MACHO WEEK!!! (Part 1 of 3)

~ J.Ho

I’m officially declaring this week to be MACHO WEEK. Make it a MACHO one everybody, for Randy. OH YEAHHH! DIG IT!

I tweeted that on Monday. Of course, I have no authority whatsoever, and I then failed to do anything about it for the first two days of the week. But better late then never, right?

Of course you’ve heard by now that Macho Man Randy Savage has died. The buzz on Twitter about him was overwhelmingly positive and affectionate. And if you ask me, it all felt pretty sincere. I apologize for obnoxiously re-tweeting myself, but I think my thoughts about Macho Man’s passing are best summed up by my tweets on Friday:

RIP Macho Man Randy Savage; the best face, the best heel, the best talker, and my favorite peddler of Slim Jims.

Pomp and Circumstance and MACHO MADNESS!!! RIP Randy Savage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewOQQ8ZUSI8

Was texted on the way in to work with request to bring in Slim Jims for the office. Currently snapping into a Slim Jim w/ co-workers. #macho

Macho Man as the cosmic villain Rasslor on Dexter’s Lab/Dial M for Monkey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klx3epFHlSs

Slim Jim is trending. :D

Heard Black Machismo retired his Macho Man gimmick, so I think I should live the rest of my life as Yellow Machismo to honor Randy Savage.

I love when Macho Man would turn his back to the camera while cutting a promo. So pimp.

Guys we should not be mourning the man’s death but celebrating THE MADNESS! It’s what he would have wanted! OH YEAHHH!

This one is for you Macho Man!!!

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Since I resumed blogging, I’ve only been posting once a week, but this week I will be posting not once, not twice, but THREE times! That’s two more MACHO posts coming your way! OH YEAH!!!

Kal El

~ J.Ho

Still red and blue, and there’s several things I don’t like about this one, but it’s a big improvement over last week’s marker sketch. And posted in a relatively timely matter. Unthinkable!

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Plenty of marker sketches on the way. I’m much more fond of the ones I did after this one.

Plumbing the Depths

~ J.Ho

So I actually finished this drawing on Friday night, but didn’t have time to post it until now, which is, you know, super-lame of me.

Aaanyways, here’s everyone’s favorite plumber:

I’m just playing around with doing some marker sketches (actually, there’s color pencil in this one too). I do not consider this experiment a success. Will be playing around with markers on and off in the coming weeks, please humor me.

*Cue Danny Elfman*

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

I sketched this up for Dustin last weekend during the Long Beach Comic Expo, inked it up when I got home, and colored it this week. And here I am posting in a reasonably timely manner, as promised:

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I did my best to channel Alex Toth, Bruce Timm, and Derek Fridolfs when I drew this (please go to Derek’s DeviantArt page, look at his awesome black and white ink sketches, and give him some compliments–it makes him very uncomfortable). There are some other influences at work as well… the general leanness of form is from Neal Adams (whose influence I’ve discussed previously), and of course the crescent moon eyes are from Dick Sprang. I think there’s a little Jeff Matsuda in there too.

This started out as a pretty static sketch, but I’m trying to be more dynamic these days, so I consciously tried to move away from that. The big experiment for me on this one was spotting blacks heavily. I usually do all my lighting in the coloring stage because I’m uncomfortable with my ability to execute heavy inks. I feel okay about the result though–you can tell because I was actually willing to show you what the original lineart looked like.

(For those who care about such things–of course he has the yellow oval on his chest.)

Squawk.

~ J.Ho ~ 6 Comments

Sometimes, like a jerk, I waste hours and hours playing Angry Birds, a game meant to be a casual distraction, which has instead become an obsessive… obsession. Other times (still like a jerk) I post a super-late blog. Here is such a blog post now:

On Friday night I was too tired to draw, so I went to bed with the intention of playing a few levels of Angry Birds and then going to sleep. Fast forward to: me staying up until 9:30am, when I finally went to sleep (cursing at myself all the while). Woke up a few hours later and headed to the Long Beach Comic Expo, where I hung out with Dustin and Peter Nguyen (they are not related!), and drew this. Peter was kind enough to lend me a pen so that I could ink it. I drew another piece too, which I came home and inked, and will be posted this week in a timely manner, unlike today’s sketch.

