Pretty pretty.

I've neglected my posts! Aaaaa i'm drowning in art! Help! Here's a comic from about... a month ago? It's a true story about... growing up. Alternate title: "Fancy Party Problems". Co-starring Helpful Boyfriend.

On describing dreams

I had a dream last night that was super intense. It involved the end of the world and this:

And then things got REALLY crazy!
Dreams always seem so serious while they're happening. I always feel weird after really intense, realistic dreams, and describing them out loud and hearing how ridiculous they sound really doesn't make me feel better. A similar phenomenon is described here .

Have you seen Seo Kim's tumblr? Her awesome pencil comics make me want to make more comics. Comics are faster to make when they don't have to be works of art! Who knew?

Also, apparently my brain is a nerd :)

Magical Space Adventures!

Hi blog! Been a while. Between work and basically everyone in the world getting married i've been crazy busy. Seriously, no one else is allowed to get married. If you're not married already, too late, you missed your window.

Anyway, this is a post about Prometheus and a thing i drew! I saw 'Prometheus' about a week ago and thought it was pretty much a mess; too many characters with too many unclear motivations making bad decisions. That movie didn't know what it wanted to be about.
Minor spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the movie by now, but really, it's hardly movie of the year, you're not missing much... read ahead at your own risk.

The ending was one of the (although probably not the most) ridiculous things about the film. "Wants-to-be-Ripley-and-i-can't-remember-her-first-name" Shaw takes off to travel the universe with the robot head that murdered her meat-head boyfriend. I say we give them their own show. So here is my proposed follow-up to 'Prometheus': "The Magical Space Adventures of Shaw and David"

I could draw these two forever. Seriously. Such an awful movie, so much fun to draw floating heads in space :)

On being liberal

It was one of those days...


It's old news, but i learned today that one of the co-founders and current(?) CEO of Anthropologie, Free People et al has been a major political backer for Rick Santorum. I try not to get political on this blog, but i find his anti-gay/anti-women campaign pretty sickening, and as much as i love those stores i can't shop there in good conscience anymore. I would encourage those who feel similarly to do the same.

Sometimes it's hard to be a politically conscious liberal (WHINE). All the things i like are apparently distributed by bastards. I guess it's time to find new things, and continue practicing my brand of low-investment soft activism.
(still shopping at Whole Foods because i like their sushi, damnit!)

First world problems: EXTREME HOME EDITION

On my day off I took my car in to get fixed (LIKE A GROWNUP!), walked home from the car place (didn't plan that out super well, but at least the weather was great today!), baked some bread and... this happened:


I gave that ornery wine bottle what-for by chugging the rest of what didn't wind up in my carpet.
The experience has taught me that you can fit approximately one whole bottle of wine into a roll of paper towels.

Havin' some problems :)

F'in Derby! (some language)

Some friends and i went to a roller derby bout this weekend! Roller derby is a super fun thing, possibly the coolest spectator sport. There are teams in cities all over the country, but here in LA we have the Derby Dolls! Saturday's bout was an all-star match between the L.A. Ri-ettes (get it?) and the San Diego Wildfires. It was also the last 21+ bout to be hosted at the Doll Factory, so the announcers decided to play it blue while they still could.


So much fun! Those girls are way tough.

Return of the King comics

I got The Lord of the Rings trilogy on blue-ray a while back and i finally started watching them before christmas. Last night i finished it off with Return of the King. I grew up with my dad reading those books to me, and the movies were a pretty big part of the backdrop of my high school/early college years. Every time i watch those movies it's like a nice, warm, nostalgia blanket.

I made some comics!
I'd forgotten about that wave of skulls.

And then the cursed ghosts help them win a war. Hooray!
If this comic was a lesson in drawing Aragorn's mustache (or composing things in comics panels) i'm not sure how much i really learned.

I feel like this was one of the jokes my nerd crew and i had. We have a lot of jokes about Lord of the Rings. Now this joke is a comic.

