The Ol' Sketchbook

Rough Magic

2012-02-03T01:45:00.000-08:00

A few years back, I was asked to design the header/logo for MagicMusic.net, a discussion forum about Disney music. What was really exciting was that the webmaster is a big fan of Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily's as I am, and he wanted something similar to what they had designed for LuxuriaMusic.com

I was super excited about this, loving both Disney music and Kevin and Jody's work. The client wanted the logo to have a retro 50's feel, but was open to maybe showing a progression of the early days of records up through modern digital formats. Other suggestions were to use Disney icons (Sorcerer's hats and wands) without infringing on copyright. Unfortunately, the webmaster decided to go another direction and not use my stuff. Here are my rough pencil/computer text mockups.

I may just finish a few of these some day, just because I like them so much. All designs are copyright Eric Scales unless otherwise stated.

Arboreal

2012-02-03T01:03:00.000-08:00

The spoils..

2012-02-01T01:02:00.000-08:00

Chipmunks and Squirrels

2012-01-23T10:32:00.000-08:00

Forgot one yesterday

2012-01-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

Residents of a Make Believe Neighborhood

2012-01-18T00:31:00.000-08:00

You may remember that I loved the show, Mister Rogers Neighborhood growing up, in fact I love it still, though it's pretty much vanished from the airwaves. A few years ago I thought it would be fun to illustrate some of the puppet characters from the Neighborhood of Make Believe. I didn't think they had ever been captured very well in books or on merchandise, and thought I'd see if I could do better. I'm sad to say that I didn't pursue it further, but someday maybe I will. Below are the highlights of my efforts, really just quick pencil sketches with some digital color.

Monday Menagerie

2012-01-16T00:29:00.000-08:00

A bit of a sketchdump for you today.

Sing a song of Pirate Cats

2012-01-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Oh sing us a song of cats on the sea
For though they are brigands, they're braver than we

For these lowlife felines, the sea holds allure
When staying ashore would mean jail time for sure

But life on the sea's not the parole you might think

'Cause in prison at least there's no chance that you'll sink.

Swampy Santa

2012-01-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

Well I guess this ones a little late- who has time to scan and blog around Christmas though?

Dinos

2012-01-05T11:02:00.000-08:00

Snowmen

2011-12-23T02:09:00.000-08:00

On my desk

2011-12-20T01:51:00.000-08:00

I always love when the arists whose blogs I follow, show pictures of the unfinished piece their working on. I'm excited about the thing I'm working on now, so I thought I'd preview it even before it's done. It's a pretty low res pic, but there's not much to see yet.

Trek Girl

2011-12-19T02:11:00.000-08:00

I wanted to take one of my sketches and do a quick digital color job, nothing overly rendered, and especially not something that would require me to totally clean my original drawing. I had done this a few times before, with results that I liked, but I wasn't sure how appealing the result would be if I took one of girly drawings and tried it. Rough sketchy lines might take away from any appeal that the coloring added. I posted the original sketch some time ago....

I played with the levels of the original drawing to get rid of the gray marker I had used, cleaned up a lot of extraneous lines around the face, and refocused her eyes just a bit. I had to reinforce some of the ink lines a bit because they had dropped out in the process. Oh, and she just needed something funny on her shirt.

Girls

2011-12-17T02:06:00.000-08:00

Woodland Grocer

2011-12-13T00:59:00.000-08:00

Aaaaand another thing...

2011-12-12T01:18:00.000-08:00

Chicken gone bad.

2011-12-08T00:12:00.000-08:00

P.Q. Pinfeather, barnyard bully and all around bad egg.

Swabs

2011-12-07T00:57:00.000-08:00

Finish line

2011-12-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

What?!! Something in color?! A piece that took more than 5 minutes?! I know, contain yourself. This was a done for a friend as a gift for her boyfriend. Very fun to do, since I normally just draw and paint cartoon animals. 16x20 Guoache on Illustration Board

Stuffed

2011-11-29T08:02:00.000-08:00

Prof. Albert Ross

2011-11-28T00:05:00.000-08:00

Another normally harmless denizen of the animal world, twisted by selfish motives to pursue a life of crime.

No doubt the experiment he's seen performing here will allow him to rob a bank, hijack a plane, or perhaps even get the best scraps of food left on the beach at the end of the day before any of the other birds do.

