...just in time for Christmas i've done a self potrait of sorts. Here I am rockin out. I borrowed the basic shape and pose from the guitarist on Weird Al's video for "I'll Sue Ya" the differences are as follows. I don't wear glasses. I don't have a goatee. My tie is faded black or dark grey if you will. My pants are faded black or grey if you will. My guitar is red. Oh and finally I have a blue gradient fill as a background instead of the star spangeld banner and an eagle.
...more pictures to come as i also have some more people at work who have requested one of those PTHell photo ID barcode thingys i've now known at work for producing. One guy i admit i cheated on though. It just so happens he shares the same name as a recent Dreamworks animation character. So for his ID card i just used a pic of that character.(ps ie Madagascar the lion) Ok thats all for tonight.
...hi y'all. No new drawings yet. I've been on a kind of hiatus for the latter part of this summer. But things are looking up. I have a few ideas together for 3 strips but haven't the time to put into them so far. Things are starting to settle into a routine here and i'm hoping to get working on the comic strips soon. Aside from that I also have an idea for the car. A while ago i scratched up the middle of the dash. On the weekend i decided to try and fix that so i took off one piece and used some wet sandpaper 800 grit and sanded it smooth. Then i let it dry. then noticed that the plastic was more grey then black underneath so i decided to repaint it. 2 coats of grey primer. 3 coats of metallic blue. Looks ok but perhaps next payday if its sunny i'll add 2 or 3 coats of high gloss clear on top then that should make it "POP". If when done i'll post some pictures. Besides i gotta fix the one vent. i think a lever came loose from the dial. The whole centre consloe comes off as one piece so it won't be too hard. Just gotta be gentle because its all plastic. Thats quality german engineering for ya. ok thats all for now.
...As the title would suggest this post is come almost 2 weeks late. Only because i've been so busy doing other stuff. Like changing the oil in the car. Setting up some music for a weekend house party. And now i got an idea for another fan art project/commercial parody. Well enough of my drama here's "El Marr"
...i tryed to vary the skin tone to emulate the lighting effect but it didn't turn out exactly how i liked. Perhaps i'll stick to flat tones for now. Comments please. I do read them if any. OK nuff fer now.
...Tonights drawing is another person from work. I'll call her "Jazzy" which coincedently is also my niece's nickname.
...It seems I've fallen behind on some other work as well. I will be working on some code and updating my other page soon. I don't want to spoil it but here's a hint. Ok thats all for now.
...OK so here is the other visitor from Holland. I gather he doesn't have a nickname so I might suggest "Größermann" but only because in comparison to "Dee" whom he referred to as "Der Klinermann" to which I add "just because he's smaller than you doesn't any less of a man!" Ha I kill me. LOL
...looks as though I didn't miss them after all its just they are exploring Vancouver Island for a few days before leaving next week. So I have made for them PTH Visitor Passes using todays drawing and the one from yesterday. Also got the car fixed. I cost me only a mere $388.95. WTF ONLY A MERE!!! I might be broke for vacation time.
...the good news is that for the past few weeks we've had some cool folks visiting from Holland at work. I wanted to give them a neat souvenir but didn't make it in time. But I have done one picture.
...and the bad news? the window on my car refuses to go up. the motor runs but there is a grinding noise. Great anyway I'm going straight to the dealership today. See y'all maybe later today maybe tomorrow.
...I finally got something to work the way i wanted and this pic will make it neater. Only the original was way too big so i've cropped it to get the pic above. I've taken my camera to work and will be doing some more drawings with photo refs soon. Check you later
...I've taken to carrying 5x8 writing pad on a 9x6 clip board and a pencil tucked under the clip that makes the page 5x7. When I have time at work i've done some recent schetches. Here they are slighly enhanced via photoshop and my scanner.
...the first one (up top) is suppost to be a co-workers '98 FORD Ranger and he was going to pose beside it OCC style but when i got that far lunch break was over so perhaps another time i'll get to draw him. The next ones of the work benches we use at work. And the last one is of Christina, driving her Honda Civic. Unfortunatly she also doesn't have a nick name that I was aware of so in this case its her "real" name hope she don't sue me. What I enjoyed about her drawing was the hair. Well thats all for now.
