LUNK-HEADED TED

Another drawing using black and white pencils on green-colored paper. Ladies, how would you like to be kissed by those lips? It would probably feel like some 5th-grader drove over your face with his Huffy bicycle.
I like this guy a lot from the nose up. I don't like him as much under the nose. I think what I don't like is his blocky chin. He may have been better chinless, with a face coming right out of his neck.

Hope everybody had a good Christmas.

SHIP OF MONSTERS - 1960

WOW! The Mexican title is "La Nave de los Monstruos." I just ordered it on DVD at Amazon. I can't wait to get it. The dvd doesn't have any subtitles, but from the looks of it, I don't think it really needs any. It seems like even if I could understand what they were saying, I'd still be confused.

SNOOTY SNOB

This guy looks like he'd have snubbed me back in high school.


I remember back in high school there were some pretty snobby kids. There was a regular neighborhood where regular kids came from, and then there was this fancy area where all the doctors' and lawyers' kids lived. They kept to their group and we kept to ours.

Once, one of the snob girls crossed the forbidden barrier into my zone and was very suspiciously friendly all of the sudden. She and I had never talked in all the years we were in school together. In fact all the times before, she would literally sneer at me every time she looked at me. I suspected she wanted something. Eventually she asked me if I could draw some logo for some elite HS club where only the snobs were made to feel welcome. I told her I'd do it and asked when the deadline was. I remember from the very start I had no intention of doing it.

Daily, she would sweet-talk me and ask me if the logo was finished. I kept telling her "almost." She said all of the people in her club were waiting and excited about it. Then she'd sweet-talk a little more and go on about her way. It made me sick. Then the last day came, and the hour before it was due I got my friend Russell to draw something.

He didn't draw but was more than happy to help. It was supposed to be a bear, like our HS mascot doing some club-related thing. I told him to make buggy eye balls and a snake tongue. He made the tongue slithering out into a spiral, and also gave the bear pointy ears, and lightning bolts emitting from it's protruding eyeballs. Also the name of our school was Central, and he spelled it Cintrel.

The next hour came and the girl showed up and asked if the picture was ready and I handed her that masterpiece. She laughed at 1st and said, "No. Really. Where is the drawing?"

I said "If it was up your butt you'd know it!" and then my buddies cackled with laughter. She was one mad snob that day.

At the time it seemed like a just and right thing to do, but nowadays I kind of feel like a jerk for it.

THE BLOODY SWORD OF BIGFOOT

Here are a couple pages from a note book. I like the idea of a sword-wielding sasquatch. I might paint this as a fake movie poster. It would also be a fun comic book.

At 1st I tried to think of 3 famous hairy people to star in this movie. All I could come up with was 1 guy and it's kind of a cliche to make hairy Robin Williams jokes now. Then I thought about 3 of the most horrible women I could think of, women who seem sasquatchy to me.

It seemed funny in my head but now that I see it written on paper I'm repulsed by it. Especially the Rosie O'Donnell part. She's the most digusting man in show biz and the thought of her being in it makes me hate it. Will someone give me some hairy famous people names so I can change it?

MR. SMOOTH

This is one of the easiest comics I've ever made. I only had to draw a single picture. I'm happy with how it turned out.
Even though it's the same picture from frame to frame, it somehow evokes a continually changing body language as it goes. I sense a coldness in the lady in the last panel, and an uncomfortableness in the man. It was sort of intentional, but mostly accidental.

I might do more Mr. Smooth comics in the future. I can use this same image and just change the text. I didn't give it a title yet, because I'm still working on one. Mr. Smooth is ehh. Maybe Mr. Buttertongue, or Mr. Sugartongue would be funnier.

Hope everyone has a happy Christmas.

UNFINISHED PROJECT AND GENERAL ALL AROUND BAD EXPERIENCE

This is an unfinished job I more than likely will never finish at this point. I still needed to flesh out the 3 people standing on the phone, and I needed to add the title above the monster's head.

A couple years back a guy asked me to do a dvd box cover for his movie. I sent him a couple very rough ideas and and then we talked out a plan. I told him I'd do it for free for the exposure, and also he said I could do a camero appearance in his movie for fun. After I started working on this everything became mysterious. I didn't hear back from him for a year so I gave up on his project.

As luck would have it, I went to a monster movie convention and saw his booth with stacks of dvds on the table, and all the dvds had my crummy rough sketch on their covers. It was uncomfortable for both him and me. He was embarrassed for not telling me he went with the crappy version. I was uncomfortable and embarrassed that awful drawing was on all the dvds. He pointed at the dvd and said, "See? We put your name under your drawing!"

