TRAIN TRACK ILLUSTRATION

This is a "can you figure out what happened" picture.

LITTLE BOBDOG CANDY

Japanese candy. Sometimes Japanese kids want to smoke too, and it's not fair they have to wait until they get older. I saw this Little Bobdog character a lot in the Chinese stores so he must be popular all over. He seems like a sweet and cute little guy, sort of like Mickey Mouse, and he's a very skilled smoker too. See how his middle and index fingers pinch the cigarette like a pro? He makes it seem so cool he's already impressing his pal with it.

This is just LITTLE Bobdog. I wonder what he'll do when he's BIG Bobdog. I guess the nicest thing about this is it brings families closer together by promoting father/son activity.

NOTEBOOK DOODLES - Abe

It's never easy to get a laugh out of a Lincoln assassination joke. He wins this time though so it's okay, right?

I couldn't remember how many moles he had on his face. Maybe there's not supposed to be one on his nose. I was too lazy to google it since the computer was in the other room. If he doesn't have a mole on his nose then that's a cyst.

EVIL PRANK (for use at Chinese restaurant)

Here's an evil prank idea I've tried and tested and am happy to report it works great. I scanned fortune cookie messages and replaced the nice fortunes with sinister messages. Prepare these evil fortune cookie messages before your next visit to a Chinese restaurant.

STEP 1
Print this image full scale. Do not scale the image to fit on the page. It's very important it's printed FULL SCALE!


STEP 2
Carefully trim out these messages as indicated by the crop marks.


STEP 3
Fold in half to simulate the crimp made by fortune cookie.


STEP 4 (Optional)
To make it even more authentic, pinch the 2 outside edges a little bit in their centers to simulate the secondary crimp made by the cookie.


STEP 5
At the end of your meal, before they give you your fortune cookie, secretly remove one of these evil messages from your wallet and place it in your palm as indicated by this picture. As you open your cookie right in front of your waiter or waitress, you can very easily pretend you are pulling this evil message out of your cookie.

Then the rest is up to you. You must act surprised as you show your waiter or waitress. You can not laugh or smile.

POST-IT NOTES ARE FUN again

POST-IT NOTES ARE FUN

Drawing on Post-It notes is good practice because it forces me to cut out all but the most important lines since I don't have a lot of room to work on. Also it trains me to compose everything in a box shape. Box shapes are pleasing to the eye and very useful when it comes to designing logos, comics and album-type illustration.

The very nature of it creates a No-worry Throw-away attitude in my brain. When I can go about it with that attitude I never tire of drawing. I relax and waste paper with no regrets.

It's also a very discreet method of drawing when you don't like everyone to know what you are doing.
One illustrator I admire said when you draw very small, thumbnail size, you can take in the entire image in one glance. I think that's true. Drawing very small is good for creating initial sketches and getting proportions correct.

Sometimes on a larger scale you lose your bearings when you can't see the foot at the same time you look at the head. This happens sometimes on mural illustration. It's very difficult to know if you have the mouth in the right spot when the eyes are several feet away. Natural perspective also does evil trickery on your brain. What you think you see up close is nothing at all what other people see standing across the street.

I should rename this blog KW Monster's Wild Tangent Ramblings.

BAT CAUGHT IN THE ACT

CLICK TO SEE HALF-TONE DOT DETAIL
I was wanting to make a horrorific comic-style bat, but instead of looking horrifying, he looks more like he's just been caught doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing. I liked that better anyway.

I made up a philosophy for pictures like this:
When in doubt
Black it out.
This method probably works best with "scary" pictures. I tried a few things on his fingers, like hair and tendons and veins, and nothing looked all that good. I colored it in black and then it worked better. This way the texture and dimension of his hand is created in the viewer's mind. That way it's as perfect as it can be. More black would have been even better, and I know this is a bad reason, but I didn't want to use up my ink pen on this practice doodle drawing.

There wasn't enough paper so his hand couldn't open up like it needed to (see below.)

Later (in the picture above) I opened it up a bit more.