(i may have chopped the wrong finger off the wrong hand here. OOPS)

Who's excited about The Hobbit! I know i am.
I'll leave you with this gem:

Don't get attached. (Spoilers, maybe)

I'm mostly through Storm of Swords, the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series ("the game of throne books" to most people). Jason's started on Game of Thrones (the first book) and he likes to make jokes, but he hasn't gotten that far. He doesn't even know...
(Cropped for minor spoilers, click for full comic)


I drew myself holding a book, even though i'm reading it on the Kindle. I figured it would be a nicer graphical read. How weird is it, though, that in a few generations a tablet is going to be the recognized icon for reading material? KIDS TODAY.

Scarf Cat and Wolf Girl

We had our Winter Micro Gallery show at work earlier this week. There were holiday themed decorations and treats! Oh yeah, and art.
I did these! First, it's Quincy in winter gear!

He doesn't actually have winter gear because he doesn't need it in LA. Also he's got layers of fat. I don't think he'd be too thrilled about it anyway.

This second one happened because i've been reading a lot of Song of Ice and Fire (currently on Storm of Swords), although this isn't supposed to be any character in particular. But hey, what's more wintery than Winterfell?:


Thought i'd post some process stuff for this, cause i actually like it :)
Here's my mock-up sketch, plus a practice wolf drawing. I have learned... that wolves are fluffy.


I sometimes wind up taking photos of my paintings as i do them, mostly because i think paint set-ups look really cool and there's something about seeing a painting in the context of colorful splattered paint palettes. In this case i also wanted to get pictures of the ink work before i painted it (i was too lazy to scan it).

I've started to get into Paul Pope's work. I've got a couple of his comics that i need to start reading, but mostly i love the way he draws. It's really raw-looking inky brush lines, but he's got amazing control with it and knows how to throw in just the right amount of detail. So i've been playing with that, trying to get better with a brush pen. If nothing else it's a lot of fun... and is teaching me patience, waiting for ink to dry.

And the finished version (ooooh aaaaah)

Eyeballs

The other day i was sitting in a meeting and thought about this.


Now you're thinking about it too >:)
BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Thanksgivings

Some Thanksgiving comics, only about a week late!
I really love thanksgiving. The food is good, and genuinely enjoy coming home and seeing my family. So i'd have to say i'm generally thankful (not just one day, but year-round) for all that and more.

First, mom stories:

And then she pretty much told me it was time to go home. My mom might have some regrets.

The Morning After Thanksgiving stories:

They really only gave me about half a pie to take home, but i did eat all of that by myself over the course of a few hours, starting first thing in the morning.

I am always thankful for pumpkin pie :)

Next 5

My friend Emma first introduced me to this exercise. It's a really great boarding challenge that helps train you to come up with entertaining ideas quickly.
The idea is you start with a random photo (Flickr is a good source for these) and you treat it like the first shot of a short film. Then you figure out what happens next, and board the next five shots; not the next five panels, but the next five unique shots. In the end you should have six drawings (including your starting image).
We're doing this exercise with our story trainees at the studio right now and i realized i'd never posted any of these here. This is one i did using this photo as a starting point.

(TECHNICALLY i cheated; i added a second panel for my first shot, so i've got seven drawings here)

Kamen Rider/Super Sentai!

Happening TONIGHT!
Right now, this very second, Q-Pop is hosting its Kamen Rider/Super Sentai gallery tribute!


I couldn't make it to the opening and i'm super bummed, but it's up for a WHOLE WEEK so that's plenty of time to check it out!

I was thrilled to be invited to participate in the show. Here are my pieces, which are all for sale!

Electro-Wave Human Tackle, TECHNICALLY the first female Rider.


She loved Kamen Rider sooooo much.

Calaveras

Hope everyone had a good Halloween and is currently having un felíz Día de los Muertos!



These were done for our most recent (and second annual) Halloween microgallery show :)

Treiman

I talk to myself a lot. In private, in public, it doesn't really matter. Sometimes i'll talk out loud, sometimes i'll just gesture to myself or make weird expressions that correlate to whatever i'm thinking. Sometimes i'll do it all at once! Sometimes i'm accidentally staring straight at a stranger while i'm doing it.
I usually refer to myself by my last name.
I know i'm not the only one who does this.
So anyway...


Thank goodness for the blue-tooth talkers who make it easier for us legit nutters to hide in a crowd.