Muppety

2011-11-23T00:25:00.000-08:00

Planning on seeing the Muppets sometime this week. I'm a big fan of the vintage Muppet stuff, less so of more recent endeavours, and very much cautious about new Muppet offerings. The reviews have been very good, freakishly good in fact, so I'm hopeful. We'll see soon.

Anyway, I was in a Muppety mood and I doodled these 2- not real Muppets, just something in that style. The little girl below reminds me of the beautiful simplicity of early Sesame Street muppets.

When in doubt, draw an elephant

2011-11-22T00:22:00.000-08:00

Sorry that the posts have been so sparse since Halloween. At this time of year things get pretty hectic and the last thing I have time for is sitting in front of the computer to scan my sketchbook. So here's something to make up for lost time- a magical elephant! Why? Because you've never seen one before. Well I haven't at least.

Irkhart Q. Iguana

2011-11-17T00:01:00.000-08:00

Moving right along

2011-11-01T00:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe November is here- where did the year go?

21 Days of Halloween Day 21- Sabrina

2011-10-31T00:42:00.000-07:00

Since we're deep into reading the Harry Potter books, my daughter is going trick or treating as Hermione this year. Everyone have fun tonight!

21 Days of Halloween Day 20- The Sackman

2011-10-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

Hombre del Saco, El Roba Chicos, Bagman, Torbalan, Ocu, Tonton Macoute, Uncle Gunnysack, Bori Baba, Father Sack, Antjie Somers, Goni Billa. All names for various regional legends about a man who would come and take naughty children away in his sack. I've got to stop reading Wikipedia.

21 Days of Halloween Day 19- Trick or Treat

2011-10-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 18- Here comes the sun...

2011-10-26T00:28:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 17- Revenge of the Cat Creature

2011-10-25T00:26:00.000-07:00

This felt more cat than wolf-like to me, and the Cat creature episode of the old Scooby Doo cartoon scared (and fascinated) the bajeezes out of me when I was a kid.

21 Days of Halloween Day 16- Franky, my dear

2011-10-24T00:25:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 15- Wolf Man

2011-10-21T00:22:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 14- Cat Creature

2011-10-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

I always pictured something like this under my bed.

21 Days of Halloween Day 13- Odosketch Ghost

2011-10-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

Yet another version of this concept I put up yesterday.

Click HERE to see it drawn fullsize.

21 Days of Halloween Day 12- Ghostly Maiden

2011-10-18T00:14:00.000-07:00

I did something similar last year. I think it's inspired by the lore of the Haunted Mansion, with the forlorn bride haunting the halls.

21 Days of Halloween Day 11- Witch

2011-10-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

This is based on a sketch I did a few years ago. I originally meant to paint it in guoache, in a nice graphic style, but since I'm rediscovering my Wacom, I thought I'd try it digitally this time.

21 Days of Halloween Day 10- Corpse of a Bride

2011-10-14T00:01:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 9- Bats and Rats

2011-10-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 8- Wednesday Addams

2011-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

Click HERE to watch it full size on odosketch.com .

21 Days of Halloween Day 7- Flaarsnackle

2011-10-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 6- Creeper

2011-10-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

Creeper
by Eric Scales

Shadow's cloak, night's embrace
Ivy vines obscuring face
Peering eyes through iron gates
Where least suspected
Creeper waits

21 Days of Halloween Day 5- Zombies!

2011-10-07T00:01:00.001-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 4- Death Takes a Call

2011-10-06T00:01:00.001-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 3- Gargoyles

2011-10-05T00:21:00.000-07:00

21 Days of Halloween Day 2- Jack of the Lantern

2011-10-04T00:08:00.000-07:00

Click here to watch it fullsize.

21 Days of Halloween Day 1- The Terrible Grin

2011-10-03T00:05:00.000-07:00

Little Brother is done!

2011-10-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

One last normal post before I begin my Halloween posting tomorrow. When last we left the awesome puppet that Jarrod Boutcher was making based on my sketches, the poor little guy was naked. Actually, Little Brother doesn't mind being naked, but at his family's insistence he usually wears a bit more than that. He has several favorite shirts, all Spider-Man, and generally prefers to go pantsless, with only his diaper down below.

I thought Jarrod would simply be able to go down to the store and pick up a boys Spider-Man t-shirt, cut a whole in the back for my arm and slip it on the puppet. Turns out due to the unique proportions of the puppet, he had to make it from scratch. Not only did he sew the shirt, but he also screened the webs and Spider design on. What a ton of work making a puppet is- not for me, but certainly for someone as thoroughly dedicated as Jarrod.

