Corner22

Busted !
Run away ! Run away !

Corner21

Welcome to th' crib...

Illustration Friday 'Envy'

OK, I decided to go with a political comic strip funny format this week. I just gotta be diffferent. This idea came to me because I was thinking about the Presidential process and how someone like me would never be allowed to be elected President. I'm bisexual and transgendered, so even though someone like David Duke could run and get votes, I would never stand a chance.

Then, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and I realized that a lotta people are in a similar situation. Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Wicca, Blacks, and Women (just to name a few) also face the prospect of not being represented in this Government. As a digression (a good one though) I'm a Star Trek geek and I always admired the whole 'Federation of Planets' where many divergent alien races had equal representation and (if you watched the series) the President of the Federation wasn't even Human. That's bold. Can you imagine ? Not long ago people were afraid of a 'Catholic' President. Hell, not long ago Blacks were enslaved and Women couldn't vote and Gays were seen as monsters.

Things have gotten a lil' better, but when we make Extraterrestrial contact, how will the Human race behave ? Will it be a meeting of equals, or will we be bigoted/prejudiced/speciest toward them (or them toward us!)?
Envy can sometimes be a good thing.
Minds are like parachutes, they only work when they are open...
:-)

Corner20

Who needs David Copperfield...

ActionDude

Who is this guy ? What has he done ? Why is he being chased ?

And why is he wearing a cast ?

Corner19

Well,that was productive...

DeadMouse

While I was over at Kev's today I spent some time scribbling as he did some freelance business at his computer. Later on he showed me how to work in Vector using Streamline and Illustrator. Cool stuff there, baby. I learned a lot and it makes sense to me now-as before it was kinda fuzzy. He did things that looked like magic, and accomplished it as if it were as easy as turning on a lamp. Complicated yet simple, it's all in how you are introduced to this kind o' technology.
I'm gonna hafta open this software soon and get to work learning it and playing with it and posting experiments from it.

Stay tooned...

Illustration Friday 'Aquatic'

This week's Illustration Friday topic is 'Aquatic'. Well, I did have an illustration that fit that topic perfectly but I went with this one instead just to be on topic yet kinda off topic. I initially did this to depict an original take on the whole 'Titan' theme to show Strength (which I hope Illustration Friday doesn't chose anytime soon, since I just used this). I wanted to do an alien interpretation (not flying saucers alien, rather a non human looking Titan) so that it wouldn't look like a super-sized version of a statuesqe human wearing a Greek loincloth or toga ( such as most illustrators would do ). So forget Lucy Lawless, forget Kevin Sorbo, this misshapen odylic wonder is probably what a real 'Titan lifting an island in the middle of the ocean' would look like.

For this image I did the usual start up routine. Sketch, scan, save. Then the fun starts in Photoshop. I cleaned it up, changed the mode from grayscale to RGB, create layers. Bottom layer is totally a warm yellow (to give it the feel of the tropics) with the help of the paint bucket tool. Intervening layers contain the airbushings of the ocean swirls and the dawning clouds in the sky. The top layer is where I did most of the work. First, use the magic wand tool to select interior areas of each object (Titan, island, mountains) and filling in the proper color (I was lazy so the selected areas are imperfect, but that's ok as you will see later) then outline the objects quickly with a paintbrush (chose an appropriate size from the toolbox menu) using the same color as filler but a darker version so the object stands out from the background but I also used a softer brush instead of a harder brush to allow a lil' blending with the background so the objects wont look like they are floating on top of the other layers. The Titan is the main focus of this illustation so I wanted it to look like animated stone. So an grey/lichen color popped in my head followed by some filter choices (the Noise filter worked nicely, don't forget to alternate the foreground and background colors before using this filter otherwise you'll get that warning pop up window, just alter the color a lil' to the darker portion of the color selection window for one of them (back or foreground) Add a lil' dark airbrush color for each area where I thought the objects needed to be shadowed (use low pressure on your airbrush for this so you don't go overboard, I generally use a pressure of 9 for most work). Use the rubber stamp (clone) tool for the clumps of dirt to repeat the filtering of sand for the island itself (same technique as the Titan). Add detail to birds, trees, mountains, then flatten image.

You know the rest. Talk back to me. Hate it or luv it, it's your opinion now. P.S. read all the previous posts if you show up late to get a feel for what has already been covered, sometimes I explain things I missed mentioning in the original post.
Me shut up now.

Corner18

You stupid artist. Whoops !

The Devil's Dictionary

BRUTE, n. See Husband.

AMBROSE BIERCE, page 13.
:-)

Art For Sale K's Diseased Wits

Check it out:



Click here to make your request for custom made original artwork from a Master Illustrator. Tell Kev I sent you.
:-)

Corner17

Hey ! The tooth is back !

Metropolis

On Saturday night Cartoon Network showed the movie 'Metropolis' on it's Adult Swim block. At first I was kinda iffy on this film, but I warmed up to the character design and the pacing of the storyline. Japan spends a lot more money and time crafting their cartoons as a general rule. Plus their ideas tend to be far more cerebral and hard hitting than American animated films. Everything is well thought out and carefully designed to provide a wonderful cinematic experience.



The visuals can be stunning in this retelling of the classic silent b&w live action movie. A crisp and dark blending of hand drawn animation cell work and CGI give the audience a nice suspension of belief that is only marred by the clunky and disappointing 'worker robots' that look like garbage cans with arms & legs.
While watching this movie I got the chills and misty eyed during the climax when they played a Ray Charles (?) song 'I Can't Stop Loving You' which contrasted brilliantly with the rich visuals and dynamic action taking place. Whoever made this decision should get a raise.