...Its another charactor from work. He works in the stock room so it reminded me so much of one of the few times i went to cadets. There was the stores master. You could get almost anything you wanted from stores but the trick was getting the proper forms filled out. Anyway this "panel" led me to an idea for a full strip. I've done some preliminary schetches but nothing to post just yet. By the way this charactor i'll call "Dee".
...of course i forgot to save the full image before i cropped it so i suppose i'll have to redo this at some point but the pic works well at this size to make fake ID cards but only for the persons they repersents personal use. I see it as a way the people can have a neat hard copy of thier alter-ego sort of speak. That and it has the added functionality of a duplicate ID card we use at work.
...Diva is the nickname for the person i most recently did a drawing of. But as usuall I didn't get her ok until a few days later. so anyway here you go.
... I do have 2 other drawings that are in progress. Hopefully i will finish at least one tonight and post it tommorow.
...Well here I go again with another picture. The problem is that there is no "Indian" equivalent of Venus. So therefore i'm not shure what to call this. I would probably make up a nick name for the person it is to represent but then her real name is hard to make a nick without making it sound derogitory. As much as I would like to draw this person as a ugly monster i've decided to be ironic and draw the opposite of her like this.
...All being said. I think it looks ok. If you happen to guess who it might be then kudos to you. Just do me a favor and let me know by clicking down there on the 0 comments link and leave a comment. I reserve the right to edit or delete rude comments so be warned. Oh ya and suggestions for the next portrait i'll take in person only.
...No artwork tonight, sawy :( I spent the evening updating my resume. I'm not telling why so don't ask. On the other hand I also took some time to reaquaint myself with Microshaft Excel. I did a Yahtzee knockoff. Basically its the same except i've added a couple extra rows on the bottom of the form. Thats all for tonight.
...Well i'm finally done another project. I'll wait and see if it is accepted before i post it here though. In other news I got an OK from another person from work. Once again she wanted to remain anonymous. Funny thing is that the first person i drew after seeing her picture asked me to do tonights person next but she did not select the next person so this might be the last for now.
...Also on a completly different topic I heard them play "Hurt" by Johnny Cash on CFOX today and it turns out that "Hurt" was in fact a cover of Nine Inch Nails. I have since listened to the original and have come to the same conclusion as before. Although there is no argument of the intense talent of Trent Reznor for writing lyrics I can't help cringe at the instumentation. I find the "industrial" sound difficult to listen to. So I guess if you can get past the ear torture then Nine Inch Nails might be worth a listen.
...So I happened to be reading another of my favorite webcomics when i noticed the author/artist was going to make a fan art contest. I think i'll enter. So far here's what I got.
...I figure i've got 4 more panels to go. I don't want to spoil the rest so consider this the only sneak peak i'm posting until after i'm finished.
...Woah DUDES there is so many things going on right now. People moving around. Hockey teams being eliminated. Holiday meals with friends. And of course little ol' me reading webcomics, making fake ID's and doing some drawing. On the topic of webcomics i happened on a link to an article in Wikipedia about listening to Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz. At first I thought it was a joke but after watching it on low res I was AMAZED. It totally works. On the topic of doing some drawing i had drawn my interpretation of someone from work. Fortunatly they thought it did not resemble them so i'm going ahead and posting the drawing here.
...the second picture is the rough outline i started with. I changed the lips because she looked way too serious. I think i'll call her "Cinnamon" She has razor sharp wit and an almost wicked sarcasm but of course you'd never suspect it from the nice gal. By the way i also like the way the gradient fill worked in the background. More to come. Perhaps tomorrow i'll do another. In any case this is all for now.
...My sister came to visit the girls. I drew her car parked out on the street. Its a 1990 Pontiac Grand Am.
...I'm glad to report i've figured out how to expand the selection like Jeph mentioned but i find 3 pixels work better for me. I also tryed using a dark blue for the inital schetch. When I set the schetch layer to 20% opacity the blue goes a pleasent shade lighter. Its not visible here though because i've removed it before publishing. Come to think of it perhaps on my next drawing i'll post the schetch layer, the ink layer, the fill layer and the finished picture to show it all a little better. Thats all for tonight.
