What has four legs, spits up hairballs, and causes me to put up last minute blog posts?
Sketched with various markers, generously touched up in Photoshop.
Meow and Later
Author: J.Ho
MMO Tuesdays (Part 3 of 4)
As promised, here’s an MMO villain–Doctor Destroyer from Champions Online:
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I have no idea why the good Doctor’s character design so closely resembles that of Doctor Fate. You’ll have to take that up with the creators of Champions. I also have no idea why my drawing turned out so meh and stiff. That is strictly my fault. I think the colors turned out decently though. Gold is shiny.
._.
OH HEY–don’t forget to go to your local comic book store tomorrow and pick up the new JLA 80-page giant, which includes stories written by my pals Josh and Derek! Click on the pic below for details… DO EET!
Sketchy Looking Individual
Here’s a self portrait, in which I look agitated and pale (as I often do):
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Sketched in ballpoint pen and colored in Photoshop.
For those keeping track at home, I do have a sleeveless black hoodie in RL, but I do not have a t-shirt featuring my favorite saying (unfortunately). My apologies for this interjection by my raging ego. Regular sketch-blog service will resume next time.
MMO Tuesdays (Part 2 of 4)
Of course I would not have paid tribute to Champions Online without also acknowledging its predecessor, City of Heroes.
Here’s Statesman, flagship hero of Paragon City:
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How about some MMO villains next? Tune in next Tuesday.
Sketchy Sidekick
Carrie Kelly, of Dark Knight Returns:
Pen sketch + color pencil + minor touch-up in Photoshop. Hmm… sometimes I draw something (like this) and immediately have zero enthusiasm for my own work. Oh well, recognizing mistakes and moving on…
MMO Tuesdays (Part 1 of 4)
“MMO Mondays” would have been a much catchier title, but oh well.
Here’s Defender, from the recently launched Champions Online MMO (based on the Champions pencil & paper RPG):
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Erm… there are some problems with this drawing, but I enjoyed coloring the glowy parts at least. Tune in next Tuesday for more MMO heroics!
Cosmic Bookworm
Today’s post is for a re-design challenge at the He-Man.org fan-art forums. The thread is here, my post is here. The voting thread is here–I placed second. The subject is Scrollos, an obscure character from the UK Masters of the Universe comics:
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The reference pictures of Scrollos all had slightly different color schemes, but almost all of them included some element of blue/cyan or purple/magenta. However, the picture that struck me the most had an all-green color scheme. At first I tried to combine the various color schemes, but that was too complex a task for my humble coloring skills. I settled on the green scheme, which I’m content with.
On the whole, everything in the picture is supposed to give a sense of a character who is powerful, but aloof and preoccupied with knowledge and information. The floating scrolls and holographic displays are there to emphasize the contrast between science fiction and fantasy that makes me so fond of the He-Man Universe. Inserting some of my previous art into the holographic displays took me a surprisingly long time. Hopefully the details are visible enough to warrant the time spent.
Luckily it isn’t the toilet…
Formal Attire
A quick note–big thanks to the blog Superpunch for posting a link to my Captain America/Mickey Mouse mash-up, along with a lot of other cool Disney/Marvel mash-ups from all over the web. My page views spiked like crazy thanks to the mention!
And now, for no particular reason, a girl in a tuxedo t-shirt:
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What? Seriously?
To The Powers That Be,
To the best of my ability, I have determined that Disney’s Purchase of Marvel Comics is neither a hoax, nor a fever dream, but indeed a reality, true believer. To that end, I demand that you produce the Disney/Invaders ongoing series that fans have been clamoring for since the 40’s. Also, I demand that you negotiate with Warner Brothers/DC Comics, so that we may also see the long awaited Disney/Invaders versus Looney Tunes/All-Star Squadron crossover.
I would be happy to write and draw these books for a nominal fee. Enclosed is a piece of sample art, proving my nerdish devotion to pointless, but awesome, crossovers.
Regards,
J.Ho
The pose is loosely based the standard Mickey Mouse images turned up by my internet research. This whole thing took me about three hours, which is fast for me. Yes, I’m painfully slooow.
