ROUGH AS GUTS!

Rainy Day GIF

2011-10-07T06:52:00.000-07:00

*CLICK ME FOR SIMPLE RAINY TIME FUN!*

Ah... here is something basic and crappy. At some point I may play with nested cycles...when its not 6:47am and I remember how to do them. Simple math eludes me as sleepy time approaches.

Run Peety Run

2011-06-15T00:52:00.000-07:00

*CLICK TO SEE MEAGER PORTION OF ANIMATION!*

Been playing around with animation in my limited free time. I have started many, finished few. Even this is only a handful of keyframes, but meh. Its something and it actually only took about 15 minutes. Some day I'd love to full-on animate a project of my own if I can ever get past this self-criticism thing...

Does anyone know of a good (cheap) program that I can use to time frames that I've drawn in another program? I'm currently using a free version of Artoonix. Its not terrible, but perhaps there's a better option?

Friendship is Certainly Magic.

2011-06-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

*My Little Ponies: Friendship is Magic Characters (c) Hasbro & DHX Media

I've been working with the My Little Pony crew since some time in January. My crash-course in Pony-dom came when I was asked to start a month early on a board that was already partially in production. Despite all the pressure to get my footing (internally, mind you.. Everyone outside myself was really cool about it) I would be lying if I said I hadn't enjoyed it. There is still something fun and exciting about just being thrown into the mix like that. Its the way everything else important in my life has happened. Why not this?

Oh? Did I not mention that my status came thru in December and I'm a landed permanent resident in Canada? Well.. there. Now I did.

2011-05-26T01:23:00.001-07:00

2011-05-03T22:56:00.000-07:00

Some on-going evolution.

Water Throat

2011-03-05T04:21:00.000-08:00

2011-02-20T22:31:00.001-08:00

BodyWorlds Box

2011-01-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

So I had a few postcards lying around. Got them at a BodyWorlds exhibit some years back and have done nothing with them since.. I also have a few as-yet unpainted wooden boxes I bought in 2005.

On a whim I decided to combine the two neglected elements. Took perhaps 30-45 minutes total. Certainly more interesting than leaving the box blank.

The "knob" on the lid is an earring I don't think I'd ever actually get around to fixing.

Fallout: Harold (WIP)

2011-01-09T20:56:00.000-08:00

I love Harold. Best Fallout character ever.

Just some WIP, practice for another piece I'd like to do of Harold as he appears in Fallout 3.

Rough Sketch:

Louie Eyeballs the B'oids

2010-12-21T12:55:00.000-08:00

My Christmas projects are nearing completion. Here's a rather small one that turned out better than I thought it would. A little bit of ink, but almost all of that's been painted over with opaque watercolor.

The whole tiny thing fits snugly in the inside corner of a sketchbook:

Addressee's name blocked out for the "surprise" factor...though I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog. This cat totally reminds me of a little kitten I used to know named "Louie"... Gargantuan head and all.

"Cat-Atomic" has been scored + Original version

2010-12-09T20:05:00.000-08:00

Looks like scoring is over and my "Cat-Atomic" design has received a 2.03 out of 5.00. Not as awful as it could be, but not great. XD

Surprising enough, some people actually took offense to the image of an exploding cat. I don't understand this but perhaps it should be known that if I were to see a cat in real life blown to bits I'd probably drop to my knees weeping. In a way I envy those who can react to a drawing like its equatable to the murder of a real cat but in another more accurate way, I just hate having to remind people that the act of drawing something doesn't make it real.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote. It made me feel pretty good that so many of my friends participated. In the future I may be looking for a place to print these shirts myself but in a limited supply.

Oh yeah, and below is another progress version of the design, from before the point where I realized Threadless only accepts 8 colors max and had to retool all the details to conform to the limited palette. The cat became pink as a helpful fluke.

Cat-Atomic! at Threadless.com

2010-11-27T11:03:00.000-08:00

A late-night pencil doodle that somehow turned into what you see above. I have submitted it as a T-Shirt design at Threadless. The submission can be seen... well, at Threadless!

