When I spent some time on the beach this summer, as usual, a sketchbook accompanied me. However, this time it wasn’t just beach walkers that made it into the sketchbook’s pages. Some monsters joined the fun, too. With a red colored pencil in hand, this hard shell fella enjoyed some soft ice cream.
Better this creature is licking his ice cream instead of you.
No, my sketchbook is not full of Canson paper. It was just red pencil on white paper, but I thought it would be fun to drop this fella onto some textured colored paper digitally, onto which highlights and shadows were added.
For those of you who regularly follow my Monster Month posts, this guy follows a tradition of including a monster enjoying a frozen treat. If you’d like to see the others from past years, CLICK HERE!
If you haven’t yet had your fill, return Wednesday for an all new beastie!
What is “it” exactly? When someone (or in this case someTHING) has IT, everyone is attracted to IT, everyone desires IT, everyone wants IT. IT is the thing you can’t quite define, but can’t quite turn away from. In this case, the IT this guy has is charisma. He also has a huge optometrist bill for his contact lenses.
Do you ever get the feeling that you are being watched?
Who knows what lurks in the pages of my sketchbook? Wednesday knows…
Have you ever noticed how pet owners and their dogs can look alike? I don’t think that owners actually morph into the shape of their pet, but rather in a subconscious act of narcissism, they purchase the pet that looks good to them. They buy themselves a Mini-Me.
I’m not the first to make this observation, but I AM the latest to poke fun at it.
I dropped by the barber shop this past weekend with a sketchbook under my arm. Barber shops are always populated with a cross section of ages and personalities that make for an interesting time. The regulars carry on conversations and offer unsolicited opinions on just about any topic. The newer guys sit and listen participating only with facial expressions. You never know how long you will have to wait on a Saturday morning, so why not capture these moments with a pencil?
I go to Arenas’ Barber Shop on Victory Boulevard in good ol’ Burbank, CA. The shop is run by second generation barber siblings Denise and Steve Arenas whose pop got them going down the path of hair manipulation many years before. They used to work in the hair salon on the Disney Studio lot for years until current management starting eliminating some of the family atmosphere of the employment experience there, and forced out the Arenas along with other follicle folks.
Ten years ago Denise took over an old time barber shop run by an old timer named Chuck (I used to go to him, too), fixed up the joint and created a fun atmosphere for parting parts and taming tresses.
Denise will cut any hair no matter how much or how little you have.
So, the next time you get your hair cut, look around and take it all in. There are few experiences in life where complete strangers can all be the best of friends for an hour while waiting their turn for a trim before walking out the door into harsh, cold anonymity once again.
Well, this is Comic-Con week. While many of my friends and colleagues will be congregating in San Diego for the grand daddy of all comic conventions, I shall remain in Los Angeles working on the Lalaloopsy TV show.
Comic-Con is a crazy time with 150,000+ swarming the hotels, restaurants, streets and convention center all looking to get their nerd on. I won’t be missing it one bit, but I do share an affection with the crowd for the great geeky experiences to be had there in excess. So, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring by posting a pretty nerdy sketch today.
If a mouse had Jedi powers, what would he use the Force for? Why, liberating cheese from traps of course. Enjoy!
Perhaps my favorite kind of music next to film scores are the tunes from the Great American Songbook by yesterday’s crooners like Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Johnny Mercer, Mel Tormé, and especially Nat King Cole. Cole’s smokey smooth tones infused with a bit of jazz are at once nostalgic, comforting, and yeah, I’ll say it – romantic. His is the voice I imagine would come from my mouth should the opportunity to serenade a young lady comes along.
Lest I actually open my mouth and frighten you all away with the true nature of my voice, perhaps for now just a sketch of the great Nat King Cole is in order…
The man who knew how to straighten up and fly right – Nat King Cole.
It is hard to believe that thirteen years ago the great animator and designer Marc Davis (one of Walt Disney’s famed Nine Old Men) passed away. I was part of a group from Disney that went over to his home to help his wife archivally store the art in Marc’s studio. Each flat file unearthed a new treasure trove of drawings that no one but Marc probably had ever seen. One drawer in particular made an impression on me. As each piece of paper was lifted, there was sketch after sketch Marc had drawn in person of jazz musicians during the heyday of the Los Angeles jazz scene. Included were drawings he created of the great Nat King Cole during live performances! Oh to have been a fly on THAT wall!
Speaking of performances, here’s a nifty introduction to that great King Cole voice! Enjoy!
I’m not a big app user. There are so many little applications you can have on your portable hand-held computers (I use the iPod Touch variety) that are mostly distractions from living the life that surrounds you. That being said, I was intrigued by a relatively new app and decided to give it a try the other day. The app in question is Character Design Shuffle created by my pal Stephen Silver.
The idea behind the app is to give you the inspiration to create a random character design. The app has several parameters to suggest what type of physical character it is, gender, outfit, action, age, body type, height, etc. Each category rolls by and stops on some crazy combination that you can then go draw. Some of the suggestions are waaaay out there, so it can be a challenge AND be a lot of fun. Mostly it helps get your brain to think in a way that is different from what it is used to.
So, I gave the parameters a spin and it spit out panda, male, athlete, playing foosball, muscular, and intimidating. This is the result…
I might consider subscribing to ESPN if they had interspecies competitive foosball.
Another fun aspect of Silver’s app is that they have a Facebook group (CLICK HERE to see it) where no matter what your skill level, you are encouraged to share your efforts with other users. Pros and amateurs alike have been displaying their inspired creations. Some designs that have been posted will knock your socks off! It is fun to see how this little tool is inspiring some fun drawings.
So, no matter who you are, if you need a little inspiration, check it out and give it a try. Always keep drawing to improve or even develop your skills!
