...what evil lurks...

I'm too lazy to go thru the motions of uploading a pic. Suffice it to say, I froze my buttocks off this past weekend at the park.

Anyhoo, this link will take you to my buddy's, Mark Stratton's, live journal. He wanted a Simpson-ized "Shadow" drawing. I thought it turned out well.

http://pics.livejournal.com/ying_ko_4/pic/0000q5g4

Be good!

sum skechezz of late...

Wow! It's been a while. Having a lot of my time eaten up at Worlds of Fun. BID.

I attended Planet Comicon this past weekend. Shared a table with my buddy, Monte May. And had a good time reconnecting with a lot of familiar faces. A lot of them told me it's time I did my own web strip...I guess maybe it is.

To start things off, I did a sketch of "Wild Dog" Simpsonized! It was for a fan at the convention.


Let me know what you think.

Mark Stratton suggested I do a "freak of the week," in honor of my caricaturing abilities(I think). Here's a sketch I did at an interview a few weeks back. This is Nathan...

All I really saw were huge eyes, big lips, a narrow face and overhanging forehead. We hired this guy, incidently.

This one we hired, but he putzed out on us.




I drew the artists we were training as caricaturists while they drew me. Here's my second try at Nathan...


Not as good as my first attempt. Not simplified enough.

Here's my first attempt at "Retread Ryan"...


Here's Rachel.


For some reason she always looks sad, but she seemed really bubbly and excited about learning to draw "funny peoples."... This is Jordan...


This is Sam.


Again, too much detail and not enough essence... In an earlier post, I drew Will. Here's my second time...


And here's my second time at "Retread."


This attempt was much better than my first. Sadly, he chose not to continue and won't be with us this summer.

I usually will try to do the "noobies" at some point as Simpsons characters. Here's my attempt at Will...




That's all for now. I hope you found it entertaining.

a work in progress...

I had a real burst of creativity around 2004/2005, as far as beginning to find my voice and how the pencil naturally wants to move with the hand. As I stated earlier, I can try to do the "edgy" thing, but am never that happy with it. This style is cartoony, but not so "simplified" and abstract...somewhere between. It has its pitfalls. And I'm really trying to find a project with which to do something with it. Would it "sell" in today's comics market? Who knows?!

I thought I had a project and publisher, but it didn't work out. And while they have their version, I do, as well. And if the truth were told, we both had some demons to overcome. I did a lot of character designs that I like for said project, and when it fell through, I was in the doldrums. Then I went to the doctor to find out my hands were "dying." After some surgeries and therapy, I now find myself a few years later not better from the wear, but kind of back at square one looking for a personal artistic voice. But enough whining, here's one of my better designs for a character. Don't know what I'm going to do with him as yet, but we'll see...


I've received some comments on my "Martian" guy. I admit to him having some inspiration from not only the "Outer Limits," but also "Lost in Space." Guess I like big-headed aliens. His look was inspired by one of Yul Brenner's costumes in the "10 Commandments," so he has an Egyptian feel, too. Getting back in the mindset of this style, I realized I was drawing too may lumps and bumps, and that the anatomy needed to be more streamlined. Here's how the pencil drawing turned out...


While non-photo blue has been a standard for a long time, I don't like the blue, but prefer warmer colors. Photoshop and Pagemaker have simplified this process for me. I place the pencil tiff in a Pagemaker document and print it out red at 15%. After inking it, I scan it in RGB, then tweak the levels and change the mode to CMYK. After that I get rid of all the channels except the black one, change the mode to grayscale, then to bitmap at 600dpi. Here's my inked version.


I'd go into all the details of doing up the color, but you can read up on it from an expert by purchasing Brian and Kristy Miller's book, "Hi-Fi Color for Comics." Brian is the best in my opinion. And yes I'm biased as the book does contain a lot of art by yours truly. Any way, here's a working version with some flat color.


Sorry for the infrequency in posting. I've been extremely busy of late, and will be playing evil Pontius Pilate in my church's Resurrection Sunday drama. I may post some pictures. Be warned...it will be a fat guy in a toga.

PS--Happy Purim!!!

some doodlin'

I was talking to a friend of mine last night, and started doodling with a pencil. While not my best effort, it reaffirms that working in this style--somewhat "Disney-esque"--comes a bit more naturally. I've tried doing edgy and "angular," but I have to work at it, and it never really looks quite what I want. Can't help it. It just flows more smooth and rounded. Anyway, here's my first doodle...


kind of brutish guy.

The next one had more of an "Outer Limits" feel. The original series, thank you. And I was a big fan when I was a kid. Even had most of the card set. Here's my "alien"...


