For mOm...

It's been awhile, no? Things have been a bit stupid at work so draw nights have been more infrequent, but I have a bunch more doodles to talk about. The first... hrm... maybe there's not much to say after all. Sometimes I miss having Mike May at draw night because when he was around it was fun to draw to elicit his big, friendly laugh. I think a lot of the humor from drawings on my old site were a result of that dynamic and without the silliness there's plenty of twisty people with spiky hair to look at, but not enough zaniness. Maybe it's not fair to pin on Mike, since I think part of it is just getting back into a regular drawing groove and exploring, and things have been infrequent enough that that's been harder to do. Conclusion: more drahns.

See, this one is at least a little silly. I think I drew this on some scratch paper Ryan was using to prepare a cover the sketchbook he put together for Comic Con this year. That's gonna be some hot shit I tell ya. I love drawing hair. I just love it.

There are some interesting figures in this drawing, but the real standout bit is the poorly-drawn monkey. I felt like drawing something from reference, so I found an image of a monkey and started roughing it in. Then I lost patience for it and it turned out blarg. Ah well. I'll let it stand as a testament to my impatience.

So I've been playing a shit-ton of Street Fighter IV (PS3, PSNID Erlanter) since it came out. I'm about 6-7 games (Resident Evil 5, Afro Samurai, Madworld, Punch Out, Infamous, Prototype, Ghostbusters, and Wolverine, to name a few) behind because I'm always paying SFIV. When I was doodling, I tried to recall what the character I play (Gen) looks like, and failed. The character in the lower-lelft reminds me of something Jon Diesta would draw for some reason. I really have no idea what that means.

I think I was thinking of Synj when I drew this one.

This page has a few interesting things on it, but I really hate that hairy man-beast thing. It was weird because right after finishing it, Ryan asked if I ever draw stuff that I really hate. I just kinda looked down and pointed at it, thinking "yeah, look!" There's just something really wrong about it I can't put my finger on.

I'm not sure why I torture myself trying to draw superheroes, and this is particularly true with Batman. This is one of the better turnouts, but there's such a strange thing that happens when I draw superheroes. It reminds me of when you transfer superheroes to the big screen and try to be faithful with their costumes. Typically, people just look really weird with superhero clothing on; when you make it real, it just seems bizarre. I don't know if it's because I think of actual cloth and costumes on human beings or not, but it's this same effect that I think takes place when I draw superheroes. I have to consciously go into a drawing trying to make their body their costume and not separate the two ideas to start getting it right. I wonder if other people have this problem.

This page is mostly feeling out some figures, but I enjoy the skinny-armed, long-fingered hands. The guy with antennae-arms and Merman ears was fun to draw. Oddly enough, the drawing is both likeable and aesthetically awkward to me.

I really enjoyed this drawing for some reason. I think I wanted to do something with a lot of clean, efficient lines and strength behind it, and the weird wing wreath with stars in 3D behind him was fun to produce. I asked Tom if he would paint it and he just wanted me to scan it. Now that 2 months have passed, I'm not sure if it's lost its luster. That reminds me, I have some color work to put on display...!

More figures. I think when I don't know what to draw it's fun to just spit out figures in random positions. They seem to turn out decent looking and make me feel like I'm exercising.

More superheroes? Why? It's because I imagined Wolverine with a huge lumberjack beard and wanted to see it. I'm sure it's already been done in comics, but I haven't seen it. I like the cartoon Wolverine in the lower-right the most, with his wee beady eyes. I started with the center one, which has that "weird-looking costume on real guy" look. Then I tried the cartoon version to see if that fixed the problem, but his shapes weren't that satisfying. So then I went for a silhouette, which is in the lower-left. And finally, another stab on the upper-right, which doesn't feel right to me, either. Superheroes are just tricky for me. It takes a long time for me to get in the swing of things.

Tom had put a whole bunch of scribbles on my page, and I wasn't sure if I was supposed to make something out of it. I felt beaten, though; they were just too complex, so I decided to just mush it into something abstract and go with the flow. I rather enjoy how the whole thing turned out.

I like girls in bikinis. I wish I remembered to draw the ladies more often, even if they end up with weird robot mask-helmet-things. Hoo-rah.

I was enjoying the shapes on this female figure quite a bit. She had kind of a homely vibe but a nice figure, and then Ryan decided she need to be a bit more stacked and added the line for an underboob. I demanded that he sign his contribution.