Below you can see the finished product, Little Brother, standing looking cute and seemingly innocent, next to my original sketch which suggests his other nature.

And here he is, again compared to my original sketch, showing his short temper. Sometimes he forgets that he's not the boss.

To check him out in action, click this link to see the video that Jarrod posted of him. I can't wait for him to show up on my doorstep! In the meantime, don't forget that tomorrow starts the 21 days of Halloween on this blog, 21 spooky sketches, one for each weekday of October. Come back every day, tell your friends, and leave comments! See you then!

Little Brother Puppet Pt II

2011-09-24T22:46:00.001-07:00

I'm so flippin' excited. Jarrod has made amazing progress with the puppet he and I are collaborating on. Below you can see the head, with the skin tightly sewn on. Notice how the cheeks which were previously foam forms, are now just soft curves under the skin. The silver wires that you see are the eyebrow mechanism. Little Brother has a hair trigger temper- tell him ,"no" and he is not happy.

Here you can see all of the pieces more or less assembled. Love that he gave him doll joints for the arms and legs. This is really going to look and move like a real kid (or at least a professional puppet) and not something from your local toy store's shelf).

I don't even have words for the final picture. Awesome isn't nearly adequate.

I think I mentioned that Little Brother is obsessed with Spider Man. So I've asked Jarrod to put him in a kids Spider Man shirt, and a big puffy diaper (Little Brother doesn't like wearing pants). I can't wait to see the next update! Be sure to check out Jarrod's blog and website, not only for a few other pictures of this puppet, but also for a ton of the most amazing character puppets you'll ever see.

Halloween is coming...

2011-09-23T01:11:00.001-07:00

This year there are 21 weekdays in October, and for each and every one of those I'm going to post a Halloween piece of some sort. The delightfully dark doodling starts October 3.

Down in Fraggle Rock Pt 5

2011-09-21T00:14:00.000-07:00

Boy it's been a long time since I've worked on this one. I wanted a project to keep me motivated to practice my digital painting, so I figured a big free form group shot of a bunch of Fraggles would be good. I'm just kind of making each one up as I go along, not worrying about the overall layout or anything, but of course trying to get some good personality in there. The reason I've neglected is so long was that my Wacom was really acting up. My stylus finally died, and after getting a new one I find that that seems to have solved most of the problems I was having. So enough talking, check out the progress below.

This is where I left off.

So I blocked in a new Fraggle. I really wanted to make this guy unique. So often the background characters were meant to just blend in, and not really have unique features. I wanted to make this guy old, with grayer colors overall, a beard, and a hat. I kinda sketched him looking into his hands. I think eventually I'm going to put a doozer into his hand, but didn't have time to do it tonight.

You can see below, just barely blocking in the actual face, I've already lost a slight tilt to his head that was in the original sketch. I didn't notice this loss till after, and as I still like the end result, I didn't bother to fix it. Still, often there is something subtle about the sketch that is lost if you're not careful.

The beginning of facial details. Some bags under his eyes and liver spots or freckels on his nose.

Fur on the body and the arms are defined now. Love making these little guys look soft and squishy.

Here's his beard. I've really gotten a bit more extreme (realistic?) with the lighting on this guy, which means I might go back and adjust it on the others.

And finally, his hat. I seem to remember that the fraggles wore some sort of hat like this, though it looked like it was carved out of a gourd or something. But I felt the overall shape looked a little too Smurfish (especially with that Papa Smurf-ish beard), so I wanted mine to be a bit more angular. And I tried to make it look like a patchwork.

That's all for today. I hope to work on this a lot more frequently.

Little Brother: The Puppet Pt I

2011-09-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

I'm collaborating with super talented Puppet Designer, Jarrod Boutcher on a puppet. I've mentioned a few times, that my daughter likes to play a game we call Little Brother. She plays herself, or more recently a teenage version of herself, and I play her bratty 2 year old brother. As such, I get into lots of trouble and she acts as the authority. She gets to punish, yell, and be the sibling whose good at just about everything. I think it's very therapeutic role reversal for her, which is why I've played it with her for so many years now. However, it is a bit repetetive and awkward for me. How many times can a grown man pretend to be a two year old? Anyway, when I was discussing with Jarrod about a puppet that I'd like to order, it suddenly dawned on me that a Little Brother puppet would make this game a lot more enjoyable. I have Little Brother's personality more well defined than his actual look, and since I trust Jarrod's design instincts so well, I've given him lots of description but only a few rough sketches.

