That’s the not the actual piece of paper that I drew the wookie on, I just complusively felt the need to dress up this otherwise simple sketch. I confess, this is a somewhat lazy post. Let’s see if I can cook up something substantial for my next post.
Believe it or not, I drew this sketch some time ago, long before the Rebirth storyline–so the resemblance to Sinestro’s current uniform is actually just a coincidence. Of course, as a result of the aforementioned Rebirth storyline, it would be difficult (if not impossible) to write a credible story rehabilitating Sinestro in any way, shape, or form. I’m okay with that, because not only do I dig Sinestro’s current uniform (I even drew it once… sort of), I think the storyline of the Green Lantern(s) has been hitting all the right notes in recent years. But if Geoff Johns ever gets sick of his job, I’ll be glad to take over.
For my first take on this guy (left), I gave him the traditional Green Lantern insignia, but on the second take (right), I gave him Kyle Rayner‘s insignia, to emphasize his rookie persona. The next post is NOT a Green Lantern whose species originates from outside the DC Universe.
My apologies to hardcore Trekkies, the Bat’leth and D’k tahg were drawn without reference, so the details are a little sloppy. Stay tuned for more nerd synergy!
These sketches were done quite some time ago–for the first installment, a Skrull and a Wookie:
As you might notice, these are blue pencil sketches, hastily inked and colored with marker. I basically just wanted to get these down on paper, rather than stress out over them. I’m not trying to make excuses though–that Skrull’s foot is terribly contorted and way too big. The next installment will be better, promise.
Hardrock was a living statue who joined up with Jonny Quest and friends. I honestly don’t know how to expand upon that. Oh well, here’s a clip:
In case you missed my take on the Jonny Quest cast a few months ago, here they are:
I honestly wasn’t trying to make her color scheme particularly “girly”–things just naturally went in that direction as I attempted to keep the colors consistent with her hair. Next time, I’ll treat you to the most obscure member of team Quest, hands down!
In case you missed my take on the Jonny Quest cast a few months ago, here they are:
I love all those versions of Batman–but to me, this is the guy. The Batman of Dennis O’Neil and Neal Adams:
He’s lean, he’s mean, he’s blue and grey, and he’s got the yellow oval (though I drew it a tad too big). And I’m waffling… he might sound like Kevin Conroy.
I drew this right after seeing the movie, but it’s only loosely based on Gary Oldman, drawn without looking at reference. More Bat-stuff next time. Perhaps even the Man himself?
Like the aforementioned Krang sketch, as well as Splinter, and Shredder, April is modelled after the 90’s cartoon version, and the title for this post is a tagline from one of April’s 90’s action figure incarnations. For those of you who are too young to remember this, reporters in the 1990’s were all extremely attractive women who wore brightly colored jumpsuits, usually made out of vinyl.
._.
This series illustrating TMNT supporting cast members follows a series from last year depicting the Turtles themselves:
Cheesy sax music plays in BG.
OOKLA: (indecipherable snarling)
THUNDARR: Ookla, I think you’re very handsome.
OOKLA: (indecipherable snarling)
THUNDARR: No, really.
That will probably be a lot funnier to you if you are familiar with the characters. Here’s Ookla:
Ookla the Mok, for those who don’t know, was actually designed by the late great Alex Toth. Toth is best known for designing Space Ghost, and while he is very much regarded as an artist’s artist in comic book and animation circles, really he was a master of drawing, period. Be sure to check out the image gallery at the official Toth website.
This is my favorite of the current batch, which may be an unwise thing to say before I post the final one, but I’m satisfied with the others as well. There’s just something about the way the colors turned out on this particular one that makes me think I’m starting to get it. I’m also pretty happy with the irate parallel motion of Krang and his dopey android body.
This series illustrating TMNT supporting cast members follows a series from last year depicting the Turtles themselves:
Just a little painting practice in Photoshop, with a random subject. I looked at a fortune cookie for reference, but this isn’t a depiction of that exact cookie. If that makes any sense. I mean, it makes sense to me, but it might not make sense to you.
The aim here was to make Splinter appear as serene as possible, reflecting his wise, zen-like approach to life. The tree in the background is supposed to be bonsai-like. Or maybe it is a bonsai tree, grown huge as a result of exposure to radioactive mutagen?
