good god damn would dare mark the papered five-lane floors I'd beautified, thus leaving said roads clear for what they were really made for: biblically-sized pick-up games of street hockey.

But then again, I've also been drawing for nineteen years. That sort of amassemnt of paperage is sort of bound to happen. In fact, my parents called about a week ago and informed me that a disturbingly large amount of it was left at home, which is troubling to me because I have a disturbingly large amount of it here with me as well. Which leads me to the conclusion that having a large archive of art was inevitable.

So, if you want my honest opinion, it's this: me claiming I'm a prolific artist simply because this is something I've spent my life doing is a cop-out. I'm better off believing I'm slow, whether I am or not. Compliments to the opposite are of course appreciated, but in the end I believe they can hinder an artist (or anyone in a creative field) rather than help. Better to keep my nebulous mini-me around, and even listen to its angry negative ranting once in a while. Elsewise, how can one ever get better?

This entire post was purely an excuse to use the word "baffling" in a sentence.

Tada.

2008-09-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Don't know if I like the gradient. The line of action is awesome though, isn't it?
Yeah. It is.

God Of Chaos

2008-09-07T12:14:00.001-07:00

"Let's put a smile on that face!"

The Dark Knight's Joker, ready to "explain where he got his scars" to someone.

It's slightly changed from the original, but definitely for the better. Fixing the temperature of his coat did wonders, and I'm really happy with how the reddish shadows on his face turned out. This is definitely more like the picture I was going for.

A raw shark text

2008-09-06T02:15:00.000-07:00

A line from the almost-but-not-quite surrealist novel "The Raw Shark Texts" I found the overall story bought into its own mythology a bit too easily, but the bits and pieces that made it up were brilliant. This is an example of one of them, done more in the spirit of the story than as a literal quote.

This is actually a reference to a particular scene, where the main character finds a letter he didn't know he wrote to himself in the middle of the empty room which he locked himself out of before he lost his memory, which at the time he apparently knew was going to happen. The letter describes, in very close detail, a lake. The letter then proceeds to explain that this lake you're now thinking of is the very same lake the letter-writer was thinking of, and you are now infected with the lake. You can never get rid of it. The lake in your mind, in other words, is the lake in my mind. The whole passage was kinda disturbing. Then the main character was attacked by a shark. In his apartment.

Anyway, I like the line work I did here. I also like his uncut fingernails and the eye bags. But I'm gonna call this a Work in Progress until I decide whether or not I'm really going to color it. Who knows.

And now for something disturbing

2008-09-03T23:30:00.001-07:00

5% of everyone who views this blog has done so after doing a google search for squirrel poison.

He did this all by himself

2008-08-31T14:32:00.001-07:00

Such a jolly Dwarf, eh?
:D

Fan art of a spectacularly written retelling of a game of Dwarf Fortress. So yeah, all of this actually happened, and this guy in particular was somehow responsible for it.

Bus People: Thurs 8/7/08

2008-08-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

I'll throw in a non-bus entry for my next update. Just to switch things up. But till then, here's what did on the eighth.

See the Slob in the Funny Hat I did a full (crappy) portrait of? That guy was character. One out-of-the-box low level con artist right there. He was up and down the bus the whole trip, talking about his collection of supposedly rare coins to anyone who would listen/was hot enough to hit on. It was amazing.

Everyone else is from the ride home. I would have done more, but the lady next to me asked to be drawn on a separate sheet of paper. This is a good one, it's got a nice punchline:

So I obliged, of course. I put in a bit of effort and she was super-happy with it. But I mean like, incredibly happy. Like she won a prize sort of happy. I guess she doesn't encounter people who draw very often. She pretty much left the bus looking like she was going to frame it. If I also had a fan club, she would've signed up. So anyway, after that bit of ruckus, the old dude on the bottom left in the dreds took notice. He said since I got her so excited, could I draw him too, and I pointed at his picture and told him I already have. I handed him my pad and he looked over his image for a second.

Then he gave it back and said, "Well...you got the cane right."

A con artist, a superfan, and a critic, all in one day.
That is why I love drawing on buses.

Bus People: Wednesday, 8/6/2008

2008-08-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

This is being posted way later than I wanted it to be.

Considering how much I've drawn since the last post, this is really uncalled for.
I need some kind of auto-update thing that takes art I've created and automatically posts it in a predictable schedule, like Monday-Wednesday-Friday. That would be nice.

Anyway.

This lump of faces comes from way back on the sixth. I vaguely recall this being a day where I thought I'd actually made sense of the whole LA bus thing. Oh how naive I was back then. You can never make sense of LA buses. Haha. On the bright side, there's Pissed-Off Girl at the bottom, looking way more pissed off than I ever was when riding the bus. Nice bit of schadenfreude there. Other highlights include Bobble-Head dude, Clark Kent, and what looks like a Former President.

