THE HORROR

(the ignominous end)

SO IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY, EH?

to: katie

OVERLOAD

BEE THOUGHTS

No wonder people once thought it was cool to dress up in bee costumes!
I've had this little gent sitting and posing like this for the last some odd months waiting for me to capture him in profile in an air of expectant ennui. See how his hair tuft resembles the pelt of a large animal or, alternately, a styling in the fashion of Bob "Captain Kangaroo" Keeshan? Cool!
Here's the opposite view. (I call this one "thrilled despondency".) Look at his little goggles, combined with the Captain Kangaroo haircut and the zesty stripe pattern on his back, and you can see why man for so long has longed to imitate this industrious (yet party-loving) diminutive creature.

An extra fact I learned while doing this thumbnail sketch:
The humble bombus ruderatus, once thought to be a modest insect with well-defined social values has instead er.. well-defined hiney cheeks which it never misses an opportunity to expose, hence the tight leather/spandex pants on the bee costumes you see here. The pictures don't lie, folks!

VAMP THE VAMP CONTEST WINNERS -- 1ST WAVE

What's the matter kids? Giveadamn busted? Anyway, I don't care, because we have a winner!! That's right folks, I said a winner. The title was a little misleading, one winner. Not winners. Not really a wave. Pretty much one entry.
One.
Entry.
...
But I expect a LOT more! Things have just been slow over the holiday, wait 'n' see. I surmise visitors will start trickling back once they find out that the scariest visage since Torquemada no longer greets them upon loading this page.
Anyhow, without further ado, the WINNING ENTRY, courtesy of the ever loyal craig d ---

Way to go, Craig! Not just one but FOUR funny, high concept entries for tasty treats of (respectively) vegetable, mineral and animal that would once again give kids the urge to run to the kitchen cabinets every morning, instead of screaming in the other direction. Thanks for entering!
Although...
That one on the bottom left bears suspicious resemblance to a vintage Sugar Smacks box.

This is highly illogical.

NEXT: Return of the Model Sheets!

1ST ANNUAL COUNT CHOCULA REVAMP CONTEST!!!

When I was a young guy I had a nightmare about the big three. I'm talking about the General Mills family of monster-themed cereal legends: Boo Berry, Frankenberry and, of course, Count Chocula ( I don't think Fruit Brute factored in there although it's possible). Did I wet the bed? No one alive can say I did, but then again I'm not saying I didn't. Flash forward to August,2006. Having long conquered my fear of kid-friendly creature features who shilled for carb-rich breakfast fare from their electric pulpit every Saturday morning, you can imagine my chagrin when I turned the corner in the grocery aisle and came face to uh.. --- (butt(?) --- with the leering blasphemy seen above.
WHAT IN GOOD GOD'S NAME HAPPENED TO COUNT CHOCULA?????
*That* is *not* the count. That is not even son of Count Chocula, -- unless Count Chocula raped Jason Priestly and fused the inbred fetus of their their bastard child with Bucky Buck Tooth. The poor lad is even so ashamed as to be covering up the lower portion of his deformed face in the picture below. General Mills, if you are reading this, I demand an explanation.
Actually this here poster would be kind of cool if it weren't for what is, at best, the sad reminder of a badly wasted art school education, assing it up right in the middle of everything.
I mean, look at all it has going for it -- cool castle, scary letters, funny instructions, even a sentiment the (non)Count and I apparently share. It's all rock and roll. And then your eye settles on what it has been avoiding while perusing all these other contents, praying to whatever deity you believe in that it isn't so, that it's just a mistake.

Someone is going to pay. Someone, somewhere brought this sport of nature into being and someone gave it a hearty stamp of approval. I never thought I'd say this, but I want the old Count Chocula back. Please. Wherever you've taken him, please just let me hear his voice, see his face. Let me know he's alright. My life is suffering. I can no longer enjoy the contents of what was once one of my favorite boxes of cereal. On the rare night that I do get some blessed sleep I invariably wind up wetting the bed. Something's got to give. Here's what I propose: Will anyone who reads this please send me your redesign of the Count Chocula character. All entries will be posted here and someone might even win something. Just please, for the love of Aisha, get these images out of my head.
I'll sit back and wait for the entries to pour in.
GO!!!!!

