From the Sketchbook #3

Been so busy working on finals lately that I haven't done any sketching in a while. I really need to get back in the habit of doing so. Can't lose sight of the fact I still have to practice. Here are some recent sketches I managed to make time to do...

 

I've got a lot of ideas for what pieces I want to do in the future but I'm having a little bit of difficulty deciding which ones to stick with at the moment. I may be leaning towards a specific idea, but you'll find out what I've got in store in soon enough.

Inspirtation Spotlight #6: Perry Bible Fellowship

Change of pace for the Spotlight this week. By now a lot of you know how big on the fantasy genre I am, and sometimes this leads to people overlooking my love for other genres, like humor. I take a more humorous route with my Youth work and my Comic Strip, and I think it's time to give a tip of the hat to one of my favorite comic strips, The Perry Bible Fellowship.

The Perry Bible Fellowship was created by Nicholas Gurewitch and a small group of his friends who give their ideas and input. The comic first appeared in Syracuse University's Daily Orange Newspaper, which is the same newapaper that I worked for and ran my own comic in during my own time at college. Turns out Nick and I share the same alma mater, the same page in the comics section of the Daily Orange, and we even had the same teacher for a class.

It was a huge surprise my freshman year in my Narrative Drawing class when my professor Yvonne Buchanan laid out a bunch of books for the class to draw inspiration from, and one of them was a book of Perry Bible comics. I remember telling Yvonne how much I loved the comic strip and was surprised to hear her say "Oh, I know him! He was in my class." It was really exciting to talk to her about it, as I was already a huge fan of the comic at the time.

An even bigger surprise came when I became Art Director for the Daily Orange newspaper. The D.O. had their own house off campus where they made the paper. I had a small room to myself to work in and the walls were covered in drawings and writing from art director's past. There were tons of drawings scattered all over the room and piles more lying in drawers, filled to the brim with archived comics and illustrations. One day I decided to go rooting through all the drawers when I came across a drawing that looked very familiar. I immediately recognized it as the original New Specs for Ken drawing/inks. Happily surprised, I rooted through every other piece of paper in the room (which was a LOT, trust me) and found about 2 or 3 more PBF drawings. Apparently Nick had been trying to get the drawings back from a previous Art Director, so he sent an email asking for an update on the comics. He used to work as the Art Director for the D.O. as well and I guess he left some of the comics there a long time ago while working there. I told him that I had found a bunch of them and sent them to him in the mail.

 

As a sign of gratitude, Nick kindly offered to send me a signed print of whichever comic I wanted. I'm now the happy owner of a signed print of Scorpy the Forest Friend (above). Nicks comics continue to inspire my humor and keep making me laugh, despite the comic not been produced regularly anymore.

If you enjoy the PBF, you should purchase the Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack. It's 256 pages of beautifully printed comics, included never-before released comics and an interview. It's one of my favorite books in my collection.

Mousey Dies: The Comic

I present to you my short comic, "Mousey Dies". A year ago I was given an assignment to create a 2 page comic with no dialogue, illustrating a character's death, becoming resurrected in the afterlife, then they have to go to heaven or hell. In addition to the 2 pages, we had to do a cover image as well. The pages had to be done in pencil or ink and the cover image had to be fully rendered in color. A year later and I decide to revisit the project, tweaking the color scheme of the color to fit what I wanted to do with the pages, and I fully colored the 2 pages. Below are the results of my reworking.

I hope you enjoy what I did with the assignment!

Rita Repulsa from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

When I was looking into doing my Madame Woe piece, I saw a lot of images of Rita Repulsa and I couldn't resist giving her a go as well.

Rita always stuck out in the show, of course that has a lot to so with her being the main villain, but she was also completely insane, and her costume design was even more insane. I mean just look at that hair!

I'm planning at least one more piece in the Power Ranger series, but I think I'm going to give the Rangers a break for a little while so I can focus on some other projects I've got lined up like what I mentioned in the previous post on old sketches. Hint as to the next character I'll paint...he's depicted in one of the images posted in the original Power Rangers post I made.

Inspiration Spotlight #5: The Legend of Zelda

Now here's a game series that I know a lot of people have played. The original Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo Entertainment System is one of the first video games I can remember playing and the series as a whole has left a lasting impression on me. The Zelda series takes place in it's own unique fantasy setting and it's always a fun adventure with every game.

When it comes to fantasy settings, I get a bit tired of dwarfs (short, tough people) and elves (tall, environmentalist people). What I love about the Zelda series is it's full of it's own special species like the Deku Scrubs (seen below). Sure they're humanoid, and they're not the first species to be tied into nature, but I think they're a lot more creative than the concept of say an elf.

Oh yeah and the monsters and just as awesome!

The Zelda universe has been expanding for over 25 years now and it's gotten pretty complex, and it's still growing. There are a lot of die-hard fans who have cooked up some pretty crazy theories, a lot of them concentrating on how each game fits into the universes time-line. This guy, Dan Merill, wrote out this really awesome article on Majora's Mask, talking about important themes and the overall story. It's a really great read that's got me wanting to replay Majora's Mask...and there may be some fan-art in the future ;)

 

If you're interested in checking out the article I mentioned you can find it here.

(all above images created and owned by Nintendo)

Reviving old ideas...FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

Sometimes I get really pumped up to make some new artwork, only to find that once I sit down to create, I have no inspiration. No cool ideas. Nothing. It's sad but it's true that sometimes I can't think of anything good to draw, and this can interfere with the quality my sketching. Thankfully, over the years I've built up a nice storage of ideas in my sketchbooks that I can play around with and tweak to make even better. When I look through my old sketchbooks I always get surprised. I get surprised at how bad I used to draw and how much better I am now in comparison. And I also get surprised at how much I still love some of my past ideas that I never got around to fleshing out. I've decided that in effort to build up my portfolios a bit more I'm going to dig up some old ideas from my sketchbooks and try to pump some life into them. Here are a couple of sketches I'm considering working out:

So next time you're looking for something to draw, take a look at some of your old sketches. You might remember a great idea that you forgot about :)

Madame Woe from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers

I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to paint some Mighty Morphin Monsters. I specifically remember Madame Woe from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers video game for the Sega Genesis. She had a very annoying laugh but I always thought she looked pretty cool, and in the show's version she even looks kinda creepy. Here's my take on Madame Woe below...

  ...and here's a shot from the TV show featuring Madame Woe...

You can read the original Mighty Morphin Post HERE.