Cat-Atomic@Threadless.com

It has yet to be approved.. If it is, you'll see another update from me, begging and pleading for your votes! If not, then I guess I will just have to come to grips with my own morbid, un-marketable sense of humor.

___________________________________________________________

PROGRESS:

The Crappy Sketch

The Corrected Anatomy

Self-Portrifaction: A Thorough Re-Doing

2010-11-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

A re-coloring and re-inking of my "flying head" self-portrait. I've had a lot more practice with the TabletPC since then. I've also been focused on refining my color sense lately so.. MEH! Digitally painted in ArtRage.

Aaaaaaaaand here's the isolated ink pass, done in Photoshop..

"Let my luck be good."

2010-11-04T13:58:00.000-07:00

Doodles 001: Goat Dogs?

2010-10-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

I don't know!

Un-Painted Peetrick Sculpture

2010-10-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

For months my Peetrick sculpture was exiled to the "other room" after I dropped him on the floor--thus squashing one side of his face along with the hand gripping his hair. This jolt also dislodged the armature, which meant digging around in his Sculpey flesh, undoing stuff that was already finished. This made me not want to see Peet for a very long time...

Well, I got over it and have been building him back up. You can't tell so much that I dropped him, other than there's this annoying little wire you can see under his right palm,but you really have to look. I couldn't cut it out and couldn't hide it without messing with his balance. If I can get something very thin and sharp to fit in there, I could still get rid of it. There's a similar exposed wire in the back of his throat.

* * * *

He's been baked and sanded. Sanding is usually dangerous--that's when they like to break (and this one DID actually break.. his lip and toe had to be glued back on) so he's not perfectly smooth all around. I'm going ahead painting him regardless. Think I finally found a suitable green for his shirt. A 'tie' has already been prepared, cut from some sturdy looking ribbon I found at Michael's. The edges are treated with a line of wood-glue to keep it from unraveling.

I'm fairly happy with how he came out. He balances on two big feet, he didn't blacken in the oven.. he looks fine from most angles. The top-view and front-view are a little wonky. His ears also trouble me, again mostly from the top view. If I were doing the sculpture again I would know how to fix it, its just too late to bother with it now, even if I hadn't baked it yet.

___________________________________________________________

Hands - post #1

2010-08-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

Happy birthday, Me! I drew you hands!

Collaborations with Jay

2010-08-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

Me and my friend, Jay Bedard did a trade where-in we both drew something Eds-related , swapped and colored eachother's work. Above is my depiction of Eddy being bullied by his frightening older brother. You can see the colored version Jay did HERE.

Jay drew this one, I made a few corrections, but tried to keep it as close to her drawing as possible when I inked & colored it.

*Characters (c) CN & AKA Cartoon, INC

"Gizmo"

2010-08-07T04:35:00.000-07:00

Ah, last night I felt like watching Gremlins 2. Part way through, started doodling Gizmo.. I've always admired the effects in that movie. Gizmo's proportions changed a bit from the first film. Every now and then I would look up from my drawings and be startled by how fucking cute he was.

I can't name blog posts.

2010-08-05T00:30:00.000-07:00

I'm still tinkering with my blog... You'll find images are flipping around a bit and dimensions are changing. Most recently I discovered how to make my available space wider. Aren't you proud of me?

Here's a few sketches/scribbles from my recent sketchbooks. I have like, 5 of them, scattered around the house and I just pick up whichever's closest to draw in. Hopefully more will come tomorrow.. I know there's some different ones I want to post as well.. but I've had a bit of wine tonight so anything that demands coordination is out.

I struggle with George. He's thin, and I'm hung up on this idea that his mouth can hang over the sides of his head and exist as just a thin-line with no "fat" around to define it... but that's going to be another struggle I lose. I think it might be fun with certain expressions, but I have no idea how it would ever work with animation.