This series illustrating TMNT supporting cast members follows a series from last year depicting the Turtles themselves:
After seeing a few cool CGI commercials and drawing some mascots, basically I immediately forgot all about the Olympics. But before it officially ends, here’s one more Olympic commercial from Stadium Astro (a Malaysian sports channel, I think?), featuring robots… transforming ones!
Of course watching one video on Youtube, always leads to another… here’s a soccer-themed transformer ad from Stadium Astro, promoting the Euro 2008 tournament:
And another transformer ad from Stadium Astro (apparently someone working there likes Transformers as much as I do?):
In summary, sports would actually be cool if there were more (or any) transforming robots involved.
Post Script: Decepticons as tweenage girls? Oh Japan, you so crazy (and that’s why I love ya… from TFormers.com)
Post Post Script: I actually found so many Transformer-related videos that I had to cut half of them out of this post. Expect another video post soon!
I made an avatar that resembled me fairly well, but felt the need to waste further time by customizing it even more. A few quick google image searches, some cheap Photoshop tricks, and voila:
Still feeling that time needed to be wasted, I slapped together a quick diagram showing the base elements I used to mod my avatar, and pointing out some of the smaller cosmetic changes I made:
As a bonus, here’s an avatar I created a few months ago, through the Photobucket/Meez website:
This is basically exactly how I spend my weekends–chillin’ out during a nuclear holocaust, with a dragon hatchling on my shoulder, a ray gun in hand, and a devil-may-care grin on my face. Basically.
What’s wrong with me?
(That’s a rhetorical question.)
I decided to follow up on those with some drawings of the Turtles’ supporting cast. First up is their arch-enemy Shredder, standing in front of a Foot Clan family shrine or something:
I’m in a succinct mood again. Go and be merry, dear reader, but be sure to tune in on Friday for a special guest star, and again next Tuesday for another TMNT character.
You might recall that last year I became obsessed with the Fuwa, official mascots of the 2008 Olympics. I had a few laughs about it, and Mark Hale had a few more. In spite of my trademark disdain for sports/exercise, I watched a little bit of the Olympics over the weekend, and I was disappointed to find that the Fuwa have been conspicuously absent. So, I sat down and busted out a drawing:
If you’re just here for discussion of awesome mascots, skip down a bit. The next paragraph is gonna be me yammering on about my process.
Several of my cronies have been requesting that I draw more involved pieces, with multiple characters, backgrounds, and, I dunno, cohesive lighting or something. The simplicity of the Fuwa made them ideal for a more complex piece–I got to concentrate on composition and color, rather than obsess over costume details. The composition here is the right idea, but the execution is lacking. All in all, I can live with it, because the entire production of this piece was spontaneous, and for me, pretty fast–the whole thing took me about five and a half hours.
As if it wasn’t enough that the Fuwa are the best official Olympic mascots of all time (you can see their competition here), Ren alerted me to the fact that BBC’s Olympic coverage had a mascot of their own–none other than Monkey:
Monkey, AKA Sun Wukong the Monkey King, is easily my favorite literary character of all time (sorry Batman and Naruto, it was a close race!), so you can imagine that I’d be pretty stoked. But on top of that, who do you suppose provided the art and sound for BBC’s incarnation of Monkey? None other than Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn, best know for collaborating on Gorillaz.
A quick non-mascot sidebar–Monkey’s appearance as a BBC Olympic mascot is related to a theatrical production that Hewlett and Albarn collaborated on, featuring the same subject matter, and titled Monkey: Journey To The West. So far it’s only had two brief engagements in London, both of which I contemplated attending, until I realized that I am, if we’re being kind here, not exactly sitting on a mountain of unused cash. Hopefully they’ll take that show on the road! If they brought it to, say, New York, I think I could manage it. But you don’t care about my theoretical travel plans–back to mascots (yes, there’s more)…
ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE, I have also stumbled upon the disarmingly charming mascots for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver–Quatchi (a sasquatch), Miga (AN ORCA/BEAR HYBRID!!!), and Sumi (a magical animal spirit somewhat resembling an anthropomorphized totem pole).
Lastly, two bonus mascot-ish commercials from the folks at Coca Cola (you probably have seen these, if you’ve watched 5 minutes of the Olympic broadcast, but I like to be thorough). Funny CGI birds do Olympic stuff…
… and LeBron and Yao compare notes on their respective cultures, also in CGI (keep your eye out for the Monkey King!):
We live in a golden age of Mascots.