I looked and sure enough my name was under that bad drawing.

The cameo appearance thing never happened either. It was a big disappointment. Free exposure jobs are dumb and I'll never do one again. This job learnt me.

The topper-offer to this sour experience was when he gave me a free dvd, and signed it to me, and spelled my name "K-E-N." It was extra revolting because my actual name was 1 inch away from his signature, on that very dvd, under that terrible sketch, and he couldn't trouble himself to look that far away.

SOME MORE NOTEBOOK DOODLES

Like anyone who enjoys drawing, I have stacks of note books with stuff like this in it.

I notice when other people doodle in notebooks they can get 10 or 15 things on a page. I struggle with this and try to squeeze in several ideas, but I'm never successful. This may be why I have so many note books, because I only have 1 thing per page. I'm a paper waster.

BELATED ANNIVERSARY

Mei and I had our 3rd anniversary back on 11/11. I am just now finding these pictures on the camera. We (she) started a tradition where I hoist her into the air for a photo each anniversary. I did it the 1st year, forgot the 2nd year, and remembered again this year. I hope this isn't a tradition I will dread in the future. She's tiny so that's not the problem. I am getting old and out of shape.


She got a new gigantic purse, and I got those shoes.

NOTEBOOK DOODLES

Today I have a lung infection. I had to go get X-rayed and poked with a needle. I coughed so hard I hurt my neck. I can feel my stomach muscles getting stronger from all the coughing. Anyway, just as a warning, you should wash your hands with antibacterial soap after viewing my post today.

SLIM and SLAM #1

Here's a whole new set of characters. I can't stick with anything! Eventually I wanna do more Blood Count comics but I keep getting distracted. I added some yellow shades to this because people like color.


Here's what it looks like without color:

I hear all kinds of techniques when it comes to chess. One guy told me you have to think 7 moves ahead. That's ridiculous! Who can do that?! And then if the other guy doesn't move like you wanted him to, your plans are down the crapper. I used to know some 3-move winning trick back in the day, but I've forgotten it now. I'm sure it's easy to look up on the googlenets. I remember it was something to do with moving a pawn out of the way so the queen and bishop could slide out.

ANOTHER SCENE FROM OUR MOVIE

Here's one more short part from the wood shop movie my friend Allen and I made. This is a very small chunklet of a more lengthy hammering scene.


The hand in the closeup is mine. The bulk of our movie was recorded on a camcorder, but this closeup hand scene was filmed with my plain old Kodak M1033 pocket camera, on the movie setting. I thought it looked as good as what we did with the camcorder (which may not be saying much.)

The music in the background was written and recorded by my brother Kevin and me. My brother is singing, drumming and playing the rhythm guitar. I played the slide guitar and I guess that's it. I do remember also the words were being made up on the fly, as the tape-recorder cranked. Kevin would sing a line, think of a line, sing a line, and so on. He was really good because every line rhymed and was right on beat, and it even made sense. In one part of the song I whisper-suggested something for him to sing and it made us both laugh, and he had trouble singing the rest. We kept all the laughing in the song. You can hear bird chirping in the background. That's not coming from outside; it was all on that song. We had a budgie back then and he chirped a lot when we recorded. I'm sure it was bird-talk for WOOHOO! ENCORE!

For more scenes from our film masterpiece click HERE and HERE.

SHMOE

This is another pencil drawing on colored paper. I used gray paper on this one. It still works but the white isn't as strong. This paper I'm using is pretty sturdy and thick. Earlier I said go ahead and use construction paper, but Bob pointed out it fades. He's right. Also it's just flimsy. If you're gonna take the time to draw something, don't use temporary materials.

Since this is drawn on nice paper I feel confident in stating it's suitable for hanging over the mantle in any nice living room. Just think how impressed your girlfriend or boss would be if they came to your home as saw a fine piece such as THIS on your wall. You wouldn't even have to tell them; they'd already know how cultured and well-to-do you are.

LI'L GUTBUCKET

Immediately after I finished this I thought of a better way to do the sequence. Also I'm not real happy with that last frame. I'm gonna try to redo the whole thing in the near future.

I thought for the REDO I could have him walking around in an amusement park. He sees signs on all the rides stating: MUST BE 40" TO RIDE. Each time he sees this sign he is saddened because he's too short.

Later he sees this sign at the hoochie coochie tent (my grandma told me they had hoochie coochie tents at the fairs when she was little) and it has a MUST BE 21 TO ENTER sign beside the tent flap. He jumps for joy and runs inside. I figure no tape-measuring would be necessary for that version.