What a strange world we live in.
I was drawing, and this happened:
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I don’t really have an explanation for it. That is all.
Anyone remember these guys?
Here’s one for Southern California locals…
Back when I was a kid (we’re talking the eighties here, bear with an old-timer), there used to be a chain of hardware stores called National Lumber. Contrary to their name, I believe they were in fact, not national, but a local phenomenon. They were most recognizable for their two cartoon mascots, Shorty (a man in overalls and a painter’s cap) and Cheap Chicken (obligatory wise-ass animal sidekick). National Lumber’s catalogs and mailers were peppered with comic strips and gags featuring Shorty and Cheap. It wasn’t amazing material, corny with crudely executed art–but it was pretty funny stuff for hardware flyers! And as a kid with a modest allowance, who had to scrape together 75 cents to buy a “real” comic book, those catalogs were a good diversion while I was trying to gradually accumulate three quarters. National Lumber even had a series of commercials, featuring Shorty and Cheap in animation, and their catchy jingle:
It’s the good stuff, at the right price,
Na-tio-nal Lum-ber!
Whenever my parents needed something from the hardware store, I would ask them if they were going to National Lumber. The answer invariably was no, due to their prices and/or geographical distance. Well sadly, National Lumber went out of business, sometime in the mid-to-late eighties. I probably hadn’t thought of Shorty and Cheap Chicken in over a decade, but someone at work brought them up, and we looked up the commercials on YouTube.
After being reminded of these obscure characters, I naturally felt the need to draw my take on them:
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This was a lot of fun, and actually quite a challenge. In situations like this, I typically don’t like to do draw the characters in their native style, because if you want to see that, you can go right to the source. But at the same time, you don’t want them to be unrecognizable. Hopefully this piece walks the line. I’m pretty happy with how the wood grain turned out, but I’m not so sure about the background color.
That jingle is gonna be in my head all day!
For more on National Lumber…
- See some photos on Flickr, here.
- And watch some commercials on YouTube:
- Plenty more commercials here.
Requiescat In Pace
Today’s piece is for Matthew Schultz AKA “skeletoncrew,” one of the founding members of COTU, a group that specializes in customized He-Man figures. I didn’t find out until a few weeks ago, but he passed away in June.
Matthew was one of the most creative and prolific customizers on the He-Man.org forums. I can’t claim to have been very close to him, but I always had a great time comparing notes with him, and talking to him about how he approached his take on the Masters of the Universe mythos. More importantly, he was always gracious, generous, and encouraging of everyone’s creative endeavors–a true gentleman and artist. His presence will truly be missed.
Today’s piece is a tribute to him, featuring one of the many characters that he created. Matthew’s close friend and partner-in-crime at COTU, “galaxy warrior,” helped me pick out the character:
Make sure you visit the COTU blog, to see some of the custom figures that Matthew helped create. And do something creative today!
(also posted here at the He-Ma.org forums)
Roger’s Better Half
Mashi is hosting a Jessica Rabbit jam on Deviant Art. Check out the everyone’s pieces in her journal entry. Here’s mine:
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Hmmm… I’m not sure if this piece is a success or not. On the one hand, Jessica Rabbit is not (and should not be) subtle. But on the other hand, my drawing goes a little too far in the opposite direction and is sort of… trashy? There are other problems with the drawing in general, but I am pleased with the face/hair, and the solution I came up with for rendering sequins. Live and learn.
Should I draw Holli Would next?
The Most Dangerous Game
The most recent re-design challenge at the He-Man.org fan-art forums featured Huntara, a fan-favorite one-shot character from She-Ra (based on Grace Jones, incidentally). My take on Huntara was pretty direct (hardly qualifying as a re-design, in my mind), and I was short on time anyways, so I skipped the contest. You should, however, check out the entries here, and the voting threads, here, here, and here.