To the right, there's some sort of interesting front-view of my character Peet, but its not really.. literal. I suspect it'll end up having to be a cheat of some kind, since he'll look like some sort of hideous bug creature if drawn totally "accurately". I used to be one of those kids who cringed upon seeing a character from The Simpsons in a front-view. A space between the eyes?! Madness! In the time since, I suppose there's been some growing up, because I can't imagine The Simpsons without that whole, entire angle. Much of the impact of the more emotional episodes would be gone. Front or profile or 3/4 back views aren't in and of themselves "evil". They must simply be used.. with caution.

"Rough Guts"-- Process

2010-05-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

Here's some previous versions of the header I just loaded to the top of this blog. I fixed a couple minor things between the penciled version and the Photoshopped inks: most notably the shifting of the "Rough" text to the left as I had forgotten the 'h' just before scanning it in.

I... am Brilliant!

Also dropped a couple details, like the ear and the rest of the body as they served little purpose.

"O' Brother How Could You?"

2010-05-11T17:09:00.001-07:00

After realizing there are no drawings of Eddy's brother in my blog or in my DeviantArt gallery, I started doodling him again from memory. The hat's a bit off. It shouldn't be so long...but its sort of how I remember drawing him on the boards. He's fun because he's a true villain in the sense that he *delights* in being wicked. Of course it would have been cool to have more time with him--see what makes him tick. But you know what? I'm fine with him just being a malicious child trapped in a man's body. Ha ha.

Plus, the thought of Eddy striving so desperately for and yet failing to "live up" to the ideals of a sociopath (who sees others not truly as people but merely as targets and opportunities) adds this whole other layer of depth to him. Its too bad we never got to give Ed some key note like Eddy and Edd have, in the sense that you can clearly see how those two have been influenced by those they seem to hold most dear, but I don't know if he really needed it. Ed's sort of the "Glue" that binds all the Eds together. He's the only one who seems at all comfortable with himself, ironically making him the most successful of the three.

*Bro never smoked in The Big Picture Show, but he does in my mind*

**The Eds and Company (C) Cartoon Network of course**

"Drifter In The Dark"

2010-05-05T15:14:00.001-07:00

"Do you ever walk alone?

Like a drifter in the dark...

Seeking out what isn't there,

Looking only for a spark?"

George Says Hello

2010-05-04T13:03:00.000-07:00

Parenthood!

2010-04-21T22:46:00.001-07:00

George has an indefinite number of children. He has no idea where they all keep coming from.

Done with Prismacolors in a tiiiiiiny corner of my sketchbook. Came out a bit blurry due to my decrepit scanner.

Peetrick, George & Tweeg

2010-04-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

More Peetrick and George:

I've provided a flipped version next to the first version, because I have the habit of turning my page as I run out of space. It just seems practical to provide another view.

And here's some random doodles of an old, oooold flame: Jack W. Tweeg from Teddy Ruxpin:

I think that show is where my love for "continuity" comes from. The eps held well enough on their own but even when I was introduced to the show out of order, I always lusted to know what the big picture was.

Visceral Ducky of Doom!

2010-03-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

I recently became a member of PatchTogether.com. While I'm still feeling my way through the place I decided to take one of my previous drawings and submit it as a design (you'll recognize him already if you follow me on Deviantart).

If you'd like to see this hideous beasty as some kind of toy or t-shirt, go ahead and vote for him here!:

"Sailing A Sea of Blood" - design

SatAM Sonic Doodles

2010-03-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

Ask and thou shall receive, Emily. Sonic and Sally represent a major, recurring archetype in the media I enjoy: Saucy, intelligent person versus Cooler-than-thou Smartass. Believe it or not I was actually a fan of this show before I even knew Sonic was a video game character. This led to the disappointing discovery that the games were pretty light and fluffy in the story department (even if they WERE incredibly fun). Even "Robotization" isn't too big a threat, since simply bouncing on the mechanized animals' heads pops them out of their metal shell like its nothing more than a fancy suit of armor--nothing like the conversion of flesh to metal, and the commandeering of free-will that happened in the show.

That shit's right out of a David Cronenberg movie.

Ed, Edd n Eddy:

2010-03-03T18:43:00.001-08:00

I think the Eds are going to be a few characters that never permanently leave my drawing hand. Much like Sonic the Hedgehog and The Maxx, they're only a pencil flick away.