More figures. I really don't have much to say about them except that I like the female body in this one. I don't know that I've done that pose very often and it was fun to look at in the end. More please.

So I ask for more women, but deliver more men. If you are a drawing night attendee, please remind me that I want to post more ladies. But still, I had fun with these figures. Some of them look a little awkwardly drawn, but c'est la vie.

My last in this update is the weirdest. I drew some creature -- kinda doggish -- and stuck him in an inner-tube of sorts. I don't remember if this was a quick one on the way out to dinner or what. All I know is that I <3 it.

Peace out! Hopefully more to come shortly.

TMNS

Sorry for going AWOL for a bit, but I finally got around to an update, and I hope there's something worthwhile to look at. I don't remember what inspired this first brain fart. I think I just wanted to draw a star and for some reason the scarf on it made sense, so the rest just deteriorated from there. I wanted to do a TMNT ripoff and so I went a little Mad Libs on the whole deal. I figured instead of famous artists I'd go with kinds of pasta, their favorite Italian dish changed, their enemy is another kind of office supply, and their human partner has the same name as the month I did this drawing in.

That same night, I saw Dave Chisholm finish a dish and I wanted to try my hand at preserving his style, despite the fact that I can't even preserve my own style with an ink pen. It was fun to do, though. Dave has a really loose style, even in inks, and I wish I had a fraction of the talent he and other artists at the table display whenever they ink. I need more patience and practice!

I think for the last drawing of the night of November the 18th, I decided to do a quick doodle before dinner. I grabbed Jon Diesta's pencil (hence the red) and made something that reminded me of G'Nort.

The first Tuesday of December was one of several rather anemic drawing nights. I'm not sure why, but my output really went down for awhile. I think it was because work was really busy and stressful. I find I can either chill out and chat or draw, not both. I know men, compared to women, are horrible at multitasking, but I consider myself unusually bad, even among men. Or maybe I'm just fickle about my multitasking. I know I keep far too much detail about my projects at work in there. But I digress. I like the guy with the big mustache and curly whirly, and I like the fact that I'm encourage everyone to do drugs.

A week later and another anemic night, but I really, really liked the output for some reason. The simple, slender, sometimes wobbly lines made me happy. It's weird how napkin scribble is often some of my favorite stuff; it just removes the pressure to perform, I suppose.

I think I was feeling guilty about my lack of doodles each week, so I spent a little more time this week. Sometimes when I start drawing I try to get in a "flow" and just follow the lines of my pencil, and I remember feeling that way about the first drawing here, when I added "O"s and "T"s to the guy with the long, swirly hair. But everything seems so sketchy that I maybe lost the sense of flow. Or maybe I just wanted to fill up a page to assuage my guilt.

But the flow seemed to come back on this page from the same night, because I really like the bodies here. I think I drew this at a pizza parlor we dig downtown called Stoneground. After a couple beers, I must have relaxed on the page. I mean, the figures are a bit incomplete, but I like the shapes they're making. :-)



A couple missing weeks later and things were looking scribbly again, but there's a lot of fun on this one. I really prefer pages that are full, even if it's with scribble, and I don't know why. The little silhouette figures jumping and twirling for the UFO are interesting to me, as is the hairy fella with the "burst" lines. I think the list in the bottom-right is of bands I should listen to or something; I don't remember!

The second page from the evening was based on a character called Pitt. I don't know him, just "of" him, so Ryan drew us some reference so we could doodle him on our own. Ryan drew the body shape of him in the upper right and I filled it with a bit of detail, then tried to get into the spirit of things. The Pitt is awesome because he's basically designed to be the cheesiest version of "badass" you've ever seen. Chains on the arms and legs, Hulk-bulk, and a biker's jacket, as far as I can tell. If the comic was successful, I truly admire the tastes of those who consider themselves fans. It reminds me of "He-Man." God, I love that name. It's like calling a new burger store "Hamburger Store."

I can't remember why most of the drawings on this page wound up looking so wobbly. Was it a problem with the pencil or the surface I was drawing on? Anyway, looking back I enjoy the texture on the figures. These were fun, simple doodles.

Haha. Oh dear. On this week I decided to pick up a newspaper and do a characature, and I am truly bad at them. Every face on this same page is the same guy. He's of some politician in Utah whose name has already slipped my mind (which is also an indicator of how badly I follow politics). I can only hope my characature is bad enough that those who would recognize an important local politician are incapable of recognizing him from my drawings, and subsequently of incapable of shaming me. I merely shame myself with bad characatures.

