Month: May 2012

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…

Wild Thing

~ J.Ho

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!

Horrible Post Title #974368: Stop badgering me for a post!

~ J.Ho ~ 2 Comments

Okay, no one has been badgering me for a post, even though I have been neglecting this blog due to being sick as a dog. I haven’t been too sick to post this whole time, but once I was back on my feet I had a lot of catching up to do at work and so on. So I do apologize to you, my hypothetical (and possibly imaginary) dear reader. I missed three posts, which I’ll be making up over the next few weeks, while resuming regular posting.

For now, here’s a drawing of a badger that I did a few years back (the colors however, are brand new). It was a study for this post.

 
Incidentally, if this cranky badger had a lingering cough, it would be a pitch perfect depiction of how I’m feeling at this very moment. Just saying.

It’s a blast…

~ J.Ho

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.