Bloggle-Snoggle: A Love Story

2010-02-26T14:05:00.000-08:00

Digital and Non-digital Sketchery

2009-12-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

The last few days, I've been drawing a lot with the TabletPC... No longer have I been having the issue of my nice curves spontaneously becoming right angles. So annoying. X(

I was searching the net for color schemes and I ran across this which I assume is from a coloring book. I was compelled to try my hand at strengthening the poses, particularly Squidward's. Not being a die-hard fan, this is the first time I've tried drawing them... It was fun!

Peet Sketches:

'Hevvin' sketch of Aisha Thani's character from her strip Warrior U!:

Avarice Doodles:

And that's about it.

John Carpenter Quote Of The Eternity

2009-11-10T05:46:00.000-08:00

I was trying to come up with some sort of design for Ave's mother.. But instead, I started drawing this.

My Wacom tablet is working again... Though I won't be using it to draw on this laptop (despite Troy's best efforts, it remains choppy), but its still good to color with.

Hair.. is always fun to draw.

Peet Sculpt IV: The Awakening

2009-10-26T18:08:00.000-07:00

So.. apparantly, I'm taking my sweet time on this thing. I wasn't going to post my latest progress pics because I would have liked him to be "finished" the next time I showed him off... but it looks like this week is going to be just as busy as last in terms of having to make stuff. I have to build my costume for Halloween/wedding business and do a drawing for this competition I'm entering, so it looks like I'm not going to finish Peet here until after all that.

Currently, he's more complete than this.. These pics are over a week old--his fingers are carved down into more anatomically accurate ones. And he has a bottom jaw again. (I had to remove it so I could attach the head to his neck.) If you remember my first posting of this, you'll see I decapitated him and scrapped the first body. I never really liked the first one because it felt so "stagnant". This one has a bit more movement to it.

This next pic (above) is another reason I photograph him often. In this case, his right hand kept bugging me, so putting it into photoshop made it possible for me to draw over top and find out a better way of doing it. I've adjusted the sculpture since then. Of course, soon afterward I dropped it and had to do it again, but that's what I get for carrying it around the house.

For the curious, I should mention this thing is only like.. 3 inches tall. Most of the time I have to put it down after a short while because the details are melting under my fingers.

Color Kitty!

2009-10-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

People always tell me they'd like to see "more color!" in my work... so I've been messing around with photoshop. I have never had much patience with layers, which is exactly what always kept me out of airbrushing... Also, I didn't feel like battling my feeb of a scanner, so I just harvested something from an old post.

"Hooked on Sonics"

2009-09-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

I used to watch the SatAM version of Sonic the Hedgehog religiously until it met an untimely (and unwarranted) demise on ABC. And even then, it lived on in my mind for years and years afterward because I found the characters to be so very memorable. Anyone who speaks favorably of the show will mention its dark, brooding atmosphere. They used a lot of black and spent more time than any other action show of the day on emotional content. There were wins, there were losses.. When a character was seized by evil clutches, they were pulled off-screen to a dismal fate, sometimes never to be seen again.

It always felt like there was at least one person on that show that was insanely good at expressions. The animation on the whole wasn't great, but like, lets say... The Simpsons, there are spots here and there that are clearly handled by someone who's acted out their part or (heaven forbid) looked in a mirror.

These may not be everyone's cup of tea, but they're just a smidgen of the many drawings that resonated with me as a kid.. Such is why I share them. Personally I think its incredibly hard to capture true misery in a drawing and I think they did it superbly in those top two screen grabs with "Snively".. the most miserably defeatist character to ever grace Saturday Morning!

There's actually evidence of a lot of passion behind the series. Buying the boxset yielded a satisfying interview with my favorite writer for the show, Ben Hurst:

Some of you will chuckle at the guy's enthusiasm, but I love it. It's a constant struggle to retain that kind of faith in your work and some of the things he's saying, like how powerful the simple act of one character touching another character is, is reminiscent of philosophies I've only heard from the great Ollie Johnston.

