This is the way…

~ J.Ho

#FlashBackFriday

On rare occasions I will decide to respond to a friend’s text by doodling up a quick thumbs up… and then go slightly overboard. This is a flashback to one of those occasions. (Also, I’m very happy that Mando is back on TV!)

Fury Swipes!

~ J.Ho

A little something for #PokemonDay! This isn’t *the* Meowth, but it’s *a* Meowth, and *any* Meowth is one of my favorite Pokemon.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to figure this out, but when I’m drawing digitally, I do way better with a jaggy scratchy brush than a smooth one. I think it’s probably because I’m scruffy and scrappy like Meowth. 😼

Head over to my Instagram if you want to see a bit of behind the scenes video!

#HappyPokemonDay nerds!

Rabbit & Co

~ J.Ho

Last time the Year of the Rabbit came around, I was enlightened to the fact that in Vietnam they celebrate the year of the Cat rather than the Rabbit. A little research this time around and I learned that the Gurung of Nepal also use the Cat, while the Malays use the Mousedeer!

That sounded to me like a good excuse to draw a Rabbit/Cat/Mousedeer crew for the year of the Water Rabbit (and Cat and Mousedeer). And hey, this time I actually finished the drawing in time!

Okay ya nerds, Gong Xi Fa Cai! ✌️

Not A Goalie

~ J.Ho

I had no idea Friday the 13th was coming, but by random coincidence I came across this old highlighter doodle the other day. It’s really supposed to be more the-dude-from-Splatterhouse than Jason Voorhees, but I think it still works for the occcasion? Not sure exactly when I drew this, but I believe it was late 2019 or early 2020. (Added the sig and type digitally obv. 🤓)

Wayback Wabbit

~ J.Ho

This one is going WAY wayback, two full zodiac cycles back to the Year of the Rabbit 1999! 😬

The drawing on the right is the original–back then I could not run Photoshop on what I’m sure was a very busted, dusty, and ancient PC. So, in my pre-digital era, I would draw and ink the lineart on paper, make photocopies of the finished inks, and color over one of the photocopies with markers or color pencils. I did it this way so that if I screwed up the colors, I wouldn’t have destroyed the original lineart too… and trust me, I screwed up the colors plenty of times!

The drawing on the left is a scan of the lineart, with brand-new digital 2023 colors. I always find it a fun exercise to color old lineart… it’s like a collab with your younger self. 💀⌛️👶

The One True Bat!

~ J.Ho

Last drawing for 2022, a tribute to my favorite Batman—RIP Kevin Conroy!

(**Note: the background is taken from a screencap of the Batman:TAS opening credits)

Cutting Room Floor

~ J.Ho

So, last year I drew redesigns of Kwannon and Betsy from the X-Men, then decided to draw a psychic fusion of the two, and the first drawing above was the initial result. When I stepped back, I felt like something was off with it, and the more I looked at it, the more I disliked it. Finally I decided to scrap the drawing, and I never posted it (until now). (At the time, I decided to start over and complete a more streamlined and straightforward attempt–click here to revisit that result along with my drawings of Kwannon, Betsy, and Logan)

But back to the bad one 😆… it’s a pretty weak, cluttered composition, and lacks the sketchy energy of the character redesigns I was doing, yet also falls short of being a more polished drawing. I think it was a case where I was feeling a bit ambitious and got carried away with that momentum, yet failed to balance it with sufficient forethought and planning. I know that for my own process, I need to take care of composition and planning issues as early as possible–thinking “I’ll fix this as I go” pretty much never works out.

Anywayzzz, I recently stumbled back on this drawing while sorting through my files. With the benefit of some distance, I felt it was an interesting artifact after-the-fact… a byproduct of the process. And the story is maybe worth sharing just in case anyone else is out there kinda whiffing it on the first try? 🤔😆