Out of that one, I started a "super-being" sketch. If I get some time, I'll work it up and show some others I did back in 2005.


While I'm at it, the friend I was talking to is cartoonist, Monte May. If you haven't seen his online strip, you should check it out at: http://www.pigtalesonline.com. Caio!

an old idea revisited

I don't have much to blather on about. Too much stuff to do. And my right knee is killing me.

While sorting through sketches and such to file away, I came across a character and an idea I had let fall by the wayside. A harkening back to bygone days. Any way, consider this a teaser and other stuff will (hopefully) follow...

the art biz and the God biz...

It's been a few days, so let's get the easy one done first. Interviews were going on Monday for spots for Kaman's Art Shoppes at Worlds of Fun here in KC. This kid came in for a caricature interview. A decent artist with a strong portfolio, but I couldn't resist doing a quick caricature of him.


The rest of this mental rumination is about a current project for one of the missionaries at church.

To be frank, I don't like a lot of tv preachers, and am wary of most ministries. I tend to be selective because I hate being played for a sucker. There are exceptions, such as the DeHaans and "Day of Discovery," which I like and enjoy. Then I learned about Sat-7.

Dennis Wiens is a missionary in our church, and he works for Sat-7, which is a Christian broadcast ministry to the Middle East. But its content is for the middle eastern Christian with programming produced AND DONE by middle easterners. And not the "radio with a face" concept that is prevalent in American Christian broadcasting, but actual shows. He approached me a few years ago about drawing a minicomic for kids that he could take to missions' conferences. It seemed there wasn't a whole lot of material for children that would help them to understand what was going on. Or, at least, to enlighten them about Sat-7. Out of this came "Dr. Salaam" and "Ray."


Ray was easy, reminiscent of all the "Rocky and Bullwinkle," or "Underdog" cartoons I watched as a kid. But the other "spokesperson" needed to be "middle-eastern" in look, not western/European/American. Thus a somewhat daunting task of drawing a pleasant, funny, and engaging "AAAAy-rab. I made him tall, since Ray is short...better to play off of one another. I chose the name "Salaam" because it means "peace."

The first little "adventure" seemed to have success. Since then, it's gone on to be "tweaked" for a British audience, and has even been translated into Arabic. I was impressed!


So now, Dennis and I have been brainstorming a "sequel." One idea we had was artwork for a "sodapop can bank," which kids could save up their spare change to help raise funds for Sat-7 KIDS, a new network exclusively for children. And a new(and hopefully improved) minicomic to go with it. I have it thumbnailed and almost layed out, and I'll post some progress here along the way. Any way, here's what the bank art looks like...so far. Still a few tweaks to correct.


Enjoy!

a lazy Sunday...

My wife and I went to see "Jumper" tonight. It was a good film and I enjoyed it. You could tell, though, from the rather abrupt ending that it is being set up as a "franchise" for future films. The best way to describe it would be "Hiro" from "Heroes" without all the things annoying.

To segue...he was one of the seminal writers for television and one of the finest storytellers--the one and only Rod Serling!


His show, "The Twilight Zone," had several episodes that scared me quite a bit. But he never really had great success in motion pictures. That surprises me. Shamalayan's movies, such as "Sixth Sense," "Signs," and "The Village," harken with a wink toward "The Twilight Zone," and have been quite successful. One of Serling's screenplays that did "break through" was "Planet of the Apes."

I was a bit disappointed with Burton's remake. It had all the technical marvels lacking in the '67 movie, but none of the bite. The absurdity. The suspension of disbelief. One of the things not done in either was with the issue of evolution. If mankind had definitely fallen to the bottom of the evolutionary chain, then why the clothes? The obvious answers are in the times. In 1967, too much nudity was a "no-no" regardless, and in someways that didn't change in the remake--skirting by with giving humans intelligence, but under repression. And an avoidance of the dreaded NC-17, or (horror of horrors!) X or multiple x's.

I did a version of Taylor in an earlier post, inspired by what had been done on "Star Wars: Clone Wars," which was brilliantly animated and a great fix for Star Wars fans. Call it a "what if?...," but I did it with the daydream of what a new animated "POTA" might look like, or at least, how I might do it. A melding of what had been done before in previous incarnations, but with all the satire and "teeth" of what Rod Serling envisioned. And mankind would not be smart enough to clothe--that is something only intelligent creatures do, such as the Apes. Just a fancy, which at least gets me to warm up the pencils.

I, in no way, am taking anything from the beautiful Estelle Warren. Her part in the remake seemed like a waste of her presence. But I do admit that Linda Harrison's "Nova" made quite an impression on me in those days of dawning puberty. So this particular sketch is based on her. And yes, tasteful coverage is a part of the fun.