The page of drawings above didn't feel quite right. The two at the bottom were better, but he looked too old. Little Brother should just past the toddler stage, where a kid is talking and walking and mobile enough to be trouble, but not old enough for school. Preschool maybe. We often say he's two but I think he's a bit older.

A lot of what I know about Little Brother has just come from playing the game so much and trying to be consistent with him. My daughter knows when I change something about him. He's obsessed with Spider Man, so I've asked Jarrod to put him in a Spider Man shirt. Other than that, he just wears a diaper. He's usually messy, with a small patch of uncombed hair. He goes from happy to angry really quick, so there's going to be an eyebrow mechanism to accomplish this. And I also wanted him to be able to kinda snicker mischeviously, and I noticed that Oscar the Grouch has a unique mouth, in that besides opening up and down, it also has a bit of side to side play. So I thought that would be good to allow little brother to snicker. Below are some of the progress shots that Jarrod has put on his blog.

The basic head shape.

Look what a great match that is for the design on the second page of sketches.

How do you cover a round form? Skin for the head.

The skin, laid loose over the form of the head, with some foam for cheeks added.

Believe it or not, these are arm patterns.

And the inner structure of Little Brother's pudgy little arms.

More to come...

Girl 1 and Girl 2

2011-09-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

Amigos! Amigos!

2011-09-12T00:01:00.001-07:00

Another Odosketch for you today. This one owes it's inspiration to the great Barker Bird replica created by Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily a few years ago. Still my favorite piece of Disneyland Merchandise EVER created. Love having his colorful form brightening up my desk.

Click HERE to watch it being drawn full size.

Odosketch- Happy Puppy

2011-09-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

Click here to see it drawn full size!

El-derl-ephant

2011-09-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

Reptile Releve

2011-08-26T11:16:00.001-07:00

Some more doodles from my daughter's ballet class. Kinda.

Tiki Time

2011-08-23T01:33:00.000-07:00

Just felt like drawing some Tikis.

Raptor

2011-08-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've been following the blog, Love in the time of Chasmosaurs. Great blog if you love dinosaurs, Which I kind of forgot that I did. Anyway, there's always lots of talk on there about dinosaurs being feathered, which everyone is pretty certain they were now. The idea kinda creeps me out. Birds have always been scary to me for some reason that I could never explain, so to add feathers to a Raptor or Trex, well it conjures images that are horrifying and fascinating at the same time. So I doodled this little guy- no particular species just something in the raptor vein.

Girls

2011-08-11T02:14:00.000-07:00

Bored Bruin

2011-08-09T00:09:00.000-07:00

Twinkle Toes

2011-08-08T00:01:00.000-07:00

Drawing real kids in ballet class is so boring. I did these instead.

Mr. Fizzlemeyer

2011-08-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Just a doodle of one of my teachers from back when I went to school in the forest. Man, his clothes were outdated. Heck of a teacher though.

Down in the dumps

2011-08-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Take that!

2011-07-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

The worst part is that none of the other dogs would believe Fido's story the next day.

Ballet sketches

2011-07-25T23:59:00.000-07:00

Just a few sketches from my daughter's ballet class last week.

Hand over the nuts....

2011-07-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

... and nobody gets hurt.

Koalas

2011-07-18T00:58:00.001-07:00

Now who could that be at this time of night?

2011-07-14T01:49:00.000-07:00

Sketchdump

2011-07-08T01:15:00.000-07:00

G'day!

2011-06-30T02:04:00.000-07:00

I find myself trying to avoid drawing the "gimmicky" animals- you know the ones God seems to have made to make us do a double take the first time we see them? Then I run out of ideas, draw one of these animals that have been used as endless fodder for cartoons and characters, and remember why they are such favorites- they're really interesting! I have a few more Koala's but barely have time to scan things nowadays. So for now, enjoy these. And a preemptive excuse- I knew Koala's had 2 thumbs on each hand, and suspected that they did on their feet also. But I drew most of these before really consulting any reference. Turns out the foot thumbs are on the outside of the foot, opposite of what I've shown. So if you were going to comment just to tell me I did the thumbs wrong, don't bother.

On second thought, you can comment anyway. I really like comments.