HUMOROUS TABLE SAW ACCIDENT

This is another chunk out of the 15 minute woodshop movie my friend Allen and I made. Allen is the guy you see in the scene, while I did the effects. This scene comes after THIS part I previously posted.

The table saw wasn't actually plugged in. I used a saw sound effect right where he pretends to flip the switch. If you look at the blade it's not even spinning.

PEELED FRANKENSTEIN

You know how sometimes you see a Frankenstein monster with all its skin peeled off? Well, Here's another one.

FLIP THE BIRD

I think I did this drawing more for the joke name than the character itself.

This was made with the "Liquify" tool in my photo manipulatin' program.

1st I drew an aqua-blue colored ball and shaded it with the airbrush tool.

Then I used the Liquify filter in my photo-manipulatin' program. With that you can squish and squoosh and stretch it into any shape you desire, just like clay.


Don't forget to save a copy of your original ball shape on another layer beforehand so you can add new pieces to your creation. His body was 1 piece, the feathers were separate pieces, his legs and toes were separate pieces, and his beak was a separate piece. I changed the hue of the beak to make it orange, and added nose holes, but it's mostly just a smashed up ball shape. Same for the legs, I used the Hue adjustment to change their color after I got them squeezed into the shapes I wanted.

The cheeks, head and eyeballs were all separate pieces. To make pieces blend smoothly together (like the cheeks into the head) I feathered the edges with the eraser tool so they were fuzzy.

I'll try to make a tutorial but it seems so simple and intuitive I don't know if anyone would need it. If you can squash a ball of clay then you can do this. Give it a try!

LIPOSUCTION LOUIE

He had all the fat removed from his face to make himself more attractive.

This is another drawing done with black and white pencils on brown paper.

Unlike painting, pencil drawing is very relaxing. With paint you have to work quickly before your mix starts to dry, and if you mess up you've gotta wait for it to dry so you can paint over it. Something about knowing there's wet paint on the tip of your brush puts you into a more frenzied mood. Painting is fun and I guess it can be relaxing, but there's a lot of setup time and it's messy, and once you start you're in it for the long haul. You have to go until you're done. With pencils you can stop and start and come and go as you please.

BACKWEIRDS

Here's an old pencil drawing. Get some old brown paper bag and cut it into a square, and then get some Prismacolor pencils. Black and White.

Draw with the black 1st, and when that's all done hit the highlights with the white pencil.

IF you don't have a brown paper bag you can actually go get some colored paper at the store. I don't recommend construction paper. When you erase it the paper will rub off. Now that I think about it, those Prismacolor pencils don't really erase anyway. Go ahead and use construction paper if you want; just don't make any mistakes.

If you do you can do what I do and work it into the picture somehow. A bad line can easily become a fly buzzing around the subject's head, or a sore on the subject's head. If you are drawing something pretty then don't use the "flies and sores" trick.

JOHNNY REBB AND THE ATLANTICS - COME ON

Those dreamy eyes! That dreamy wig! Those dreamy dance moves during the guitar solo! Those dreamy nervous glances into the camera at inappropriate moments! Oh, how could the ladies resist?! Actually I love this song so much I forgive him for all of that.

Johnny Rebb and the Atlantics are from Australia and apparently they were a surf band before Johnny joined. I wanted to buy a cd with this song but the only one I found on Amazon was $45.99. Poop! They must want that cd more than me so I'm letting them keep it. They offer a used copy for $75.13 which makes perfect sense. I guess as long as it's available on Youtube I don't really need to buy it.

SCHOOL MASCOT

The reason I am just now thinking about this is because I saw a kid in the shoe store the other day with this on his t-shirt. I remember this project became less and less fun as they asked for it to be less and less pointy. The 1st version had pointy teeth and claws and a mean face. Then they said they needed the teeth to be rounded because it was too mean for middle school. After I changed that they said the claws were too pointy so I had to dull them up. Then they said his expression was too evil so I teddy-beared his face up.
Even though they were only middle school kids why can't they have pointy teeth and claws? Will they get nightmares? I personally think a dull tooth would hurt much more than a sharp tooth. Sharp teeth will penetrate with less surface tension than dull teeth. A dull tooth may require 10 times the clamping pressure to finally puncture and tear the skin. Also razor-sharp cuts don't leave nasty scars.

For that matter, what's with the 20MPH zone in front of schools? If I drive over a kid at 20MPH it will only drag out the crunching pain and torture even longer. Why not go fast and get it over with? And there's also the possibility the kid could even be knocked clear of the car's tire path. See? (joking)