Of course the show has flaws. While a lot of time was spent 'per episode' on establishing strong motivation for the characters, there wasn't a lot of consistency -between- episodes, making the smaller nuances for everyone a little hard to keep track of. The best example of a major acting discrepancy I can recall is between a season one ep, "Warp Sonic" and a season two ep called "Game Guy" where there's a total role reversal of the main characters. In the former, Sonic is suspicious of Griff, a goat guy they find living in subterranean Robotropolis who claims to be a Freedom Fighter like they are. Sally embraces this stranger with open arms in spite of Sonic's chronic protesting. So of course in season two when they're presented with the exact same scenario--only this time it's a ram-guy named Ari (also claiming to be a Freedom Fighter)-- I would expect a similar conflict between Sonic and Sally... But no, this time it's Sally who's the viper-like skeptic and SONIC who is the one stepping up to accept this guy with no questions asked and no reference to the last time this same exact thing happened.

Plus there are moments scattered throughout the series where problems are resolved by Sonic knowingly doing something strange and afterward, literally, turning to the camera and telling us it worked "Just because".

It's too bad that most cartoons with a comfortable grip on gritty emotional content seem to let simple but important details slip through their fingers... like The Secret of Nimh.

I love that movie. Mrs. Brisby is a wonderfully rich, believable, mother character and there's dark brooding atmosphere aplenty. However, woven integrally into the storyline is this "magic" amulet that defies explanation. Yes, "It has a power when it's there" but what is it and what does it -do-? Why does everyone want it? How do they even know about it? The escape from the rats of Nimh led by Nicodemus and Jonathan is well documented but there's no history for this glowing amulet. And in a film that's so focused on genetic research and by association, science, I'm surprised that the big motivator of plot is this supernatural piece of jewelry which wasn't in the book, so it seems pretty clear that it was put in just to make things go smoothly from one point to another.

Ahhhhhh! The sun! I must return to my dark slumber. So concludes another blogpost.

-RM

I come from where the trees send worms into their own fruit.

2009-08-04T22:22:00.000-07:00

I used to periodically shred my drawings en masse. Since college, I've seen the usefulness in holding on to most of that stuff. Not only did I always like to see this stage of development, but it makes sense if I ever feel like I've lost something. If I don't constantly destroy things, I can always look back and see where the whole thing's run afoul...

More drawings after the jump! (click HERE)

The tendency remains to draw the face of any character over and over and over. This isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

After a while it turns into something a bit more replicable.

An assortment of Tumors and Dumb Little Cats

2009-08-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

I guess it falls a little short of an "assortment" of tumors.. I would expect at least half a dozen with that kind of advertising.

Check it out, Sez the lady.

2009-07-28T04:07:00.000-07:00

Peet Sculpt III: The Reckoning

2009-07-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

OH MY GOD!

I keep putting this thing on hiatus... Gets warm and gooey like chewing gum if I don't take frequent breaks to let the clay rest.. and by the time its fine enough to work with again I'm usually doing something else...

Peet Sculpt: Part II

2009-03-09T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've only had a few moments here and there this weekend to pick up the sculpture again.. Got some armature wire--er.. actually its this cheap "flower wire" for posing plastic flowers but its doing the job nicely. Did I mention it's cheap? $1.27 for 25 foot-long wires beats the hell out of 5.99 for a ridiculously small amount of flimsy aluminum wire... It's stiffer stuff too, like the tire-wire I used in Chicago that I liked. Makes needle-nosed pliers a necessity though. Wish I had all those sculptures I left back home. No wonder I keep forgetting everything about myself. I always leave everything behind.

Back sorta sucks right now. Working on it.

It's not a penis.

2009-03-06T14:04:00.001-08:00

Started a little "Peet" sculpture last night. By the time I'm done I hope to have figured out what to make his eyelashes out of.

The things you guys miss by not going to the Rio with me

2009-02-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

Troy and I went to see Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! at the Rio a couple weeks ago. Usually they introduce the film with some sort of shtick, so I had my camera already going. Er... its one of the weirder ones.

