My dog, Chip, has developed a taste for rocks. This is addition to his eclectic taste for other household items including crayons, pens, Lego, and toothbrushes. Up until the rock everything had passed through with flying colors ( yes, even the toothbrush ). The rock cost more than I’d like to admit to extricate. Let’s just say I paid as much for his rock, as my wife’s.
While picking him up at the vet I was told there are many repeat offenders, one patient even consuming the same rock that was just extricated. For several months afterwards Jodie and I would only walk Chip with a “Hannibal Lecter”-esque muzzle on. This of course concerned other people we ran into while walking him.
The first of my “draw comics, faster” New Years’ Resolution for 2024.
One downside when drawing digitally, at least for me, is that I’m given too much control : I can can zoom in ( and in, and in, and in ), flip, rotate, skew, erase, un-erase, re-erase, sketch over, sketch under … with the end result usually looking like crap. My OCD inevitably gets the better of me.
This year I’m trying to keep it loose and get these done a little faster. I have a lot of ideas I want to pen down this year. Hopefully, they’ll make you smile, or think. Hopefully both.
Art has been my outlet for a long time. It helped me survive three years of cancer treatments by poking fun at my situation ( and myself ). Recently, I started a new job and I’m finding that it’s helping me cope there as well. Some days are good, some days are … well, the comic speaks for itself here I think.
I have a lot more work related comics in the pipe, too, but given the circumstances – mainly not wanting to have an uncomfortable conversation with human resources ( or get fired for that matter ), I’m not sure when these ideas will see the light of day. It’s a shame, too, because I’m really happy with this one, not only because it cracks me up, but because it’s the first one I’ve created using a new process.
You might have noticed that I haven’t posted a lot lately. Well, that’s because I’ve spent the last few weeks rebooting my process for drawing comics.
First, I pruned. I have a whole backlog of ideas, some so old they’re not really relevant anymore. I tossed those. Wanting only the best, I axed the mediocre ideas, too.
Second, I started putting more effort into design. Now, rather than trying to churn stuff out comics as quickly as possible, I spend more time upfront on character and background design – even if I had drawn the stuff before. I draw the designs using pencil and paper, too. Seven years into this and I’m beginning to realize drawing digitally has as many cons as pros. While being able to erase and redraw to ad nauseum made me sloppy, the ability to zoom in to a pixel made me obsessive compulsive. Go figure.
Third, I now try to stick to 2-layers. Basically, a gesture and rough sketch to hammer out the shapes, followed by a “finished” pencil sketch.
Lastly, no ink. I used to spend hours inking over pencil lines and was never really happy with the outcome. Pencil is way more forgiving and, unlike ink, the lines can be tidied up much easier. The best part? After I colored everything the difference was negligible. Disney used a similar process in the development of “101 Dalmatians” way back in 1961. They took the hand drawn pencil sketches created by their cartoonists, ran them through a Xerox machine to copy ( and darken ) the lines onto a clear transparency, and sent the sheets to their paint department for finishing. In prior movies the lines were all painstakingly painted by hand. The Xerox process supposedly saved the studio by making it much cheaper to produce feature length animations. Hey, it it’s good enough for Disney, it’s good enough for me.
Here are the designs that I created for the above comic. I’m planning on following the same process for future drawings. Hopefully you’ll even be able to see the next one.
I’ve often caught Jodie staring into Mochi’s aquarium, wondering, I assume, if the clumsy, pink, legged fish staring back through the glass has developed any sort of affection for her. I can only guess….
An unintended but unavoidable result of our trip to Vegas a few months ago was our new pet, Mochi, the Axolotl. Axolotl’s are almost extinct in the wild and illegal to own and sell in California, but quite plentiful in the city known for loose slots, loose women, and ( as we found out ) loose pet restrictions. After experiencing Mochi firsthand, I’m honestly surprised that Axolotls still exist in the wild at all. They’re clumsy for starters. Mochi, of course, is also bright shade of pink, a color that does everything but scream “here I am, come eat me” to any predator with more than an ounce of intelligence.