...Going back to Daylight Savings Time? What a pain. I've been so wiped this last week. I shure hope my body adjusts soon. I've just finished looking at the latest post on Jeph Jacques blog and after following this link i have some ideas that may find there way into my next drawing. For now though this is what i have.
...yes it's true we have each our own alarm clocks. Renee's is teal, mine is grey. The lamp is ficticious. We actually have those obnoxious touch lamps. If you happen to be an Amateur Radio operator and own both a Handheld Transciever and touch lamps try this for fun. Press the PTT while aiming the antenna at the lamp. WHEEEEE such fun LOL. Ok g'nite for now.
...ive been trying to set up another website in addition to this blog but it doesn't seem to be working so i guess this will have to do for now. When all the drawings are assembled it should look something like this.
...and the title of this strip would be "The Parental Suggestive Force". I'm thinking of using "Tentatively Titled" as a title for the comic at least until I come up with a better one. Ok thats all for today.
...Ok so here you all go. I lost track of how long this took but i think it was about 4 hours again. My little model would never have been able to stand posing for that long so i cheated a little and used a photo as a reference again.
...I had to do some enhancing and cropping then tracing which went ok untill i went to copy and paste into new picture. I deleted the original trace by mistake. When I realized the paste was wrong i couldn't fix it so I had to start over. Eventually though I stuck with it. I even went into extra and tryed a little more successfully to do text bubbles.
...Of course Renee is really worried 'cause she thinks everyone will think she spends all her time on the couch but let me assure y'all that once all these drawings are amalgamated you'll see thats not the case. More to come. G'night fer now.
...as the title would suggest this is Renee on the couch watching TV.
...This one took me about 2 hours to complete. I guess that means i'm getting faster at it. I also tryed some shading like you can see on the couch, the blinds, pillow and Renee's hair. Man I gotta figure out speech bubbles. I could just picture whats written there. I already am thinking of the next panel. But thats for another night.
...yep yep roughly 4 hours of work and this is what you get...
...lets call em "Phil" circa 1993 fresh outta highschool and ready to rock the world. The Background I'll call the driveway viewed from the street. I think perhaps i'm missing sidwalk cracks and perhaps his jacket needs pockets but I'm too tired now so too bad and its off to bed I go. BTW while I drew this I kept bouncing between "Here I Go Again by Whitesnake" and "Bolivard of Broken Dreams by Green Day".
...something happened at work today. As much as I want to spill all the details I can't. The fear of being suied or dismissed keeps it that way. I guess the only way I can express the way I feel is for you to have a listen to Hurt by Johnny Cash. The track appears on the last record he did before he died. To make matters worse on the way back from having dinner tonight I had a flat tire. 7:45pm No tire joints are open that late so I guess I'll be driving on my spare till sometime tommorow. So many thoughts running through my head. Where to start, I don't know. Hopefully tomorow will be better. Hopefully....
...maaaan I just love eating out at resturants. Especially ones where they give the kids crayons and activity placemats. I always end up drawing something. Last night we went to a certain resturant. OK here's a hint. Imagine there is a city in the US that is not only famous for the Bruins hockey team but they also make great Pizza. Got it? So anyway we were seated and I was able to watch the last period of the Toronto Maple Leafs beating the Tampa Bay Lightning. So what would you draw? I drew this.....
...well now thats some powerfull scanner you can see the reflection of the front of the paper with logo of said resturant near his skates. Guess one disadvantage of using crayon as a medium is there is no means to correct small mistakes. If you guess them I don't have any prizes. Anyway more artwork to come.
…well here goes after reading through Jeph's tutorial on how he draws I've decided to jump in and try some of this crazy webcomic stuff. I have plenty of ideas on characters and locations but not much on story or plot lines yet. In a way I've always thought my life was somewhat comical at times so it might be loosly autobiographical in nature. The trick will of course be creating characters that are near to my personal experiences without infringing on anyones likeness. More on that later. For now I'm going to try to concentrate on locations. I think I'll start with my rocking chair. For reference I've photographed it.
...then using Adobe Photoshop Elements a few hours later I came up with this...