NOTEBOOK DOODLES part R

I was trying to draw a character like the ones on kitchen cleaning product commercials in the 60s. I got the front view how I wanted it, but I had trouble with the side view.

I did the profile on the left 1st but realized I'd drawn her with a chin and she shouldn't have one according to the front view. When I drew the one on the right, without the chin it looked even less like her. I figured 10% of the problem was the mouth, and 90% of the problem was the eye.

I drew and redrew and never could get the eye how I wanted. I think the problem might be I'm going forward with the eyelashes instead of back and up, cat-style. After building up a gang of eyes, I took a step back and realized this drawing could be mistaken as creepy, and went with that.

Now I don't even know why I was so concerned with her profile view. I doubt I'd ever need it. It is frustrating I can't get it right. If I ever find a use for her I'll attempt her profile again. Maybe she's one of those characters whose faces only work in one direction, like Popeye and Dick Tracy.

"GUY GIRL GOON" signed prints available

Remember this painting? Well, now it's possible for you to...

FEEL! This guy's anger!

HEAR! This girl's shrieks!

SMELL! This goon!

It was my 1st post. That post also came with instructions for doing your very own painting just like this one, but if you are lazy like me and don't have the time, I do have prints available for sale. The print is on slick and snazzy card stock suitable for framing, and it's exactly the same size as the original, 11x14 inches, so you can get all up in its face and see its disgusting detail!

The price is $34 and the shipping is free in the USA.

Each print is signed by me (unless you don't want that mucking it all up. I understand. It's already revolting enough as it is.)

There's a link over on the right with a PayPal button.

(I know I post a few fake products every once in a while, but I wanted to make it clear this is not a joke. It's really real. If you doubt it just click on that button over there and see if something doesn't get delivered to your home. The reason I say this is because I've been asked in the past if those Pukey Pals trading cards were fake. They are the opposite of fake; they are really, really real.)

MYSTERY OF THE MINUS-MEN

Fake comic cover admittedly inspired by Jack Kirby. "Inspired" is a nice impressive way of saying "copying" or "mocking" or "ripping off." The idea is mine but the style isn't.

Depending on the tone in your voice, saying "What's their DEAL?!" or saying "What's THEIR deal?!" can sound either like they are really mysterious, or like they are really annoying.

Same goes for:

"WHO invited them?!" (they are mysterious)

"Who invited THEM?!" (they are annoying)

This is a clean version without the fake wear on the edges.


This was my original sketch. I used my photo-manipulatin' program to remove the blue lines, and draw their shoulders, and colors and whatever else you see in the versions above.
If I made a comic with these guys I'd want the minus symbols on their foreheads to be slots. Also I'd want there to be a part in the story where their leader puts giant space quarters into those slots to either activate or deactivate them.

TEFLON COATED

If there are any bullet manufacturers out there who need a stamp-type image to put on their products to describe to folks the bullets in that particular box have teflon coatings, talk to me. I have this ready to go.



Here is an artificial simulation of what it would look like in action.

DISGUSTFUL DARRELL

This guy is pretty fun to draw. He's mostly a triangle with the top point bent over.

I still ain't sure what color he should be. I guess red seems the most obvious.

Here's the original sketch. Nothing really changed. I kind of like these original fingers better, without the claws. I'm not sure about his name either. I was wanting a character who did mean tricks to people. I have lots of mean prank ideas in my head and this would be a way to get them out of my system without actually maiming people.

CHINESE GROCERY

I went with my wife to the Chinese grocery and saw this. It's blurry because I took it with my cell phone. My immune system for odd translations is pretty high, but things like this still catch my eye.

When they say "Deer's Tail Extract" I hope they mean some sort of juice which comes from the innards of the tail, and not what comes from below it. It also says "Oral Solution." That must mean there are other versions. That makes me wonder how you take it if not orally. Only one other way immediately comes to mind.

I'd been under the impression it was illegal to sell deer meat, but maybe the tail juice is a different thing. It seems cheap too at $4.99 seeing as how you'd have to kill a whole deer to get it. That is unless someone else was cleaning their deer and this company saw the deer's tail on the ground and asked if the cleaner needed that part.