Now if only American film and tv producers would take the hint and step up to the plate. We gotta lot of talent here and we haven't done much in the way of Kick Ass animated films and tv shows since 'The Secret Of Nimh', 'Mighty Orbots', and the begining sequence of 'Thundercats'.
Let me add the Rankin/Bass 'Hobbit' series and Ralph Bakshi's 'Lord of the Rings', and...maybe...'Cats Don't Dance' and 'Little Nemo'. Only the classic Disney works seem to stand the test o' time, like 'The Rescuers', 'Fantasia', and 'Snow White'.
The stop-motion and CGI animated films are cool, but American entertainment has to Import most of the good stuff nowadays. That's too bad, we seem to dumb down most of the modern storylines (such as: there must be cute talking animals, a singing and dancing sequence, overly simplified character designs and backgrounds, no violence unless it's soft-core slapstick, no controversial ideas nor mature subject matter, all voices must be celebrities, the music must be bland and uninspired, and worst of all...butchering an already established and beloved story- you know- like 'The Black Cauldron' or 'The Swan Princess').

That's my rant. Are we losing our capacity for quality and creativity or is it just being ignored in favor of a quick buck ?
Talk back to me...

Corner16

Tito, hand me a tissue...

ALERT !!!

Just so you know...

IT'S ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY THE 13th !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can get back to your life now...
:-)

Illustration Friday 'Nourishment'

Nice and cool, wet and refreshing...
But that's enough about me, I should talk about this contribution to Illustration Friday: 'Nourishment'. I'll get right to the construction process. First, get a plastic drinking container, draw it, ink it, sign and date it. Second, scan it, open Photoshop, create layers. Clean up image, airbrush some blue on a couple of layers (random sprays) then a lil' green too, reduce some of the opacity. Follow this by using the filter 'Ocean Ripple' on airbrushed layers, Erase around cup and signature (which have been reverse selected) to let lower layers peek through, add a few details to blanks spots around cup. Flatten image.

Now, drop the dpi to 72, reduce the image size to about 5" X 4", save as a jpeg to your desktop. Close Photoshop, open Transmit, upload 'Nourishment' file to webspace, close Transmit, open browser and scoot on over to blogger 'Post' and...hey wait !

Here I Am.
Now isn't that just a lil' too real for ya ?
Go ahead, have a taste. (The straw, not me you sillies)
:-D

BadAssBeast

My friend Kevin got tired of all the 'cute' stuff that I've been putting on my blog lately and requested a Bad Ass Beast resting after battle. And since Kev is such a Bad Ass artist himself I just had ta do something he would be proud of. Lots a heavy lines, lotsa details, lotsa suggested violence. I coulda added a jungle grrrl ridin' on the Beasts back, but she woulda' been 'cute' and Kev distinctly requested Bad Ass Beast, not 'cute'. :-p

Jheads

My blog buddy Janey has been snail-mailing me furiously. I'll have to start calling her Hurricane Janey ! Pretty snazzy huh ? Get yours at the above link. :-)

Corner15

Will this nonsense ever end ? Bwahahahahahahahahaha !!!!!!!!!

ErinyesMale

I just had a request ( a kick in the fanny actually ) from Janey to post some pictures of attrative males on this blog. I warned her that some of the content would be rather *ahem* mature. So here you go. This was done shortly after I finished the Erinyes (female version) which I posted in February in this blog. I wanted a kinda 'surfer boy' and Brad Pitt combo to achieve this look. He had to be hot, and he had to be in great shape without being too bulky. I think he's delicous enough to eat up with a spoon. But that's just me. I can go both ways, not everybody is hardwired that way. The jewelry is tasteful yet fun. Ok, maybe not tasteful, but fun anyway. The pose is definetly provocative and yummy, and I rilly like the way the hair turned out. The feet were a bit of a victory, I didn't know if I could make them look right.

If any of you are offended, just remember, humans are actually all naked under all those clothes. Ah ! Ah ! You're blushing ! Naughty bits can be fun...

Glabrezu

I did this a few years back, as part of an ongoing series (just fer myself). I wanted to use a Disney-esque technique that involves using a slightly darker color of the character's normal color and applying it as an outline. I hate it when Disney does it ( I actually perfer the old black outline they used to use, those years of xerography ) But I wanted to try is just for the sake of experimentation. It didn't turn out too bad. The other idea was for the rocks. I think they look kinda kewl. Whadda you think out there ? I know you're lurking at this blog. Hate mail or pleasant comments will both show up, so don't be shy...

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Oops ! Shoulda brushed those pearly yellows...er, whites.

Illustration Friday 'Mischief'

While checking out Kevin's blog I noticed that while he had an abundance of pretty grrrl drawings, my own blog was noticably lacking in the cheescake department. So for this Illustration Friday I decided that a lil' 'Mischief' rilly was in order. After digging through my file cabinet I found what I think is a suitably sensual yet not offensive sketch that I did last year. One day I will pose like that for a photographer, lookin' just as FINE, one day...
I rilly like the hair, it was sumptin' I've been itching to do for a while and I finally broke down and drew it out months back. Her hair is still slightly wet and is drying nicely after being in the Great Lakes. The tail gave me a lil' trouble (normally drawing tails for anthropomorphics is second nature to me), but it turned out all right.
The skimpy bikini was a given, had to do it. I'd wear it if I looked that hot. Here's a quote from Marilyn vos Savant:
" A pretty woman is one who turns the heads of the teenage boys as she walks by the bus stop. A beautiful woman is one who turns the heads of men too. But it takes a GORGEOUS woman to turn the heads of the WOMEN there."
I wanna be GORGEOUS too ! Gonna turn the heads of WOMEN too !
:-)

The Devil's Dictionary

BIGOT, n. One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

AMBROSE BIERCE, page 11.
:-)

Corner13

Can someone say 'Viscious Circle' ? I knew you could...