(I know it's shaky footage--we sat all the way in back so to get a clear image I had to zoom in quite a lot.)

An Empire of Self-Loathing

2009-02-12T15:20:00.000-08:00

Tender

2009-02-12T14:17:00.000-08:00

LOOOOOOK!

2009-01-13T19:47:00.000-08:00

Scott McCloud: Understanding Comics

If you haven't read the book its a really nice introduction to his ideas.

Say Goodnight, Floppy!

2009-01-06T20:08:00.000-08:00

I bought some new ultra-fine Sharpies yesterday! My favorite thing to doodle dumb penis jokes with. I dont' draw Ed, Edd n Eddy quite as much as I used to, but I'd be lying if I said they didn't pop up here and there.

Merry Christmas, Baby..

2008-12-25T16:22:00.001-08:00

Time to celebrate Christmas again, you heathens. For some reason Unlike a lot of folks I know, I'm still quite attached to this holiday. Call me sentimental, but as the one day of the year where my family actually bonded, I look back on it fondly.

So.. here's a christmas music video I made a couple years ago! It was for our video editing class in college.. I had this grand film idea wherein I would construct a very Critters-ish puppet that was supposed to come into someone's house at night and eat all their christmas ornaments off their tree.. and eventually eat their cat instead.

However, it wasn't until after sculpting the face out of Sculpey, applying the latex to form a mold and letting it dry that I realized how much I'd underestimated the amount of shrinkage involved. There was no way I was going to be able to move the mouth and face from behind with my hand like I wanted to...

Without a homemade puppet (and with no money to purchase the kind I needed to continue the with the concept I wanted to use) I begged my brother and his girlfriend to come down to Chicago for the weekend just so I could trail behind them with a camera shooting them at random. While shooting, a loose plot sort of emerged and I ran with it: A story of a guy being totally lost on what to get his girlfriend for Christmas.. and arriving at an answer he thinks is genius.

Enjoy.

Oh God, I'm about to eat some Delicious Eggs.

2008-12-05T23:39:00.000-08:00

But that's beside the point. What's totally on-point is the fact that Treasure Planet is a terrible movie. My friend Stacy told me that someone had recommended it to her and she was just asking me to see if it was worthwhile.. Of course I remembered that it was retarded: in particular I remember the animation for the Mother character really getting under my skin. Now, I'm being punished for being a fair person because I'm watching a clip to make sure I wasn't exaggerating.

ANYWAY:

Here's a revamp of the aforementioned "Avarice" character I have had forever. Since Highschool in fact. Clearly, she is based on me, and in this version, she's more fat which equals: More accurate. She's not an angry person. She simply looks like she is. For those of you sick of your typical "Smart, distant, sarcastic" female cartoon characters, you'll be relieved to know she's quite stupid.

To give you some perspective, This is how I drew her 7 years ago. At least I know there's progress.

Orange Sketch Book.

2008-12-04T19:00:00.001-08:00

Some drawings of my teacher, Mr. Welch... and some drawings of not-my-teacher.

For the curious, that bottom left drawing is a mouth with a tongue sticking out of it. The character at the top of a few of these is named Avarice--my obligatory anthropomorphic character that's pretty much a skinnier version of me (all the chubby artists have them). There are random pics of her lurking in my DeviantArt gallery..

One of the biggest challenges I have with character design is lack of diversity in body-types. Because I seem to get so excited about faces, I tend to not put as much into the bodies. They're fun when I can get myself to focus on them.

Halloween 2008: An Unfortunate Gardener

2008-12-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

Because I don't often have the excuse to make costumes, I really look forward to Halloween. This year, me and my friend brainstormed a bit to figure out what my project would be this year. Over a few drinks at an Irish bar, we decided "Something having to do with venus flytraps...

Over the course of making it all up, the final concept is a bit more like "Gardener attacked by her own garden".

These were my supplies.. Well.. Initially. I think the thing cost about $50 bucks to make all together. The only things not pictured here are the clothes I used to build over top of (some dress shirt and an apron I got from Value Village), a bottle of modge-podge, two dollar-store witch hats and 3 fuzzy velour scarves (two green, one bright red) from that same dollar store. And all of the glue. I think I used 20-30 sticks of hot glue on this damned thing.