For whatever reason i was having a hard time drawing this comic. Sometimes stuff like this happens easily, sometimes i really have to work at it, and this was one of the latter times for sure. When i got really frustrated at my inability to draw something so familiar to me i drew the following, which i actually find funnier than the comic itself. But then, I'm often amused by my own "antics".

Tackle

I'm working on a piece for an upcoming gallery show at Q-pop in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Kamen Rider and the 35th Anniversary of the Super Sentai series. Not having actually seen either (not even Power Rangers!) i've been digging into the veritable treasure trove of source material and came out with Electro-Wave Human Tackle, the lady side-kick/romantic interest of one of the Kamen Riders. She's got a pretty fun design and some pretty cool powers, so i thought i'd give her her due. Just practicing drawing her here.


Actual finished piece to exist in the future!

Jobs

Back in the summer of 2005 i interned up at Pixar on W.A.L.L.-E.
I didn't really do any production work, but i got to sit in on story meetings and that was an education in itself. I was only 19 and had just finished my sophomore year of college so i spent most of my time feeling like a freshly hatched scared baby chicklette, but i had a lot of really great experiences that summer and met some really amazing people, many of whom i still see around.

Recent events stirred up something that happened that summer i'd almost completely forgotten about:
One day i was hanging out with the some of the story guys* in the WALL-E pod. I don't remember who all was there exactly. They were cleaning out the mini fridge and there were some beers left, so they decided to finish them off. So now we were all lounging around, middle of the afternoon, drinking beers (except for me, i hadn't really developed a taste for beer yet, and i was only 19 besides) when Steve Jobs walked by:



I remember there being some speculation as to what the majority shareholder of the studio would have to say about his employees (and intern) lying around drinking in the middle of the work day, but as he walked by he smiled and waved at us and actually seemed too happy to be there to really care. I have since learned (with gusto) that drinking on the job is quite per the norm at animation studios so in retrospect i'm sure he never gave it a second thought.

I don't have a lot else to say about Steve Jobs. He helped revolutionize the technology industry as we know it, to be sure, but you read things and you hear things and it's clear the man wasn't exactly a saint. Still (as i type this on my MacBook Pro), he inspired a lot of people and certainly invested a lot in the industry that i'm fortunate enough to be employed by, so Rest in Peace, Steve Jobs.



* and i do mean story Guys, there were no girl artists on that crew, or any crew if i remember correctly, with the exception of Brenda Chapman.

And then everything changed.

I got a kindle for my birthday at the beginning of this month. It was supposed to be my gateway to unfettered literacy. This is what happened.


To be fair, that night i DID load it up with the first four Song of Ice and Fire books. I just finished 'Game of Thrones' not ONE HOUR before posting this and have already started 'Clash of Kings' so i've been getting some pretty good mileage on it thus far. I want to get 'American Gods' (i'm a neil gaiman fan and i've never read it) and the whole 'Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' series. I am hungry for words!

I have noticed that most of my journal comics involve me sitting in bed with my laptop. I really hope this isn't an accurate representation of how i spent my time...

Arya

I've been reading Game of Thrones. It's super good, you guys. I'll be honest, i watched the show first, and it prompted me to pick up the book. So far the adaptation's been pretty faithful, with the exception of a few details. Watching it first has actually proved to be somewhat helpful; the book (and show) are initially a flood of names of people that are pretty important to get sorted out. Having gotten everyone straight in the show, i've got faces to match to names going into the book which has made things flow pretty smoothly.

I was hanging out with Emma last weekend and, watching her draw, i realized how lazy my own drawings have gotten. So when i found myself doodling Arya Stark i tried to pay attention to what i was doing and try and draw a face that didn't look like every other face i always draw. I'm not sure if i was successful. I just kind of filled a sheet of paper with a sketch-mess.

I'm drawing her too old. She's 8 in the first book (which is where i'm at) but i couldn't figure out how to make her look younger without making her look cuter, because she's not supposed to be cute.
I DID have fun drawing with what might be the best brush pen ever*? I found it laying around the story room and started doodling with it (ssssh!).

*it will never replace my pentel pocket brush.