...not bad eh? Well thats it for tonight next up will be the couch.
...wahoooooozorz I'm like totally psyched. Our income tax return came in and i'm like ka-ching way cool now i can buy that drawing tablet. WOAH hoooold it. Looks like i made a mistake. The one I almost bought would have been a problem. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology (which is cool) but since i don't have no steeenking bluetooth port it might not work to well. Lucky for me the store i went to happened to also carry the higher end models. For $20 more I got this model. Shure its smaller than this but what i lose in surface area I more than gain in functionality. I don't bother with the mouse because I was able to leave my other mouse plugged in. I musta spent 5 or 6 hours playing with it and the bundled software (mainly Photoshop Elements 3) this makes drawing super easy. I also love the functionality of it within windows itself. Well i gotta go but be shure to check back often because I promise some new artwork will be appearing soon.
...Oh maaaaan. So like I finally did the front brakes on the car. I had this whole plan in my head that I was going to set up the tripod and document everything in a photo essay. I had read the manual several times to make sure I knew exactly what had to be done. First I had to get the parts. What an adventure that was. The first store had only the pads. For rotors I had to go to the warehouse location across the river. Of course when I got there it was only to find they did not have them after all. Turns out the first store might have sold me the wrong ones because the second store in looking for them discovered the ones they did have plenty of the stock number had the last two numbers reversed. Well I needed some other supplies so I got them there and then went to store number three. At store number three not only did they have the rotors they also had the pads. Why oh why did I not simply go there first??? By that time the girls where super hungry so we went ate and then home to crash. Next day no time to lose I get out the jack and jackstands. Put the car on the stands and took off the first wheel. Looked ok there oh wait gotta take out some brake fluid from resovier. Nope can't do that the MAF sensor and resonance chamber in the way. No problem right? wrong i got the air box cover off but still had to bend and tuck intake hose and resonance chamber under engine cover. Ok so now i gotta remove the guide pins. WTF they are 7mm allen wrenches. In all my many toolboxes I have 6 and 8 but no 7mm. Best i could do was 1/4 inch which did the job but not perfectly. Got the calipers off and pryed off the outward pad. Oh ya gotta compress the caliper to make room for new pads. That c clamp I bought came in handy. Ok so now i set the new pads in the caliper but wait the inner one seems loose. Lucky for me a friend of my wife came by. Her husband is a mechanic and pointed out that on closer inspection i had two outside pads (thanks much Wayne). I probably would have figured that out but thanks to him I was saved the time. The rotor came off relatively easily. Everything went back together easily so on to the other side. Uh oh the top guide pin would not come off. I could get the caliper off if the rotor was off. The rotor wouldn't budge. I had to take a mallet to it to beat it off. With the rotor off I was able to wrestle the pads out of the caliper and then slide off the caliper from the guide pin. I put the new pads in the caliper and the new rotor on the hub. Then i called my friend who was already on the way to stop in at an unidentifed auto parts store to pick up a 7mm allen wrench. Wouldn't you know it but sure enough the allen wrench sets they sell do not include a 7mm. Plan B time for vice grips. They did the trick. I removed that stubborn guide pin put the caliper back in place greased the pin up and put it back on. I got them as tight as I could with only the 1/4 inch wrench. I don't own a torque wrench so tight as i could will have to do. Turns out this was also true for the wheel bolts. When I finally got everthing back together i went for a spin around the block everything seemed ok so when i got back i cleaned up and Renee and I went to Langley. On the way back we noticed there was a bit of vibration on the passenger side. Shure enough I was able to tighten the wheel bolts even more. Went for a drive 5 blocks away and it seemed that the vibration was gone. Cool all done. Well until next project or picture bye for now...
...Thats right. This will be the last one for a while. This picture is called "You want some sushi?" It goes once again with that Japanese fascination i seem to have. I didn't actually try Sushi until some time a couple years ago. I really like the Tuna, Salmon and Ebi both as maki and sashimi. Good sushi is served with fresh ginger and wasabi. Ginger of course is good but wasabi is well umm lets just say its an aquired taste. I recently spotted wasabi flavored potato chips from lays. I bought a bag but have not opened them yet. Perhaps i'll try them later tonight. Anyway here's the picture.