This was a page with some fun in it. I like the bearded guy. I had a disembodied head on the page that I wanted to incorporate, and that's how it ended up headless. The fact that it was happy only made things more fun, and I added a disembodied hand to add to the expression. I just always enjoy a little incongruity, don't I?

The week after was a lot of fun because it was the first time Jenny showed up to drawing night and hung with the draw-night crowd. She doesn't consider herself an artist despite my insistence that everyone is, but I got her to make some stick-figures as poses and I tried to get some "real" human anatomy over them. It was a fun excercise that led to a nice day at the beach. Ah, the beach; salt in your mouth, sand in your butt, sunburns, and portugese man-o-wars. Thank you, Jenny!

I think there was more to this week but I must have misplaced the drawings. I'll have to update when I find them. These two were drawings over poses done by Ryan Ottley and Jason Kim. Jason is a fabulous artist that has been drawing with us more and more. I hope he keeps coming; I'll have to add him to the list of links.

This was the first drawing from this past Tuesday. Jenny visited again, which was awesome. This time I was just going with the flow and found myself with a muscley guy in a bathrobe, with roses, in a forest pond, with a Joust birdie. I just don't know where it comes from. It all started with wanting to do an upturned head with a distinguished nose. I drew the bird before thinking it was a Joust birdie, but after doodling a silhouette figure on it, someone else thought the jousting stick was a good idea, and who am I to disagree? The speech bubble comes courtesy of Derek Hunter. This was a snippet of conversation taken out of context, probably about puppies. I don't remember.

The next was more go-with-the-flow stuff as well. At first the fella reminded me of a garden troll, then it reminded me of someone who eats too many donuts, then I wanted to add some old stumpy legs, and I stuck with the garden theme. After doodling the mushroom, I felt like something was missing, so I added an apple. And to top it all off, I stuck with the quote theme, this time quoting Derek's wife, Rachel, who is a marvelous artist as well.

But the last page may be my favorite. Ryan Ottley gave me four poses to work from so I gave him four as well. I felt rather inspired by the first and last drawings I did -- the two male figures -- because his lines were so strong. I really enjoyed the middle character because he had such an odd shape but it was so flowy and muscley with very little line definition, and the lines at the ends of his limbs made for interesting "shading," if you will. But the last one -- the guy in the upper-left -- was the best. There was something about the lines Ryan had set down that just spoke to a squiggly shape, and the confident-yet-squiggly lines made for an interesting doodle. IMO, anyway.

So I may have missed a few drawings lying around that need scanning. If so, I hope they turn up soon. Plus, I have more kind colorist items I need to update! (God I love those.) See you shortly, I hope!

eat!

Sorry again for the slow updates. I was in Florida for a week, went to an election party, work has been a bit more stressful lately, and I'm enjoying the submission of my spare time to a lovely lady that makes me very happy. So let's start with Florida. For the trip, I was asked to do piece of art that described how I got into my particular creative field (of game design). I decided to tackle the project on the plane trip down, and was pleasantly surprised by how little turbulence there was. I started with a page of warm-up drawing. The thumbnails in the upper-left hand corner were me playing with ideas for the project.

For the project I decided to focus on a moment in my life when I was pinned down and forced to eat a grasshopper before I could go home. Yes, this happened. I grew up haole in Hawaii, and at some point the local kids I grew up with learned their prejudices and this sort of thing was becoming the norm. But it was a formative moment, where I remember deciding it was a good idea to learn how to have fun indoors. Hence drawing, playing video games, and doing a plethora of other nerdy things that helped me become the *cough* man I am today. A friend had some pens across the isle from me on the plane, so I was even able to ink it. Hooray!

The Tuesday after I got back was drawing night, but I almost didn't go because I came down with an awful cold. I decided I should at least say hello to the folk that were there, and when I showed up, I ended up sticking around for some reason. This was my hazy warm-up page. I remember very little about it.

I had showed up for drawing late, though, and we went off to a pizza parlour for dinner. Not being to into the social aspects of the evening in my condition, I just kept doodling. I started doing a cartoonish face, but was too tired to come up with details, so I scanned the tables around us and started doodling the hairstyle, jewelry, and clothes from a girl at a nearby table that looked like she was on a first date. After finishing her, I felt like drawing a hag. I guess I just like doodling hags around Halloween.