OR... They don't kill the deer. Maybe they have a little deer farm and they come up to a deer and squeeze its tail kind of like the way cows are milked. Then they could reuse the deers. I should find out before I do any more speculating.

CHAIR IDEA

Idea for a chair. The only reason I haven't made one yet is laziness.

SHRUNKEN-HEAD JOE

It was more than 10 years ago now I did a comic strip in a local monthly entertainment magazine called News-4U. It ran a little bit more than 2 years. Here are the 1st 4 strips. In the beginning I did it by myself but soon after I found myself stressed out by the grueling 1-strip-a-month pace, and called upon my friend Bob Canada to help me. When Bob started helping the strips looked better but I don't have any of those scanned yet.
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

I only have these 4 scans right now. They aren't as clear as they could be because I scanned the printed magazine pages. Someday I'd like to dig out the originals and scan them nice and clear.
The strip was fairly gory when it needed to be STRICTLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF MOVING THE STORY ALONG and not at all just for the fun of it. No way! Uh uh!
I came up with a secret code system using letters and numbers back when I was in high school. Who would have known it would come in handy later in life.

We got $30 for 1 strip and divided that so we made $15 each. We did it more for the fun than the money. After Bob started helping me he would pencil and I would ink. Eventually Bob wrote the story too so all I did was ink and give joke input every once in a while. That sounds easy enough, right? Well it wasn't. Bob was really good at drawing extremely microscopically indescribably tiny, and I wasn't. He loaded the page up with details apparently drawn with Hobbit pencils. I remember he'd have an entire character's face within the area of what my brushpen tip would cover if I even made a dot.

I remember pleading with Bob to ease up on the details. Then I remember him saying okay. Then I remember him handing me the next strip and it had an army of 5,000 Ant-Creatures in each of the 3" x 3" panels.

We were given free website space at the time (from these guys) so we had a website called shrunkenheadjoe dot com. We had all the strips on there and various other features. There was animation, music, reader comments, model sheets and even an action figure. Shrunken-Head Joe's character was a singer and some of the songs he performed in the strip could be heard for real on the website (recorded by my brother and me.)

Eventually the big cheese of News-4U actually read it and fired us. We got away with a lot before he finally looked. Sucka! Getting fired was almost a relief. It seemed like a lot of work for what was essentially 50 cents a day for Bob and me. $30 per strip is not much but if we'd had it in more magazines I guess that $30 would add up.

Hey! If there are any hip entertainment magazines out there (not afraid of a little blood) in need of a 2 year supply of comics we have them ready to go. Contact Bob or me.

NOTEBOOK DOODLES part L

I had something in my mind and I never could get it to come out exactly like I wanted on paper.

This guy's sword should have been longer but I started the drawing too high on the paper. That arrow is a personal note to me as a reminder if I ever drew it again to lengthen the sword.

Paper too short again. It would have been nice if the knives were longer.


There are more versions of this guy but their head shapes are too disturbing to post. They almost approach the distortion of Carrot Top.

The paper in this notebook I'm using sucks up the ink really fast. Money-wise I don't like that because the brush pens are expensive. Fun-wise though I do enjoy drawing on this paper. I'm using cheap fat Sharpies to fill in the large areas of black to conserve my brush pen ink.

The absorbency of this paper forces me to draw as large as possible so my ink lines don't bleed together as much, and that in turn forces me to be faster with my lines in order to get a smooth arc over a long distance. Then the faster arcs sort of aim me in a specific direction as far as style goes.

THE NEW MICHAEL JACKSON

Now that Michael's gone I've found myself turning to Carrot Top for my freak show fix.

I don't think it's cheating to put plastic muscles under your skin. I support this. I want him to distort himself even more so I can watch and marvel at the mind boggling spectacle! It's exciting!

MINIATURE SKELETON

This miniature skeleton is hand-carved from real bone. Sadly it's not human bone; just a cow bone, but still! Something about a tiny skeleton made out of real bone thrills me.