...Not much else to add but perhaps i might plug in the scanner and scan this.
...its a schetch i did at Renee's Birthday dinner. We took her to Montana's. She did not wear the horn helmut so i drew this instead. Also since i ordered pan fried fish the little fisher had to catch em first. Ok by for now.
...i guess this describes the following picture. What does it mean? I haven't a clue. The title was "wipe your nose". If i where to guess it may have something to do with my choice of music that day. Does the "Digital Underground" ring any bells? How about "The Humpty Dance"? Ok if not then perhaps you might wan't to look here. Anyway you may have to draw your oun conclusions.
...and of course you could always leave a comment by clicking on the little green "comments" link below.
...The assingment was simple enough or so it whould seem. Do a modern stained glass design. Immediatly i thought of most classic stained glass and cathedrals with stained glass whose subject matter mostly included saints. Being raised protestant I really had no clue of any of the saints cannonized or immortalized in glass. So i thought of what group of people might not be represented by a patron saint. Since I thought motorcyclists were mostly bad dudes (which i liked) then they probably would not have a Patron Saint and thus i hoped that i would not offend anyone by inventing one. This picture was the result.
...The bike was inspired not devinely but from boss hoss bike that had a small block V8 engine instead of the usual V-Twin like a harley. By devine intervention so small a rider could handle so big a bike. Also i thought perhaps that since I thought there might not be too many saints some of them might do for other groups of people. So i figured my patron saint would also represent electric guitar players. Turns out its a good thing i'm not catholic. I might have been burned at the stake for heresey. Actually there are 2 patron saints for motorcyclists. The first is "The Blessed Virgin Mary" and i'm like "well duhhh". The second was Saint Columbanus who by what i could find did not play guitar instead did missions and tamed wild bears (with Gods help of course). As for guitarists well not that i could find so perhaps I'll suggest i should rename this picture to that instead.
...yeppers it looks like another one. This time its was near grad. The library in the backgroung is a cleverly placed backdrop. Not shure what else to say 'bout this.
...the only thing i like about this was my hands. They look the most realistic element of the picture. Perhaps if i had taken the extra time to edit it i would have tryed to redraw my face. The offset of the eyes are somewhat correct but the nose and mouth are way too cartoonish. And of course i could have spent a little longer tightining the detail of the books in background. I suppose if i where to do my own webcomic i might start by defining settings with story board like backgrounds of where my charators live and interact. Or maby charactor development should be a priority. Anyway these are just musings at this point. More to come, possibly tommorow.
...First of all i must apologise for the lack of posts so far this week. My excuse is simply that i've been sick with fly like symptoms. Anyway this assingment I'm proud to mention was the only one i recall that was a top of class selection from the other students and also earned an A grade. The idea was to draw something that demonstrated the concept of "Contrast". Not real shure what that meant but i remember thinking of the effect of adjusting the contrast control on a black and white television set. I thought of how i could give different weight to each color and using a sort of grey scale repersent it that would give defined contrast. The picture was in full color but i drew the lines and did the shading on that idea of grey scale weight. I think it turned out great....
...i guess the flash from the camera scared me because in the next picture i was crying but i didn't draw that one so you will have to imagine what it might have looked like. Of course i belive Naan, Oma and Opa still have the originals so they would know and be chuckling now. By the way we decided that our new cat will be named "Smoky" Ok bye for now.
...Once again I had another reproduction assignment. This time it was my choice. I chose this...
...The album cover of The Scorpions, Love At First Sting. I've played this tape so many times its warped. So mabey i'll buy the CD right? Nope i got something even better...vinyl! Bought it at a garage sale. But oh if only i could get a drive belt for my turntable. Just kidding. I figure that because i paid full retail for the tape so long ago then i must have some right to the music. So why not download select tracks in mp3 format. After all I could hook up the tape deck to the computer and rip it that way but why bother. Downloading is so much easyer. Anyway i've secretly wondered if this was some endorsment for double penetration. Its obious he's sticking his tattoo needle into her but is that all?? Hmm ok thats it for now.