I’ve been in sort of a rut lately, in addition to being busy with assorted other things. It was very eye opening to me that I was able to go hang with some friends, and even on very little sleep, bust out two drawings very quickly. I guess even weirdo recluses such as myself need to occasionally leave our secret lairs and get a change of scenery.

(But seriously, Angry Birds is really fun.)

Parlor Tricks

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

Hey kids, look! A super simple drawing (which I had lying around) dressed up to appear to be a real blog post! But at least it’s super late as well!

I want you to know that I’m giving myself a judgemental look:

e_e

Brother Vs. Brother

~ J.Ho

OKAY. Late, but here it is. Mega Man versus his brother Proto Man:

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I drew this on my iPad. It’s an improvement over my last two iPad sketches, but I’m obviously still getting the hang of it.

Powering Up.

~ J.Ho

I’m powering up right now, which is my shifty and dishonest way of saying that today’s post is merely a preview of a real post. Started an iPad sketch that got a little too ambitious to complete with time in short supply, so here’s just a portion of it:

The entire complete sketch should come next week! Sorry I’m such a lazy slacker these days!

Pokeballs To The Wall

~ J.Ho

Been a looong week (note extra O’s), so I’m about to give myself a little break and get started on my copy of Pokemon White. Before I go, here’s a little something I drew in Sketchbook Pro on my new iPad 2, with a capacitive stylus from Boxwave:

This is rather primitive, but it was fun to draw. I will be posting the progress of art that I produce on my iPad over the next few weeks and months, and I might even write up a super boring post detailing my thoughts on the device. But for now.. TEPIG, I CHOOSE YOU!

Have a good weekend, and please donate to Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief in any way that you can. Here are a few ways:
– Text REDCROSS to 90999 to Give $10
– Dustin Nguyen art auction
– FansProject Blessser

Bang Your Head

~ J.Ho

Heh… heheh…

Been a little busy, working on stuff not yet ready to share, and I found myself banging my head against the wall trying to figure something out. I figured it out though! Will share progress as soon as possible (which won’t necessarily be all that soon). Love, Me.

G.I. Ginger

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

In a bit of a time crunch this week–here’s something I drew while the blog was on hiatus:

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In the interest of full disclosure: the gun was loosely photo-traced for the sake of pseudo-accuracy–that’s not a technique that I typically employ. And for those who are interested in such things–it’s a Heckler and Koch UMP 45. And lastly, I will end this post with… an awkward sentence… thing… like so.

Robot Chicken (not the one you’re thinking of)

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

Today’s post features Scratch from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. He’s the cohort (and brother) of Grounder, who I posted a drawing of last week:

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As I did with Grounder, I interpreted Scratch with more of a Super Robot feel. This time I was specifically going for a look that resembled the animal-themed Mavericks from Megaman X. I think the final result is a little more tough-looking, while (hopefully) maintaining the cartoony fun of the original.

More Sonic fun coming over the next couple of weeks… but not next week… in case you were wondering.

._.

[RABBIT PUN OR ROBOT PUN HERE]

~ J.Ho ~ 1 Comment

I set up another Sculpey project for my niece and I, very similar to last year’s project. It’s not just the Year of the Rabbit, it’s the Year of the METAL Rabbit, so I chose a robotic rabbit as our subject. Here are the results:

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The gold rabbit with the red eyes is mine, the silver one with the dark blue eyes is my niece’s, and the terra cotta one at the bottom is the prototype that I made while planning the project. If you’re curious about the process, please check out last year’s project (the process we used for this year was very similar). I would point out that my rabbit has extra “rivets” in the ears–I wasn’t sure how I felt about that (maybe it’s too busy?), so I didn’t have my niece add that to her sculpture. All in all, I think these turned out nicely!

One of my brothers-in-law observed that the rabbits have a Cylon-esque quality. However, knowing myself, if there’s any subconscious sci-fi influence at work here, it’s probably from the Daleks! For the record, if this post had been made a month later, the title would have been EASTERMINATE!!!

Wascally.

~ J.Ho

Today is Chinese New Year’s Eve, which means tomorrow is Chinese New Year, which means the Year of the Rabbit is nigh! Nigh, I tell you! Here’s a drawing to commemorate the occasion:

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I crafted this piece to stand in contrast against the one I drew last year. And yes, her bling is a gold carrot pendant. Hey… carrot, karat! How clever am I? That wasn’t even on purpose! I am crushing it today!

Gong Xi Fa Cai, you nerds!