J.Ho Originals

Happy New Year = More Unicorns + Gore

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

If you’ll recall, I posted a couple of unicorns + gore a few months ago. Well, I’ve been steadily drawing more since then, so here are 8 more to ring in the New Year. Click for larger views of each piece:




These were drawn in marker at various sizes, just based on whatever random cardboard scraps were lying around (the smallest is 3×3″ and the largest is 12×12″). The unicorn in the second row, on the left, is an exception–it was drawn on normal paper and colored digitally.

I hate to let a good piece of cardboard go to waste. That aside, I don’t really know what’s motivated me to draw these… but I have more cardboard, and I can feel more unicorns looming. Appropriate for the impending Year of the Horse, perhaps?

Nekomimi Kunoichi

~ J.Ho

Here I present a gothy, zaftig, nekomimi kunoichi, dressed in what I would describe as Miami Vice Decepticon colors, and armed with a guan dao (not quite a naginata), shuriken, and bombs:

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Now, if you aren’t down with a gothy, zaftig, nekomimi kunoichi, dressed in Miami Vice Decepticon colors, and armed with a guan dao (not quite a naginata), shuriken, and bombs… well I don’t even know what you’re doing here.

Side note: I apologize for the huge URL, it’s actually there to balance out the composition, because I wouldn’t, you know, think about composition before hand. WHO DOES THAT???

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s high time I started a band called Miami Vice Decepticon.

*air guitar riff*

Draw… SOMETHING (01)

~ J.Ho

Maintaining this blog is a constant struggle between my desire for productivity, and my desire for quality–and sometimes I get paralyzed between these two desires and end up doing nothing! Finally, I have to arrive at the conclusion that something, anything, would be better than nothing, so here we are. With the 10 drawings in this post, I’ll be caught up, and ready to ring in the (Chinese) New Year with a clean slate.

I’ve been keeping a reserve of my quick scribbles from the game Draw Something, hoping to use them as a series of extra posts. Clearly the fantasy of having the time to make extra posts is not in the cards for me, so I will be using these Draw Something scribbles as needed. (Plenty more where these came from!)

Oh, and just FYI–almost all of my Draw Somethings are from mid 2012 and earlier, so it’s not as if I’ve been playing iPad games instead of drawing blog posts! Honest!

To start, here’s a random selection. To be honest, I’m pretty proud of the “bacon” drawing.

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For a little while, it started to feel as if my drawings were taking on a consistent tone and a recurring character:

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You know what… it feels really good to post a blog, even if it’s just random scribbles. I guess there’s a lesson to be learned here. Adios, year of the Dragon, you weren’t too shabby!

The Other C-Word

~ J.Ho

Who wants to see me draw a very innacurate picture of a coelacanth on a piece of cardboard? Show of hands?

You, in the back, with the “I <3 COELACANTHS" t-shirt, you're in luck. Please try to maintain your composure, ma'am! Here it is:

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(Still behind by one post! But I’ve been getting this thing called “sleep.” I recommend it.)

Pinstripes and Booo-llets

~ J.Ho

I was having a conversation with Josh over IM which lead to me proposing a hi-larious image, which lead to me drawing said image because it was suitable for Halloween. Here it is:

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You see, they’ll never take him alive, because he’s already dead. GET IT?? I TOLD YOU I’M HI-LARIOUS! HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SUCKERS!

(I’m behind a post, but I have stuff incoming later this week… )

Hair and Now

~ J.Ho

 

Something that happened to me at my friend’s wedding. (This is a 93% true story… in the real version, the rhino’s martini didn’t have an olive in it.)

I am a terrible letterer!