The ride home this time happened on a bus with no Air Conditioning and a bus driver who did NOT like other drivers. I've never witnessed someone in LA honk their horn so much in my entire time here. And that's freakin saying something. The riders across from me (laughing woman and Former Prez included) suspected that the AC did in fact work, and the driver was pretending it was broken out of his general hatred of humanity.

And yes, the Girl with her Back To Us was not technically drawn on the bus. I ate at a wing place after I got off the 716, and she and her un-drawn punk friend were lounging one table away. I wish I'd been able to draw her and the other one from the front - between the two of them, I have no doubt Hot Topic will be staying well funded for years to come.

Bus People: Tuesday 8/5/2008

2008-08-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

The fifth was probably the most enjoyable day, bus-wise. As far as dealing with schedules and routes was concerned, it was pretty much ideal. I actually got where I wanted to go, and there was actually a bus to hop onto when I got to the next stop. Amazing!

I'm not even being facetious. Trying to ride LA Metro is like having a retarded child lead you through a series of death traps. Unless this is "Cube," in which case that's exactly what you want.

Anyway, I'm really happy with a ton of these. The Forehead Dude, Pimple Kid who's facing away from me, the Beat with the poofy ponytail, Daria over on the left in profile, the Chinese Diplomat, the Scheming Rasta, the Vegas Lady who Looks Like a Marshmallow... Man, the only thing more fun than sketching them is getting to arbitrarily label them after the fact! :D

Then there's Cell Phone Woman. She actually noticed me drawing other people and specifically requested that I draw her. So I obliged, even though she did not – even for a second – stop talking on her phone. When I finished, she liked it...for a second, then she got all mad cuz I drew her with her mouth open. I love it. Then the blonde with the sharp jaw in the center got all defensive for me, which was amusing. For a second I thought there might be a fight, but the bus stopped and Cell Phone had to leave. People can be so hilariously sensitive about their image sometimes, I swear.

Bus People: Monday 8/4/2008

2008-08-14T19:51:00.000-07:00

So this was last Monday. Lots of sleepers that day. You can count three on the top part of the page alone. That's supposed to be a chick that the guy on the top right is resting his head on, by the way. They got off too quickly for me to add enough detail to differentiate. Oh, and this was the day I learned where NOT to sit when drawing on a bus: The exact center. It's bump-central. See that hideous-yet-faint
scratch of a woman in the top center, next to the old lady? That was the only sketch I was able to pull off that morning, because I was on the worst road ever, on the worst bus ever, in the worst location ever. Luckily I made up for it on the ride home. Mr. Sleeps-Sitting-Up over at the bottom was awesome. The lady off to the left had the most fascinatingly oversized earings I've ever seen on a middle-aged woman, and there was a guy with an actual, honest-to-god bulbous Boufant. If he grew those sideburns out a bit longer, he'd totally fit in at an Elvis Impersonators Convention. I like how the three girls in profile turned out, as well as baseball cap guy. The aging cheeky asian dude ended up okay too, but I think it's Long-Nosed-Rick in the sunglasses who ended having the most personality here. Superman down at the bottom is kind of a near-miss though.

I made up for it by spending about ten minutes doing a sketch study of the woman's hair sitting in front of me. She very conveniently sat perfectly still. The toughest one to do was lost-in-thought girl staring here at Mr. Bulbous Bufant. She kept glancing up, which made things uncomfortable, since we were about twelve seats apart. I need to invest in some sunglasses.

Some art done by some mouse I once heard about

2008-08-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

Disney's animation site just released a couple super-pretty images of its upcoming 2D animated feature:
The Princess and The Frog

From the images, I'm able to extrapolate that this film will have every Disney staple: A complex parade scene, a way-too-overly-detailed city street, at least two musical numbers (which assumes at least one more, for the villain), a love scene set near a shallow body of water, and at least one really tall hallway that's lit thematically.

All they're missing is to release a picture of the scene where the film goes abstract and impressionist for a couple minutes, and I'll be set!

Heh, thank God for Lasseter, or this wouldn't even exist.

Bus People: Friday 8/1/2008

2008-08-09T20:41:00.000-07:00

So anyway, yesterday on the bus, a crazy homeless guy tried to rip out the first page of this sketchbook, presumably because he thought it was a code that showed how the government was connected to the secret alien pod invasion. I think. His tone was conversant, but there weren't any actual words involved so I'll never be sure. He did a lot of gesturing, but the only thing RIT's deaf community ever taught me is that I really suck at deciphering that sort of thing. Whatever the case, his excited 'non Human Language of any discernable kind' ranting nearly cost me my precious sketch book. Because of this, I've decided that it might be prudent to create a digital backup of these sketches, just in case.