...If you think you seen this before you're right. Its a reproduction of "The Seated Woman" by Picasso. Basically the assignment was to try a redo of a famous art piece. I also did a redo of Van Eyck's The Arnolfini Wedding but unfortunatly it was lost. You can catch a glimse of the original here. I picked Picasso because the lines might be easy to replicate.
...it seems as though i can't find an image of the original for you to look at but you get the idea. It also seems to be popular image for artists to do their own interpretations of. Hope you enjoyed mine.
...Ahh the 90's. Mullets and all. In case you didn't already guess I was totally into "Hair" bands. This drawing proves it. If i knew that BBS chat rooms where in existance back then this would have been my avtar. Or better yet the lines might have been all parallel and vertical, making it easy to digitize. Anyway it might have been a little hard to do with the TRS-80 but thats a whole nother story. So here you go.
...I think i called it "Nature's Romance". Must have just finished watching "Bambi" or something. Well thats it for tonight.
...The following was meant to find similaritys between landscape and the curves of the human body. After i drew it i felt it looked kinda like Madonnaplaying catcher and thus was named "Landscape Madonna". Not one of my best works. Well you decide.
...of course you could leave a comment if you wish. Down there just click the comments link. I've set it up so anyone can post comments.
Also two other items are Kristins birthday and Colettes door. Kristins b-day party was cool. We had it at the pool. My eyes are still burning. Colettes bedroom door broke. I fixed it really good. Before
After
with a bigger gap the door doesn't drag on the floor anymore. Well thats it for tonight.
...Well as the title of this post would suggest the following drawing is what is known as a continous line drawing. The idea is to draw something using one line. Ideally your pen or in this case pencil must never leave the page until the drawing is complete. I can't remember how long it took me to draw her but I do remember that she was an excange student from Japan. Although I knew I could never have any real relationship with her i will never forget her. Its a likely explanation for my longtime almost secret fasination with Japanese culture. Anyway meet "Kazue".
...apparently this looks like more than one line. A simple explanation is that it was cropped a long time ago to bring it into a standardized size. And finally I have noticed on this site i had to change some settings to allow anyone to post comments without regestering with blogger.com. Also some of the links where wrong. On the last post the thing i was hinting for is this. Anything else you happen to notice please let me know.
...I guess the majority of new posts will be of my highschool weekly assignments. Unless of course I happen to get one of these (hint hint). Or i could simply do things the old fashoned way. Pencil, eraser and paper then scanner. Anyway for tonight i give you this....
This is titled "CBR900RR". I can't remember what the assignment was but I do remember reading all about the bike in Cycle Canada. The picture is essentually a reproduction of a photo in the aformentioned publication. I guess I was a little more open minded about motorcycles back then. I've taken more of a liking to custom choppers nowadays however if i where ever to get a sport bike then probably it would be a Kawasaki Ninja 650. Seems a 900 might be a tad bit too much power for me. Anyway i have one more pic tonight.
Our new kitten. Still accepting suggestions for a name. So far the previous owner called him "Hufflepuff". I was like ah no. "Smokey" came to mind and "Buddy". Ok well thats it for tonight.
...I was thinking a while back that perhaps if i did start a blog then i might use it to publish some of my artwork. One image per post ought to keep me busy for a couple weeks. Anyway after that I will quite literally be back to the drawing board. For now here is the first picture. This picture i call "Battleaxe" was highschool art class assignment. On this occasion the assignment was to draw an original cartoon charactor. Since I didn't have a clue I borrowed the general look of this guy from one of my favorite sidekicks "Obelix" as in the "Asterix" comic book series. The "axe" of course a pun on a guitar which is another of my passions. The medium is pencil crayon on paper which i've scanned.The original is kept in my archives (the fileing cabinet).
...at last it's done. Well actually it was finished last night. but that was much too late for me to post so here you go now.
i'm not shure what grade Colette got on her robot or if she gets a grade on it but she told me she liked it. Fortunatly some of the other parents where there to help when they where paraded around the school. Apperntly Timmy sustained some minor damages. One of the other parents was able to help repair him. He is now on display at the school.
On a more personal note i'd like to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. Till next time here is another photo you might enjoy.
