Wow, this summer heat’s made me Lazy (that’s right, there’s a capital there) and work’s left me a little uninspired. Made up pretty quick with my old friend the notebook, however, and had some fun with this week’s them of “Double”.

Originally, I was going to try and go for something much more serious and realistic, but I’ve been inspired lately by illustrators who are very loose, where things like inaccurate perspective aren’t awkward mistakes but charming, calculated style choices. I’m not sure I actually hit “charming” with this one, but I like how the overall tone of the drawing came out. And, at the risk of sounding shallow, it IS pretty fulfilling how *quickly* an entire page can fill out when you’re not sweating the details.

There, I said it.

So, this was my first pass at this theme, and while I liked the story for it, I wasn’t sold on the drawing. Frankly, it didn’t seem “me”. However, I’d gone far enough to where I thought I might show it as a reminder to myself that sometimes, things can be abandoned but are still worth keeping around.

Of course, the first thing my daughter asked was, “didn’t the drink actually make her smaller”? Um, yes, in fact it did. Think of it as poetic license…

You can see the second version (and it’s *really* different) over here. Is there one that you like better?

I came off the holiday nice and relaxed, wanting to do something a little different this week. I’ve seen people do their illustrations as collage, mobiles, clay, etc. and thought it might be fun to make a little animated character. So, I went to work:

a.) quickly sketched up my giant skateboarder character
b.) redrew him in Illustrator
c.) colorized him in Photoshop
d.) brought things to life in After Effects

Interestingly, I ended up tweaking the colors in After Effects *after* having done it in Photoshop. The character was moving, and it the original color scheme just didn’t seem to match his grooviness. This is what it looked like before:

It’s nice (in fact, I kind of like the colors better), but it kind of ended there. I felt the new scheme didn’t just try to look nice, but seemed to communicate more of an attitude. By the way, this was the second version for this theme. The first can be viewed here. Note: this is the second version of this theme can be viewed here.

So, why can’t I figure out the proper pen size and cross-hatching scale on my illustrations? It’s driving me crazy! The illustrations on paper just look better because the lines aren’t lost when shrinking them down. Argh. So, I’m posting the photos of the drawings *first*, and the actual finished piece (good selling, right?) after.

So, this started out as the story of a lost cosmonaut marooned on a tiny satellite, a single page of directions in his hand; he is still trying to figure out where he took the wrong turn. As I started in on the coloring, the environment began to look a little to unbelievable, so I decided to reinforce that and turn it into a staged scene. I like to think that the rest of the cast has long gone, as our hero stares disbelievingly at the page that tells him someone else has gotten the part.

And now… the finished drawing.

This week’s theme of “Paisley” threw me, as I’ve been on a heavy ink jag lately. So, I put away the fat pens, left out a lonely .005 Micron, and penned what came to mind. Didn’t think it’d be a pug in fancy dress, but there you go.

I find the heads of anything to be really challenging when not using a computer. I can make a mistake on anything else (hands, clothing, type) and make it go away or even look good but the face… argh, one tiny error and it’s ruined for me. So, okay, the face didn’t turn out perfectly for me, especially the lips. But, I really like her posture and style; it looks like she’s having a pretty good time.

Unlike other illustrations I’ve done, this one looks better on the page than on the computer. In fact, I’m printing/framing one for myself!

This week’s Illustration Friday project is a special one: create an art card to help raise money to benefit animal victims of the BP Gulf Oil Spill. Entries can be viewed and purchased at Ripple, where all proceeds will be donated to The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. It’s a worthy cause, and there’s some very nice pieces up there.

My illustration is about a little fish that can no longer survive in it’s environment without help, and what it discovers when it’s finally able to return home.

So… this is our film, created for The 2010 New Hampshire 48 Hour Film Project.

We were given the following constraints:
- Genre: “Time Travel”
- Character: Dr. Clark Larson, plastic surgeon
- Line of dialogue: “I need to tell you something”
- Prop: a box

Yes, the audio is poor and yes, that’s me in my narrating debut. Be gentle.

Huzzah! Turned in our completed film “The Box” late last night, with just 30 minutes to spare!

The 48 Hour Film Project is a maddening challenge to conceptualize, write, film, edit and deliver a short film in, well, 48 hours. No paid actors, no stock footage or music, only original screenplays; everything must be created by you. And… they assign you genre, character, a prop, and a line of dialogue, all of which must be in the movie.

Our team, Fabulous Monk Pictures, drew “Time Travel” as our genre. My friend and outstanding eco-photographer Jerry Monkman, did the cinematography and co-directed, while I co-directed, edited, and wrote the screenplay. (I also narrated the thing, but I’ve been hesitant to take credit for that; if you watch the film, you’ll understand why).
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I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do some variation of a snake, just too predictable, but… argh, I couldn’t help it. I went all pen & ink, nothing digital, which made for several hair-raising moments. Frankly, I had no plan for when I got to the head of the snake, so I just kind of made it up as I inked. I don’t recommend this method. Oh, another thing I learned (being a novice inker): do the large ink coverage *last*. It warps the paper and makes it harder to do the fine lines. Sigh…

I was actually up at around 3:30am this morning, because I couldn’t sleep. Turns out it’s a decent time to draw, although I feel a little woozy as I’m writing this. My pens all started to run out of ink at pretty much the same time, so I took a little break to work off some steam, and took some photos of where I was in the process. So, yeah, I draw at the kitchen table. Right next to the toaster, with a big mug of coffee handy. My pens of choice are Microns 005, 01, 02 and Brush.

This is rooster boy. He’s had his heart broken, and has been up all night lamenting the fact; I suppose to us it sounds like crowing.
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