This weekend, my mom found a stack of my old college notes and papers. I sorted through it, and about half of the papers were blank on one side and therefore still usable as scratch paper for me to draw obscure He-Man characters on. (I compulsively save any paper that can still be drawn on–I sort of have a reputation for being “that guy”)
Anyways, after doing some calculations about the time span that those papers covered, and the amount of tuition paid during that time, I somberly informed my mother that it was about $1300 worth of paper that I was recycling, and the stack of scratch paper I was taking with me was worth another $1300. I don’t know if she found it as amusing as I did.
What does that have to do with anything? I guess I just thought it was a funny little story. OH RIGHT, you folks are here for sketches of obscure nerdy characters. Here you go:
However, speaking of my rabid conservation of scratch paper, it is worth mentioning, for those who are interested, that the preceding illustration was drawn on a piece of lined yellow paper from a legal pad. I scanned it in color, and by fiddling around in Photoshop with the “Select Color Range” function, I was basically able to clean up the image without doing much work, and color it as I normally would.
Numbered 017, Hardtop Tortoise (known in Japan as Black Turtle), is one of many characters from the toyline Battle Beasts.
Fun Fact: Battle Beasts started off in Japan as a spin-off of the Transformers, and they were known as Beast Formers. When they were brought to he United States, they were renamed and marketed without any mention or indication of their relevance to the Transformers mythos.
Why does he have a log on his chest?
And cue obligatory feces joke…
you bastard! you promised me art that i would like!!!
just kidding!
first and foremost i am surprised and shocked hammy had to ask such a question. I suppose u were right, j. u and i and johnny are the last vestiges of 90s cartoons.
did i ever tell i inherited a free battle beasts lunch box from somewhere in jr. high or thereabouts and i never used it so my mother wound up using it to store and transport her coupons?
ass-kicking super-save-iness!
J! Do you ever draw Beast Wars stuff? I do love the Beast Wars.
nathan: the battle beasts each had a random rub-sticker on them with one of the following symbols: fire, water, or wood. the gimmick was that you could take two battle beasts, and reveal their symbols to see who won “the battle”–fire burns wood, wood floats on water, and water extinguishes fire. basically, it was rock-paper-scissors. as for why wood floating on water constitutes a victory, your guess is as good as mine.
ren: it’s in the works! i swear!
charles: we are the last of a dying breed my friend. also–find that coupon box!!!
mark: i love beast wars too! i have one beast wars sketch roughed out, but now that you mention it, i’m getting some ideas for more–stay tuned!
ALSO: jamilyn IMed a comment to me yesterday because blogger’s comments system was having problems:
Dude! I love Battle Beasts! Sometimes I think I’m the only person in the world that remembers something and then J.Ho always comes through. Nice one man, howabout a Sly Fox?
my response: thanks man–theoretically, i am trying to draw ALL the battle beasts, so sly fox will be tackled at some point! actually, once i finish the battle beasts that are already in progress, i can move sly fox up in the queue.
you’re still a bastard.
and you smell funny.
*stink lines*