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Two Draw Somethings for this week…

 
I haven’t been able to stop humming the Misty Mountain Song since December…

@_@

Here’s a quick sketch of the ogre Shrek that I did on my iPad. Just messing around with an approach that relies less on linework and more on shapes:

 
(Yes, I’m behind by 1 post.. let’s see if I can fix that soon!)

Check it out–I drew the cover for the Long Beach Comic-Con exclusive edition of Bravest Warriors #1 (published by the fine folks at BOOM! Studios):

 
The Long Beach Comic-Con is this weekend (November 3-4), so if you live in Southern California, please swing by and get your copy of Bravest Warriors!

I will be at the BOOM! Studios booth on Saturday November 3rd, 2:00-3:00pm, signing and sketching. Come by and say hello! If you don’t, I will die of loneliness, and the guilt will haunt you for decades.

Do you follow me on Twitter? Occasionally hi-jinx happen there. For example, last week I tweeted:

Guys… am I EVER going to get my cutie mark?

And longtime friend of the blog @ChaosMonkey replied:

Your cutie mark is the furry underpants from Masters of the Universe. Now you must draw yourself as a pony. Congratulations.

And so, here we are:

 
It was fun to try and capture the essence and color palette of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Visually, the show is really beautifully crafted, so hopefully I did it justice.

You will note that the inherent telekinetic abilities of a unicorn grant my pony avatar the means to draw nerdy-ass fan-art, in spite of having no opposable thumbs. I assure you there was no other motive in drawing my avatar as a fantastic, graceful, and majestic unicorn. None at all. Ahem. I used longer and leaner proportions to indicate age–I think it’s safe to assume that my pony avatar would be significantly older than the main characters of the show. And the slightly longer ears hint at some possibly asinine ancestry.

I MEAN… sure, in the past I have put the show on in the background while I draw. And yeah, my favorite characters are Rarity, Spike, and Princess Luna AKA Nightmare Moon,. But it’s not like I sit around and ship the characters, or draw the ponies as humans.*

So does that make me a “brony“? Pfft, I dunno, whatever. Like I even care.

(*Note to self: start drawing the ponies as humans)

(EDIT: Oops… I almost forgot to include my rambling tally of productivity–this sketch brings me down to 2 missed posts. Almost there!)

Hey, look at me, posting sketches on my sketch blog! Whaddaya know!

Many moons ago, I posted a sketch of Jessica Rabbit. In a very delayed fashion, I am now following that up with a series of drawings featuring other cartoon bombshells. Here’s the original vintage cartoon pin-up girl, Betty Boop:

 
Betty Boop is usually depicted in a red dress, but I decided to give her a black dress and pale skin that would be reminiscent of her original black and white appearances. The colors on this piece are not as strong as the other pieces in this series, but I’m happy with how the drawing turned out. I think I did a decent job of translating Betty Boop’s features and proportions into my style.

Next up is Jessica Rabbit’s cinematic contemporary, Holli Would (from the movie Cool World):

 
I’m pretty happy with this one. The pose has some energy, and the colors worked out.

I’ve got a few more characters in mind for this series, but if I’m gonna be totally honest here, I don’t know when I’ll get around to them. I guess you’ll just have to stick around and keep reading this blo–no wait, don’t go…

Man. :(

(Let’s consider these pieces my two updates for this week. I’ll be posting more art this week, and those will go towards making up my missed posts. Keeping pace and treading water at 8 missed posts… )

By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard that Maurice Sendak passed away a few weeks ago. Here’s a little something in honor of him, and his best known work, Where The Wild Things Are:

 
As a kid, I was (and I still am) very picky about kid’s books. I thought most of them were “dumb” and “boring” and I wasn’t easily impressed by the illustrations. However, Where The Wild Things Are, was an easy sell.

I should take this opportunity to mention some of my other favorite works from Sendak… He designed the sets and costumes for the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, which I became familiar with as Nutcracker: The Motion Picture. Watching this on TV every year on channel 13 (KCOP) became a Christmas tradition when I was a kid, and I didn’t even know until a few years ago that Sendak was responsible for the production’s look! The movie is available for digital purchase on Amazon or iTunes. The production also spawned a gorgeous edition of The Nutcracker book, with illustrations by Sendak. The book is apparently out of print, but it looks like used copies are readily available on Amazon.

If you haven’t already done so since his passing, go draw some monsters and wild things in honor of Maurice Sendak! Have a great weekend, folks!

That title is an SNL Church Lady reference by the way, I’m not just invoking the name of Satan for no reason.

However, here is a leftover commission of Vertigo Comics’ Lucifer:

 
I’m running pretty low on these leftovers. Regular service may resume soon-ish! Dare to dream!

• Sandman, AKA Morpheus, AKA Dream

Blog post will be up late tonight/early tomorrow–apologies for my tardiness!

 
FRANK CASTLE, AKA The Punisher!!! Get it?

 
Another leftover commission today:

• Smurfette

La la LA LA LA LA…

Big surprise, I’m late! My apologies, dear reader. A post will be up sometime during the weekend, hopefully sooner rather than later!

… you see, because he’s got an arrow tattooed on his head. COMEDY FUN JOKES!

It’s Aang, AKA the Avatar, AKA the Last Airbender:

Return on Friday for more art and hilarity, won’t you?

… I’ve finally returned to my task of fixing dead image links in blog entries from 2009 and older. I went back as far as April 2008, so anything older is still full of dead image links. I’ll try and fix the rest ASAP! Please bear with me.

Your BFF,

-Jason

Let’s face it, I talk about He-Man a lot on this blog. But for those who don’t know, there would be no He-Man without Conan the Barbarian. And the visual language of Conan, and indeed of all Sword & Sorcery fiction, was defined by one man, Frank Frazetta.

To commemorate the passing of the once and future master, here is my humble rendition of Conan the Barbarian:

Additional inspiration provided by my pal Derek Fridolfs and his superb take on the barbarian.

Josh needed some last-minute help for a project, so he came to me. I told him I would not help him, but little did I realize it was opposite day. Bound by the ancient playground covenant, I did indeed end up helping him. The title of the project is “The Life and Death of My First and Last Pack of Cigs,” cover art provided by yours truly:

I closely followed the layout and composition Josh provided for me, which basically made my job easy. The background color was his choice too, and that really set the tone for the colors–again, making my job easy. The perfect crime!

Wrapping up this series, here’s Doctor Zaius:

Of course the good Doctor is one of the most recognizable characters from the Planet of the Apes franchise, but I suspect more people know him from this:

General Ursus:

He’s from the second movie–Beneath the Planet of the Apes, which is easily the most boring of the series. However, I wanted to represent each species of ape, and Ursus happens to be one of the gorillas with a more interesting uniform, so here he is.

Cornelius, Zira, and baby Caesar, from the Planet of the Apes:

I wish I had a chunk of time to expound upon my deep fondess for the Planet of the Apes movies, but I don’t. Consider yourselves lucky!