I usually put together the hardest stuff first. Figure out what the focal point will be and spend the majority of time on that. In this case, its these little Audrey II-esque baby venus flytraps: Styrofoam balls cut in half and stuffed with fake vampire teeth. I got the glow in the dark teeth because they more closely mimic the translucency of real teeth (the gums are made of hot-glue).
After giving the styrofoam parts a wash of green and yellow, I painted on light veins.. reddish purple but very light. Also tried to follow the little crevices that are evident in the surface of the styrofoam itself. Then outlined those veins with a fine line purple Sharpie.. Not verbatim.. Just lightly dragging the pen and letting it catch where it will at random. This pass was just to add shadows that simulate depth.

It took me a day to make six.. I don't think I even knew what I was doing with them yet. I just wanted a bunch just in case I needed them. This is after hotgluing them into the centers of some pink fake flowers from the dollar store.

I made the head-peice out of two dollar-store witches hats. I overlapped them, cut a hole.. stitched some shoe-laces into the sides to close it in a venus-fly-trappish manner. I painted over the whole thing with white acrylic paint.. painted it with the same green/yellow/flesh color/red combo as I painted the tiny flytraps with.. Then stuck a bunch of stuff on the top and back of the hood to cover where the circle for the top of the witch hat would have shown through.

On the right is how it looks inside! It was meant to fit not entirely over my head, but just to sit around the temple/jaw area.. then would be secured for bending over with a string that tied around the back of my head. Yes.. Functionality. The thing I never want to deal with but always do.

{details from the inside of the Hood}

The Apron!!! Covered in blood, dirt, little bitey things... And Modge-podge. It glistens like the blood-thirsty plants' saliva! It's also covering the little flytraps by now so they look more like they're living things. Often while I'm watching some old horror movie from the 70's or 80's that uses latex creatures or disfigurements.. it occurs to me that the only thing a lot of those bad effects needed is some texture. If it looks like rubber, the audience is instantly going to get "rubber".

Since my face was meant to be sitting in the mouth of a giant venus flytrap, I wanted to make it look a little like the plant's digestive juices were getting to my skin... So the last step was make-up; a few yellow and purple patches with creme make-up... Covered over with the same "vein" paintings as on all of the venus-flytraps. Pasting overing my make-up with a layer of spirit gum to make myself look extra gooey is probably not a detail worth doing ever again. Blargh...The only issues I had with it overall were that the headpeice was too tight and gave me a headache.. and that the nibbling plant on my fingertip fell off at one point. Although, considering how many pieces there were, I'm surprised there weren't more mis-haps. I think I'm finally getting the hang of re-wearable costumes.

There are pictures of the whole costume... somewhere. I'm waiting on a friend to send me some, so when I get those I'll update this...

The Passing of Dear Mr. Welch.

2008-10-22T01:40:00.000-07:00

In spite of some great friends trying to get a hold of me earlier, it was only tonight that I learned that my dear, dear friend, Patrick W. Welch, died last Thursday. Above and below are two of his many paintings.

I wish it were a joke. Even though I hadn't talked to him in years, I can't even begin to make someone understand how much he affected me. Of all my experiences in college, the ones having to do with him are the ones I talk about the most.. and I constantly hold him up as an example to myself and everyone else as someone who really knew what the hell he was doing. I wish to god I could have said more to him.. Not only was he the only art teacher who ever -really- taught me anything, he was also a friend who spent an inordinate amount of time laughing and being silly with us, and talked me through the times that I was stressed and unconvinced of my own self-worth.. You could tell that he was doing his job because he cared and really -wanted- to teach. I took 2 classes with him which I was assigned to.. But sat in doing projects for him for 2 quarters of additional, uncredited classes just because I enjoyed his lessons so much.

Just.. a really amazing guy. He was famous for his "Miniature Hate Paintings" and being one of the founders of the Chicago-based "Micromentalists" movement--a movement wherein art is priced according to a person's income, as to make art something everyone could afford. The only artwork I own from his is a portion of a set of cards he gave me that depict nightmarish paintings of childhood trauma.