So here's what I drew on the bus on August 1st. From what I recall, there were a lot of people on edge that day. By this point, the minor earthquake was already two days past. You'd think everyone'd be over it by now. Whatever.

Technically, only the baby should be smiling in this, except while I was in the middle of drawing that girl near the bottom left, she noticed what I was doing and smiled for her portrait. It's hard to convey a forced smile in a thumbnail, so just squint and pretend. I love how the buff Mexican dude caome out, mister Cool Shades, and Old Hat Guy. Pensive Necklace Girl's alright too, along with Bearded Mid-Life Bohemian. I was on a role the first day.

Also, that word bubble isn't random embellishment; the baby actually did finish his cooing by saying "Yep!" And yes, it was hilarious.

Cowa-fucking-bungaa!!

2008-08-04T22:52:00.001-07:00

Since I'll never get a chance to have a book signed by Douglas Adams, I managed to go and get the next best thing:

I got Kevin Eastman to draw me a picture.

This is Donatello, as drawn by one of the guys who created Donatello. (granted, after a marathon session of drawing turtles for other people, but still) I have the hard copy sitting right here in front of me.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is what Awesome is.

Excuse me while I go eat an entire pizza, kill a shitload of ninjas, and build some robots.

Things that make sense are for losers

2008-08-03T22:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, that is Jarjar Binks, the abortion of a character from Star Wars. Yes, he is blue. Yes, that is a full-grown Leia clinging to him, yes those are words of sweet, sweet affection she is speaking, and yes, there is a lazer beam shooting out of his mouth.

Your point?

ps: Ah made that background nebula allllll by mah-self. :)

God of Chaos WIP

2008-07-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

The slightly better version can be found here:
http://econniff.blogspot.com/2008/09/god-of-chaos-mk2.html

"You look nervous. Its the scars, isn't it. . . . Wanna know how I got 'em?"
:D

done quickly in the style of Dave McKean

T-U-R-T-L-E Power

2008-07-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Dude, you can read EVERY ISSUE of the original TMNT online now.
http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/comic.htm

The world has just gotten a little more awesome.

Blue Smoke

2008-07-12T01:46:00.000-07:00

I watched "Ikiru" tonight. Akira Kurusawa flick about a guy with a meaningless life who finds out he has cancer. Pretty interesting in general, but one image that really grabbed me was a scene in the middle, where he's living it up at some club, and all you can see is near-blackness framing the reverse sillohette of a dancer, who has this shadow emanating from her core, defining her figure - much like the image I drew of it (but in black and white). It was just striking. She looked as though she were a billow of smoke.

My only annoyance (slight) with this is that it turns out I have no clue what dancers actually do with their hands when they have their arms up like that. I always sort of took it for granted. Figures.

Done spontaneously in about an hour.

First 5

2008-07-11T11:30:00.000-07:00

I found this gem thanks to an enterprising forum-goer on joblo. It's not quite as crystal clear as the HD quicktime it's been uploaded from, but still glorious none-the-less. If you do not want to know what happens in the first five minutes of The Dark Knight, I suggest not watching this.

The first five seconds are silent.

Character 2

2008-07-04T03:35:00.000-07:00

My hypothetical comic can't have just one character of course.
She will be some sort of law enforcement officer. Sort of. Vaguely.

I can't decide if I love or hate her side-curly cues. It's very "50's housewife"ish, which is either grossly out of character or deliciously ironic.

. . . I don't actually think irony is delicious.

Power through perspective

2008-06-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

work in progress.
I've seen this shot used about a half a billion times in anime. It's almost as though no spiky-haired hero can step into the frame the first time without the camera suddenly bowing down in reverence of their awesomeness. That said, I don't think it should be relegated to Japanese animation. I'd like to see Bugs shot this way, actually.

Exercise in perspective, wardrobe, painting.
I kinda like the stripes.
Hair is unfinished. And I'm not sure if I wanna keep the contour lines, actually.

Mark Two

2008-06-29T04:44:00.000-07:00

He's getting closer to what I want...

Clearly an early rough of this design. I like the idea of the hair being ridiculously bright red, but I think I'm gonna have to tone the hair-volume way down. Right now he's uncomfortably close in apearance to Ronald McDonald.

I think the physique is good though. Perhaps a tad thinner. I like how the sleeves almost cover his hands. It gives him a childlike-come-untrustworthy feel that speaks accurately of his character.

The beard and the shoes are really the big questions here. That will be addressed in MK-3. Otherwise, I think I'm happy with the overall look.