These pictures don't do it justice either. Up close you can see little carved-in cracks and details just like in a real skeleton. I especially love the head. The person who carved it went above and beyond the call of duty. The jaw is all hollowed out just like a real one. Who even looks under there? I guess I did.
The skull is balanced on a tiny fragile neck. Look at all the ribs and the undercut shoulder blades.
It's a blurry picture but you can see under his jaw the neck bone segments are carved.
He's even carved out inside his rib cage.
The carver went ahead and carved toe segments on the bottom side as well.
He's just over 2" tall. Imagine how frustrating it would have been to get him nearly finished and then break him. Fortunately he made it.
Even though China makes some low quality merchandise they also make some of the highest quality hand work in the whole world. We'll never know it though because our market doesn't want to pay any more than is absolutely necessary.

At my job there's a lot of 'MADE IN CHINA' bashing coming from the factory workers. I'm as happy and as proud as anyone when I see MADE IN USA on something, but I don't think I've seen that in years. It's not China's fault when we go to them and say "We want you to make this for us, and we don't want to pay you a lot of money for it, so do what you can do."

If we went to China and said "Make me a nice shirt and here's $4 instead of $.50" it would probably be a pretty good shirt.

My in-laws live in China and when we visit them they always ask us to bring them something that says MADE IN USA. That's a big-time status symbol for them if they have an American-made item to show to their friends. It's also a big-time frustrating task because I can spend months going to every store I can think of, and I never find a single thing. Once I found a purse that was made here, and the price was $800 so I put it back on the rack and pretended I couldn't find anything. I'm guilty of doing exactly the same thing I just got done talking about.

NOTEBOOK DOODLES again

Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom

By Walt Disney in 1953

It's a little bit un-PC for these days so be warned. I like the animation a lot, and also I learned something about horns after watching it. Back then they would animate things even when they weren't doing anything. Nowadays Flash-animated characters don't move until they absolutely have to.

This cartoon has 2 distinct styles. There's a framing devise of a classroom to explain the actual meat of the cartoon. The classroom is done in the traditional Disney style. Then there's the musical part of the cartoon. That's my favorite part. I really like that streamlined, engineered and simplified style.

(The following has been rewritten in light of a new outlook, and so I don't appear as moronic as I did before.)

At 1st I thought John K hated this style but I was mistaken (see comments below.) John K breaks it down really well and for some reason I thought he was explaining why he hated it, but I misread it. I had no idea there was that much thought and planning going into these layouts. After I read his post and rewatched the cartoon, I do see all the imaginary construction lines.

DUMB-BABY #1

Some of you guys asked for a Dumb-Baby comic so here you go. I went 2 different ways with it.

This way makes the mom out to be evil.


This way makes Dumb-Baby out to be evil.


It's probably not a very good 1st comic since the main character isn't even in the picture. I'll keep trying and do a better one eventually.

Sorry for the recent spewing of poo jokes. I admit it's the cheater's way since by its very nature poo is uncomfortable and awkward, therefore laughable. It's a cheater's method because you can put it in anything for a cheap laugh. I'd like to improve my joke-writing skills and using poo doesn't get me any further along.

CEREAL BOX PRIZES and LAUREL AND HARDY

I found this stuff cheap in a box at the Louisville flea market last weekend.

Here are some Laurel and Hardy rubber figures about 2 inches tall. They're made of pretty hard rubber so I don't think they're erasers.



This is a random hodge-podge of weird stuff.

The 2 guys on the top are little aliens or robots. What are these things? Does anybody know? They still had the plastic wrappers. One was opened so I could look at it better. Normally I don't care about keeping things in wrappers but since these things have made it this long with them, I might as well keep them like that.

The orange thing on the lower left is a Freakies cereal prize. The thing on the lower right is a cave woman. I don't know what she comes from. Does anyone know who she is?

SOME MORE NOTEBOOK DOODLES

Here are some random doodles from a note book. I apologize in advance for 2 of them.