Please look at his work:

Gallery on MySpace

Gescheidle Gallery (once past the intro, just go to the individual artists' galleries)

Some random unnecessary youtube video of him I found by accident

And some surprise audio from him explaining some things about his work.

I just found these audio clips and stuff. It hurts. But feels good to hear him talk again. I will miss him incredibly.

-Raven M.

"Toujours Gai!"

2008-10-18T05:47:00.000-07:00

Come one, come all, to my blog! It's the only place on the internet where you can find fanart of Shinbone Alley! (Well.. that isn't traced off of the VHS box art..)

Which is sort of sad actually. Even though some of the backgrounds are as muggy as a child's marker drawing, and some of the animation is downright terrible... it's really kind of complex for something a lot of people wouldn't take a second look at if they didn't already know what it was about. It begins with the suicide of a poet.. who is quickly re-introduced as a newly reincarnated cockroach. He has a pre-existing friendship with Mehitabel; this battered tramp of a cat who whores around with any asshole that's even slightly nice to her. It's bizarre to see such overt sexuality in a non-Bakshi film.. especially in such a Hannah-Barbera-esque style. At one point I'm pretty sure there's even a song sung by her and Big Bill about the business they're about to get down to. Not that its "dirty" mind you.. But it doesn't go out of its way to shield you from the ugliness of these characters' lives.

Anyway, about complexity--it's a love story at heart. A protective, but overbearing Archie is constantly trying to guide Mehitabel to the "honest, righteous path"... She stumbles constantly. Now that I think about it, it's not unlike an incredibly warped take on Pinnochio with Archie as the insect conscience. It's not until Mehitabel gives a surprise birth to some kittens that Archie is finally able to get her to take an "honest" job as a house cat. Satisfied with a job well-done, Archie visits Mehitabel; who's miserable with her boring life as a domesticated mom. Sheerly from being irritated with Archie's smarminess, she tells him that because he's a cockroach, he can't visit her in this 'nice' house.. Outraged and hurt, Archie goes out and gets drunk to show her what-for.. and to "show her" even MORE, he follows some ladybug prostitutes back to their brothel. It's thru this area of the film (which happens to be my favorite) that Archie's motivations become clear.. When the prostitutes try to steal his wallet, they find no money.. only pages and pages worth of poetry written about Mehitabel.

Sounds quite human for an animated movie about a cockroach and a cat.

A head of myself.

2008-10-16T14:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my god.. Stupid hair. You'd think the hardest part of a self-portrait wouldn't be the stuff I just made up. Grrr!

This here is my first whack at a legitimate drawing via my new tablet. While frustrating on many levels, I appreciate being able to move stuff around for better compositions and whatnot. However, the real trick here is trying to balance detail and over-all shape. I had a tendency in my youth to just.. draw all this detail without really thinking about what was underneath it. It's still something I'm getting use to. Its hard to resist the temptation to just let things lay where they fell.

I have arrived!

2008-08-25T02:37:00.000-07:00

Welcome, All. This is the first time I've used one of these bloggy-type things.. Bare with me. A few of you might know me from DeviantArt, so at some point, you may see stuff you've already seen... as I plan to move a few things over here from there. I've had that account for over TEN YEARS...! And yet I realize I don't have much artwork on it relative to how much I've drawn in that 10+ years. Obviously: something isn't clicking.

This space seems a tad more personal though, so maybe I won't feel so awkward about showing people things. Lets cross our fingers!

To get the ball rolling, here's some nonsense from my tiny red sketchbook (in addition to the last post of nonsense):

Almost everything in said sketchbook is ink... Above are some wolf-things, a crying dude.. and awkward memories from my childhood.

My therapist once suggested that I draw my "Guilt". The drippy guy in the middle of the page above represents my attempt. Guilt is viscous.. and coats everything.

The Lothario of farts.

2008-08-25T02:07:00.000-07:00

I've lied to you. This post has nothing to do with farts.