But I think my mind started wasting away and insanity set in. This last drawing started with the giant gnome thing, or whatever the hell it is. I then drew some figures to distract me from the gnome, who kind of freaked me out. The next most obvious thing to draw was Pac Man for some reason, and I drew a trail of pac pellets (what are they called?) pushing right into the gnome's stomach. Really, the only sane thing that could be added was "HOLY FUCKING SHIT."

"What is hhhhhat?"

Another fun draw night with a smaller crew. This time it was Tom, Dave, and Manfred in addition to me. The first page was common warm-up. Not much to say, except I started out feeling pretty uncomfortable with my pencil. I felt kind of tight and immobile starting with the top-mid guy, and didn't start feeling loosened up until part of the way through the girl. But getting loose also made my drawings sketchy this go-round, as the top-right and bottom-left drawings show.

But it was good prep for this witch-like lady. I enjoyed this drawing quite a bit. I started with the brows, just making a lot of lines come to a point, and just tried to go with flowing lines. I felt light defining the silhouette but not filling in the cloth around her out of some mixture of aesthetic and laziness, and once I started seeing a division between the simplicity of the cloth and the complexity of her flesh, I decided to make it kind of like a hoody-cloak, filled in her neckline area, and the whole drawing came across as pretty fun and creepy to me. I liked the end result, and added "HH" to my signature for "Happy Halloween," which confused Manred and Tom (and inspired the title of this post).

Tom always does these thumbnail environment pics with really interesting shapes, so I decided to do a Tom impression, and drew a box, and started filling an environment into it. It's probably confusing as hell, especially with the figure I drew behind it afterward, but I started with a figure, decided he was standing on a treetop, that a limb of leaves would swing out from it, with a trunk behind it, with lots of tentacle-like roots descending from the trunk for water below, and lots of clouds beneath the entire thing. Maybe it would be fun to paint.

Last but not least, I went in to drawing night thinking about Jenny, who's endured a destructive migraine for about a week now. She bid me adieu earlier, asking me to draw someone who could kick the ass of migraines, so I started imagining "Migraine" as a character who sat on and crushed peoples heads, so I could make another character kicking Migraine's ass. But once I had a character sitting on a head, the head turned out all weird and almost alien, and Migraine's hands were up in the air instead of down squeezing, and I couldn't think of a way to also have Migraine's ass being kicked while conveying the squeezing information. It all happened fast and without planning, so I found myself adding a hammer, and wondered at how I managed only to convey pain and suffering in lieu of relief. Arg.

And in response to someone who asked if the guy on the bottom was Manfred, I labeled him "Manfred," the Migraine "Alan," and the hammer "Tom's Nutsack" for laughs. Manfred thought it was a good scene for the Exorcist V, and Tom suggested that Burt Reynolds -- and various Burt Reynolds body parts -- play us. Manfred added "Dave's Spirit." This was an entertaining, epic fail (in purpose and maturity) of a drawing, presented for your viewing pleasure.

Naughty Chopper (Chop! Chop!)

At draw night this week I decided to focus on faster, sketchier figures again. The first page began with the eye in the lower corner, and then I started loosely drawing an image of Spidey in my head, focusing on his wirey-yet-muscley look. It was all over the place, so I tried again without erasing or doubling up lines to define line weight or commit to shapes. But I didn't care if it actually ended up Spidey and didn't know where I was going with it, so I just made it a nobody. But he still had his head intact. The rest were just scribbles, but I rather liked the scribble in the top-left, where I wanted to draw someone grabbing his own feet. I'm sure it's got messy bits in there, but for a quick sketch I thought it looked pretty nice. Jon Diesta was talking about some anatomy lessons he had picked up on from a fellow artists, and feeling jealous that I had nothing to teach, I showed Jon the anatomy of a flower while drawing one behind the squatting fella.

Realizing I had just did yet another page of man figures, I decided to do a page of ladies. Drawing ladies is really fun because of all the different shapes and sizes that are still in the beautiful form range, and I love the way their hips work; I really have no idea why I don't doodle them more often, whether its the fact that everyone always doodles ladies, or because few of the superhero books I followed as a kid had women as the lead hero. Either way, it's a bit of sadness. But I digress.