Mummy Knows Best

~ J.Ho ~ 3 Comments

Here’s yet another ~10 year old piece, brought to life with new colors:

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Man, there is… a lot going on with this drawing (good, bad, and ugly). I don’t know if I can talk about this coherently, so let’s just take an inventory of some of the weirdness here:

  • Cartoony proportions on the heroine are executed poorly, making her look like a big boobed dwarf. Maybe that’s not so bad? I’m undecided.
  • Blunderbuss with skull-and-crossbones relief sculpted on the stock. The execution isn’t great, but come on, that’s a decent idea, right?
  • Crop-cricle-esque patterns on the mummy’s sarcophagus, implying an extra-terrestial aspect to the mummy. Just a little bit of extra intrigue thrown in at no extra cost.
  • The mummy’s bandages are way too skinny. What the heck!

At the time that I drew this, I was pretty much maxing out my skills, so even though I can draw much better now, I’m glad I that I could bring some competent colors to the piece. The me of 10 years ago would be pleased, I think. I learned a lot while coloring this, and I’m in one of those creative phases where I feel like I might actually possibly know what I’m doing. Don’t worry folks–such phases are short-lived for any self-respecting artist.

(This counts as post #2 for this week, so I’m keeping steady at a deficit of 4 missed posts. I’m posting early because Comic-Con is later this week, but I’ll be on-track to continue catching up on my missed posts when I get back. I know no one cares about this except for me, but what can I say–if I don’t keep me honest and working, who will? See you on the other side, folks! *dives head first into Comic-Con*)

A neon gorilla…

~ J.Ho

Look at me, posting multiple times in one day, as if I were a productive person with any kind of creative output at all! See, told you there’d be more art coming!

 
This is a very old drawing, from just under 10 years ago. I don’t ink this way anymore, but I still like the drawing (maybe just because I still think gorillas are awesome), so I decided to use it for a coloring exercise.

It’s interesting and a bit strange to be coloring myself from 10 years ago, because it feels like I’m coloring another person. A person I know very well, but another person nonetheless. I’m very aware that this art came from a place that still exists somewhere inside my head, but ten years of separation creates a very real level of detachment.

I have some more of these older pieces that I’ll be coloring. It’s a nice change of pace for me, and a good way to get out of my head and focus a bit more on the colors specifically.

(After this one, 7 missed posts to make up.)

In space, no one can hear you ARRR…

~ J.Ho

Asteroid-alloy sword, check
Laser-flintlock, check.
Space treasure chest full of cosmic coinage, check.
Robot skull-and-crossbones, check.
Leggy space pirate, check and CHECK.

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Avast, you scurvy space dogs, we be boarding Friday with our daggers in our teeth and our cutlasses at our side, and we’ll be raiding the weekend for all it’s worth! FORWARD, LADS! THE SOLAR WINDS BE AT OUR BACKS! ARRRRRRR….

(Yes, I have lost my damn mind yet again.)

(I almost forgot–still treading water at 8 missed posts to make up. More art coming soon, promise!)

Pillow Fortitude

~ J.Ho ~ 4 Comments

This basically really happened. It has been one of those weeks.

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By the way, those throw pillows are based on the actual ones on my couch. YEAH, I’M A DUDE WHO KNOWS HOW TO ACCENT HIS LIVING ROOM, SO WHAT?

This should have gone up on Tuesday. For those keeping track, I have missed a total of 4 posts (that includes Tuesday as well as my previous illness-induced delinquency). Don’t worry about me forgetting to make those posts up, the number is etched in my brain, lit up with the red hot fires of shame.

True Tales of Bronchitis #1

~ J.Ho ~ 2 Comments

First, I am acknowledging that this post is late.

Second, when I say I’m hacking up Lovecraftian horrors, I really mean it:

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I pencilled this while I was actually sick, and finally got around to inking and coloring it. The lettering, you can see… is a bit jury rigged. I drew the sound effects by hand, and did sloppy lettering in Photoshop. I’m capable of doing a rudimentary version of professional lettering in Illustrator, but I confess, I was just too lazy. In retrospect, I should have simply hand-lettered the dialogue to match the hand-lettered sound effects.

For some time I have been meaning to shift the focus of my blog to begin including sequential art. So, I guess this is the start of that. I honestly can’t claim that I have any idea how this will go, but let’s just see what happens…