Here’s my non-entry, (also posted here):
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The overall result is somewhat Warcrafty and Night Elf-ish, but I don’t mind. I think it’s in large part because I added pointy ears to her, and made her armor look a bit more baroque (and therefore Warcraft-esque).
[RACOON PUN HERE]
I’ve mentioned Nathan‘s Boris the Raccoon previously. Starting this Saturday (August 15th), some Boris customs will be on display (and for sale!) at the Black Maria Gallery. The show runs through September 5th, but if you aren’t local, don’t forget that you can still purchase a normal Boris from the U1 Toy Arts website.
Not sure if you should buy Boris? Well, he looks great standing on your window sill while you’re away:
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And he looks great hanging out with ol’ Bone-Brain, whilst planning some kind of mischief and/or mayhem:
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I know what you’re all asking yourselves…
“Hey Jason, what would it look like if you drew Boris looking somewhat aggro with an arbitrarily-added orange light source?”
Here is your answer:
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I had a lot of fun with this–it’s always interesting to do a take on a very stylized character and see if you can walk the line between keeping recognizability and adding your own style. And the basic color scheme on Boris made it easier to play around with adding the random extra light source. Now go buy yourself a Boris!
Marginal Improvement
At least a little bit of preliminary sketching goes into the pieces I put up here, and in the course of that preliminary work, there’s a lot of miscellaneous doodling that goes in the margins. Occasionally, one of those doodles is worth cleaning up and coloring. Here’s a more cartoony streamlined take on one of He-Man’s foes, Trap Jaw:
I drew Trap Jaw previously, so the colors on today’s piece are pretty much cribbed from that, with a few adjustments for better contrast. The changes are subtle, but I can see where I’ve improved, even if only marginally…
Pun linked to title and first paragraph… accomplished! Time to go play video games.
Serpentine!
Back to He-Man stuff for today’s post… the subject is the Viper Tower, one of the Three Towers of the Eternia Playset. This is a follow up to a post from earlier this year.
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I do have some fanbricated (fan + fabricated) background info for the Three Towers, but I’ll save it for when I finish the third one. Also I want to sleep right now.
Also posted on the He-Man.org fan-art forums. My post is here, the entire thread (including some of my previous sketches) is here.
Cardboard and Co-Workers
A little something different for today…
If you work in an office anything like mine, there are two realities that you will understand. Co-workers and impromptu crafts.
Any office will experience occasional lulls, and it’s during these times that you look at whatever materials are lying around the office and find a way to craft them into artifacts of boredom reduction. In the case of my office, we often receive and send things, which means boxes, which means cardboard. Sometimes I simply put a cardboard tube on my arm and pretend I’m a cyborg, but other times I draw Skeletor’s torso on a cardboard poncho, and pretend I am the Lord of Destruction. There have been paper moustaches, dioramas of Peeps murdering each other, styrofoam capes and boas, dog snouts made of paper cups, and more. For years, two cardboard box lids with happy faces hung on the wall in front of my desk. I only recently took them down because I want to preserve them somehow (perhaps by having them mounted on wood blocks).
Accompanying you on these lulls and cardboard larks, are your co-workers–the people who are in the trenches with you everyday, the people who you see more than almost anyone else, and the people who understand your countless in-jokes. In my case, these are the people who understand that when I walk up to their desk, and they ask me how I am doing, I will punch myself in the stomach, make a fake barf noise, and they will reply, “I hear ya.”
Yesterday was the last day of a co-worker and good friend of mine, who’s moving on to bigger and better. Erroneously, she had decided that she was sad about leaving–so I realized quickly that I am by far the awesomest thing in the office, and manufactured this cardboard android as a substitute co-worker to accompany her in her new endeavors:
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I had always intended to make an occasional foray into three-dimensional art on this blog, but here I am finally doing it. This crude standee stands about a foot tall, was sketched on a dismantled Fed-Ex box, detailed with magic markers, cut with ordinary old scissors, and assembled with packing tape and a single conspicuous brass brad.
This is what Comic-Con does to you…
I guess if I’m trying to use the back end of a spoon as a straw, it must mean I’m pretty tired?
Time to sleep!