I started with the top sitting lady, then the standing lady, then the back-scratching lady, whose right arm sticks out to me as not a good headrest at the moment, and then I thought of the guy grabbing his feet and wanted a female version of it, so I did a nude figure putting on her shoe. That was fun. Then I looked over at what Jon was doing -- a much larger female figure -- that was looking really cool, so I drew a fan (like his figure had), and then started fronting:

"My girl has a fan, so now what? Huh? Huh?"
"Now she needs a sword," Jon replies.
"Now mine has a sword. What now?"
Tom jumps in with, "Shoes. Made of goat."
"Now she has goat shoes! What up?"
"She needs a HairdoodZ," says Jon.
"And a monkey-hat," interjects Tom.
After scribbling, I announce, "She has a monk HairdoodZ with a monkey-hat. Unnh!"
"Mine is going to have a print on her clothes," announces Jon.
I'm screwed, I think. "Dammit, she has no clothes! Maybe I can do a tattoo..."

So I finished up with the tattoo and was pleased enough to note all of the contributions everyone made to the drawing. Continuing with figures, I added the bottom sitting girl, and ended with the girl in the upper-left corner. By the time I finished her body, I didn't want to draw her head, so I just moved it to the side and added a "CHOP!" All of a sudden, I worried it would come across as a sexist chop, so I went back to the first drawing and took off the head of the male figure there, too. And since I had a culprit with a sword, I decided to call her design The Chopper's Costume.

The last page was me drawing lots of legs and feet, just trying to impart some thoughts about the way I draw feet to Jon. I thought I'd include it, in case someone, somehow, found a way to derive information from it.

I Hate Unicorns.

My apologies for less-frequent updates. Life has been busier with an awesome new someone in my life, so my previous "update night" has been steamrolled somewhat. But "draw night" is still in full swing, so no complaining.

The first drawing is from a couple weeks ago, and I've been cramming more figures onto a single page, so it ends up feeling like less art. Well, that, and there probably is less art. But I wanted to focus a bit more on the female form this go 'round. The spread pose in the upper-right might seem like much, but I avoid positions like it too often, so I just went for it. Someone at the table was reading some artist's sketchbook and pointed to a very curved leg in standing position they liked, so I did one of my own (connected to the disconnected male head), and the girl with the bunny-hop hands needed a hat, so I asked Tom to for an environment-hat, and he obliged (thank you, Tom). I added the clouds around it.

Next up from that night was some inks by Ryan Ottley on a drawing from the week prior. I of course love it when he or any other drawing pal decides to ink some of my pencils. It's really neat to see the way they interpret the lines. And the drawing was so weird to begin with that it doubled my pleasure. DOUBLED!




I was more prolific last week, with poop if not quality. I just started with a bunch of little sketchy figures while I caught up with folks. My favorite drawing was the guy that fell asleep waiting for me to draw him. And my least favorite is the unicorn, because I hate unicorns. A lot.

Next up was this twisted figure. If I remember correctly it originated as a pose from Ottley. I asked him to give me an "Alan Tew" pose, and he came up with something pretty twisted. When I tried to shape it into a "real" form best-I-could, I gave him a questionably turned leg. I can stand up and make my leg swing that way, but it looks pretty wonky with the rest of the body so straight. But I decided to leave it and post it for all to see. Silly me.

I really enjoyed the drawings on this page. They were a lot more flowy. I started with the cartoon head with the Rachel Summers Phoneix-scars on its face. Next was the weird little fella with the half-tendon face, probably drawn while we were talking about Bodyworlds (in town at the moment) at the table. Then came the bald fella, who had a fun, angular look, and lastly the long-fingered gal on the left.

And last up was this strange fellow. I drew him right before we bailed for food. Not too many lines, a lot of flowing, and a bit of a weird look. Not sure what else to say.

The Worst Thing About...

This week began with Ryan and I swapping poses to pencil in. My ability to take a really cool pose from Ryan Ottley and make it into something so horrifying is kinda fascinating, really. Inspiration for this drawing comes from the pose itself (of course), and Dave Chisholm talking about rollerblades.

The drawing of the guy in the second drawing was actually the first drawing of the evening before Ryan and I swapped poses. And to balance out the guy-bits, I decided to do some girl-bits. Usually when I do fast poses it's always guys, so I thought this would be a nice change-of-pace. I should do more of this sort of thing, methinks.

The third pic was a stream-of-consciousness drawing that really weirded me out. I just thought of this white, stretchy, clothy guy with a wig on, and just kept farting around with it until his body was finished. Then I added some bubbles, and threw in the fish. At least, I think it's a fish.I thought a skull in the eye of the fish would be more interesting than just random reflections.

The last drawing was just something I doodled on my kitchen counter before heading out to work one morning. It was sitting there with the other drawings, so I scanned it in for all to see.

Cheers!