DEEVOLUTION, PT DEUX

So, yesterday I talked a little bit about deevolution. What is it? Why does it exist? Are you born with it or do you need to work at it, etc. Here's another example. Exhibit A above. This is a caricature of a star who over the course of a weekend managed to get himself into one fine pickle after another. But none of that matters. This is a fine drawing. It set itself down on the paper like chocolate syrup sets itself on a sundae. Great. Let's move on.

Okay. Still doin good. A few more erase marks on this one but still a fine drawing even if as a caricature it sucks.

Exhibit C. Actually I think this might be Exhibit F or something. What happened?? Well, what happened is, I just started scribbling off one pedestrian piece of crap after another. But WHY?

At long last I broke down and simply tried to do a straightforward , very-careful-attention-paid-to-the-placement-of-all-yer-lines drawing, and got this:

Ok, but if you look at the original picture and then at this one, you could be forgiven for assuming that one of the lesser mammals broke out of a research facility somewhere, went on on all-night bender, stole a kids crayon and scratched a crude self portrait into the wall of a ladies bathroom before, or no, after being shot with a tranquilizer but before being apprehended.
Deevolution, ladies and gentlemen.

DEEVOLUTION

The next couple of posts are going to be about the mysterious process of deevolution. What is deevolution? In layman's terms, it's when you sit down with your pencil and paper, ready to conquer the world and wind up making a decent go, as above. Nothing to write home about, but hey, it's just a first try, a warm-up. Now for the real deal.
Uh-oh. What's this? Your chops seem to have gotten -- not better -- but worse!

Concentrate, fool! You're a grown man! Your own mother would be ashamed to hang that on her refrigerator. Now stop fooling around and get to it. Remember that promise you made to your eight-year-old self. Remember the years you spent breathing all over a sketchpad instead of meeting girls. Go!

Ah well... not with a bang, but a whimper. Whenever this happens I like to put my hand to something I feel I'm good at. Thumbnail sketches like these that actually convey movement and emotion and don't take up an entire evening that could have been better spent.

TOMORROW: Deevolution, pt deux

MORE O TH SAME

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SKETCH v*^^!+

Just got back from the beach. I was hoping to go away from the blog for a while, get some really sweet skills to flash around and return in a blaze of glory. Blaze of adequacy is more like it.

(CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE)

So, here are some of the sketches I did on my travels. Most of them are from life, a few are from imagination.

Some experiments with design up there. I learned a lot about bone and muscle structure -- mainly in the back --as I spent all day staring down the beach at them. The rest of the anatomy I'm still sketchy on.
Below are my doodles from last year, which I find discomfitingly superior to this year's batch.The ones all the way down below are my favorites. Oh yeah, I'm changing my mission statement. I think John's more or less wrapped it up with the lessons, so from now on this blog will be the premiere place to come get a load of my struggles with eye-hand coordination and, who knows? maybe learn a thing or two about life, girls, and how to tie a sheepshank.

SUNDAY NIGHT FLU

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER

YOU HANDS, SOME DEVIL YOU!

Hey, look at what it's taken me all week to do. After several long dark nights of the soul in which visions of hands danced before me, bird-finger extended while I scribbled and scratched and traced and pondered and prayed and scritched and scrabbled and scratched some more (what? I had an itch!) -- this is all I have to offer. And it didn't come quickly, or cheap. No! Each one of these bastards took me roughly the time it would take to shave a wookie. My fiancee said they look "solid" -- I hope the cartoon deities that be think so too. Well, time's up! See you in a few hands-- er, hours...

BLIGGITYBLOG

I AM STILL FAR FROM BEING WHAT I WANT TO BE, BUT WITH GOD'S HELP I SHALL SUCCEED

BLUE THURSDAY

For all of my comrades in arms I've decided to provide a special treat today to keep up our morale and to provide succor for the eyes, as well as for the soul. If you are easily offended or traumatized by depictions of cartoon FOXINESS please turn your monitor and / or computer off, and / or surf over to a less tempting site.If on the other hand you are lustfully attracted to raw, unadulterated female cartoon beauty in its altogether state then scroll down for...

GRAPHIC CARTOON NOODITY!!!!!

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keep goin'...

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aaaalmoost theeere...

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HERE IT IS!

Now if that isn't the steamiest thing you've seen since breakfast, then I don't know how you can call yourself a man. I based this drawing on a funny short poem that can be found here. Read the Preface first and then push CTRL+F and type in "wilma", (or scroll down about 7 poems). Enjoy!

(original draft)

DISCLAIMER: I have no affiliation with the author of these poems. They simply struck me funny.