Although Mochi is my oldest daughter, Ashley’s, pet, my wife, Jodie, is her primary caretaker. Honestly, I am more than a little jealous of the amount of attention she gets, too. Every morning Jodie and her sister Jayme, who adopted an Axolotl of her own while in Vegas with us, compare detailed notes of water conditions, bowel movements, and the number of worms their respective legged-fish ate the day prior. The nitrates, nitrites, and ammonia levels all have to be just right as well as the water temperature. Since we got Mochi Amazon has chartered entire truckloads worth of fans, filtration devices, sand, rocks, blood worms, and nightcrawlers, water testing kits, etc… to our house – oh, and Jayme’s, too, of course. Mochi only cost about thirty dollars, but we’ve easily spent ten times that keeping her alive.
I’ve often caught Jodie staring into Mochi’s aquarium, wondering, I assume, if the clumsy, pink, legged fish staring back through the glass has developed any sort of affection for her. I can only guess…..
On a side note, you might have noticed that my artwork has changed. Up until a month or so ago I drew the majority of my comics and illustrations digitally on my Microsoft Surface Pro 7 using Clip Studio Paint and Gimp. I’ve since gone back to basics and started using pencils, inks, and paper. My reasons are threefold. First, after spending an entire day at work in front of a computer screen, it was getting more and more difficult to motivate myself to spend even more time in front of the same screen to do my art. Second, although drawing digitally allowed me to make corrections easier, I found myself taking it to extremes. I found myself obsessing over every detail and, in the long run, I felt my artwork was loosing some spontaneity. Third, I found myself not improving as much as I would of liked. Drawing digitally was making me sloppy. Paper can only be erased so many times before you wear a hole through it. Computer pixels aren’t so limited. While using pencil and ink I find myself carefully planning each stroke.
Admittedly, I’m still working out the details. My lines aren’t as crisp, my colors are streaky, and the scanner I’ve been using somehow manages to wash everything out, but I’m enjoying the whole process a lot more. I haven’t completely ruled out digital arts, either. I just needed a little change.
Ever get the feeling that you feed your pets just a little better than you feed your kids? Sometimes I do … and then I see my dog eat a rock and all is right in the world again.
I’ve been working remotely from home for one year now and it’s been great….well, mostly. For more go here.
I’ve been working remotely from home for one year now and it’s been great….well, mostly. Like anything new, there have been obstacles. However, after many trials and tribulations I can now run the gauntlet like a soccer mom evading children playing in the street in her minivan.
Here are some things that I have learned ( maybe they’ll help you, too ) :
I’ve learned that there is no longer anyone to blame other than myself for burning the popcorn in the microwave
….and, that that horrible leftover smell in the fridge is, in fact, my own.
I’ve learned that having an “open door policy” doesn’t work when your officemates are two kids ( and dogs ).
I’ve learned that when everyone is working from home on battery powered keyboards and mice, he who holds the last two AA batteries is king.
I’ve learned that my wife showers at precisely the same time as my daily webcam meetings – and that the camera faces the bathroom.
Lastly, I’ve learned that pants are, indeed, optional.
Take care. Stay healthy. Live life. Forgo the pants.
Proof that it’s impossible to “go see” a puppy without bringing it home. For more go here.
Is your household a little too calm and relaxing? Do you have lots of nice things that you need destroyed in short order? Is your carpet looking a little too clean? Is walking through your backyard without stepping in something too easy and you need more of a challenge? Well, if that’s the case I have a solution to your problem – adopt a puppy! A puppy will resolve all of these problems within days of bringing one home.
In practice, there’s really no such thing as “visiting” a puppy that is up for adoption. That was Jodie and my first mistake. The second was bringing our daughters, Ashley and Kaylee, with us. There was no way “Mattie” ( now “Maddie” ) wasn’t coming home with us.
Take care. Stay healthy. Live life. Adopt a puppy ( you won’t regret it ).
My friend, Aymie, asked me to draw her kitten, “Snowflake”, a recent victim of the scalpel. For more Snowflake you can visit her Instagram page at snowflakethefluffywhitecat. Yes, the kitten has a Instagram page, too – and arguably more fans than me!
My cousin, Angela, badly hurt her rear and I thought she could use some cheering up so I plagiarized one of her students’ favorite books. My apologies to the REAL author of “I Broke My Butt”, Dawn McMillan as I’m probably breaking some copyright and artistic integrity laws. The original can be found here on Amazon. For more on my rendition go here.
drawnandcoded.com 