Draw… SOMETHING (X-mas edition)

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Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! This is my final Draw Something post… unless I start playing again.

But don’t bail on me just yet! I’ll be posting plenty of ROBUST drawings over the next two-plus weeks. Expect a ‘real’ Christmas post early next week, more UNICORNS (like these), plus other assorted nerdery, as you might expect from me.

Draw… SOMETHING (my favorite edition)

Of the many Draw Somethings I produced, this is my favorite.

 
BY THE WAY, for those who care, I am well aware that these Draw Something frivolities are, at best, ‘lite’ content. More robust posts are on the way! And by “on the way” I mean, like, actually finished and scanned! Stay tuned!

Oh, grrr…

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!)

Bravest Warriors + Pizza + Convention Exclusive =

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):

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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.

My Diminuitive Equus

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:

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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!)

T & A stands for toons and art… right?

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:

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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):

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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… )

Wild Thing

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:

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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!

It’s a blast…

If you’ve never heard of Glyos by Onell Design, I’ll tell you everything you need to know: it’s a line of bad-ass designer toys with interchangeable parts, and you can build anything that your parts library and imagination can cook up, and you should go buy a bunch. I’ve been meaning to draw one of the characters from this franchise for a while, so at last, here’s a little something–Scar Pheyden of the Glyos System:

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I colored this piece a bit differently than I usually do. Rather than taking a lot of time to make super-clean selections with a lot of meticulously separated layers, I did this quick and dirty, and just cleaned things up as I went. I think it saved me a bit of time, but I’m not sure how much.

Also: I talk a lot about trying to drawing more dynamic pieces, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep producing pieces like this, which are more reminiscent of random comic book panels rather than super-static character stances.