Gone for a bit, but I'm back

2011-06-29T14:45:00.001-07:00

Goofy Geese

2011-06-20T00:24:00.001-07:00

Deja View

2011-06-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

For those who haven't seen it yet, Andreas Deja, 30 year veteran of Disney Animation, has a blog. He's one of the superstar animators of the Renaissance of Disney Animation which occured in the late 80's and ended... well an end date for that renaissance differs depending on who you talk to. Suffice to say, Mr. Deja is wonderfully talented and has no doubt influenced hundreds upon hundreds of artists out there. I've been a bit surprised though, that his blog postings have been mostly, not about his own work, but about the older generation of Disney animators that he met and trained under. Great to see such stuff, and to hear that he was such a fanboy himself. But every time I read his blog, I think, why is he posting this stuff? This hero worship, that's the kind of thing us fans should be posting. So I am.

I first met Mr. Deja sometime in the early to mid 90's. I was a student at Rowland Animation and every year they had a big Open House. Students would show their work and it was well attended by professionals in the industry. The above photo is my friend Brian Kesinger, myself in the middle (and in the shadows), and Mr. Deja. I don't exactly remember the encounter anymore, but I'm sure I was too nervous to say anything very intelligent. But look at how cute we are- our best (and only)suits- we probably felt so important.

I met Andreas again maybe a year or two later. I was at an Animation Expo. I wasn't very good at promoting myself as an artist- the whole portfolio thing was still new to me, and for the most part a portfolio was something that I sent off to a studio so that they could then call me and tell me it was ready for me to come pick up again. I don't think I had ever had anyone of influence actually critique it in front of me before. So I'm at this Expo (probably overdressed in my suit again!), portfolio in hand, and over at the Disney booth I see Mr. Deja standing, watching the crowd mill around. I had been told that Disney would be holding portfolio reviews, in a room upstairs, and in fact I already had an appointment for that, but I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna ask Andreas to look at my stuff. So I did. I walked on over, introduced myself, and asked if he'd look at my portfolio. He was very nice. He went through page by page, offering comments. He couldn't have been nicer. Even when the line started forming. Pretty soon, you could barely hear Tom Sito's shouting about the Union because of all the calls of, "Hey look, Andreas is doing portfolio reviews!". Poor guy, I'm sure that he was not supposed to review portfolios, but he was just too polite to turn us down. I wonder how long it went on before someone from Disney put a stop to it. I heard a few years later that he still remembers and talked about that incident, though I don't know how true that really is.

Years later, my friend Brian (then a Layout Artist at Disney) had the Art of Animation from Mickey Mouse to Hercules book passed around the studio and signed for me as a birthday present. Most of the inscriptions are not fit to print (who knew artists were such a salty bunch? Ok, I know, we all knew that). Included was this signature (the drawing is printed on the page, not drawn):

Have I even talked about his animation? Far more eloquent people than I have praised his characters (King Triton, Gaston, Jafar, Hercules...). My favorite is Jafar from Aladdin, I think the strongest villains that Disney has had in the more recent films ( 1992 is still recent right?) What I always liked about Jafar was how skillfully Andreas played Jafar's flexibly mouth against the rigidity of the rest of the character. In other words, it's very easy in animation to forget that the things you are drawing are supposed to be made of different materials with different properties of their own. Too often, even in so called "realistic" animation, a character moves like rubber, squashing and stretching equally througout his body. Our bodies really do have squash and stretch but, for example, our femur doesn't squash nearly to the extent that our calf does, despite both being involved with the same motion. Jafar is a great example of this contrast being used to it's fullest. His mouth is in constant motion, grimacing, smiling, or weaving a web of lies, though his face as a whole is almost a mask. There are no held cels, where only his mouth moves, but his entire rigid form often drifts and tilts as a whole with his tight cumberbund and stiff shoulder pads, while his mouth runs through the dialogue, and the two never seem at odds.

Anyway I've rambled on again (which is why I usually just post drawings with little or no explanation), but the point of this whole thing is, go check out Andreas' blog. And I'm sure he'll get around to posting his own stuff eventually.

Hey, What's the deal with henhouses?

2011-06-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

Alien

2011-06-13T14:01:00.001-07:00

Disgusted

2011-06-06T00:06:00.000-07:00

Little Dragon

2011-06-03T00:06:00.000-07:00

Blondes

2011-06-02T02:02:00.000-07:00

Grrrrrrr...umpy

2011-05-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

Hot Chick

2011-05-26T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was doodling and was trying to think up a foil for my dragon-cats. I think this little guy might give them a run for their money.

Trouble

2011-05-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

More Dragon-Cats

2011-05-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

The species ratio is a bit uneven with these 2.

Some ladies

2011-05-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

He belched flame at me!

2011-05-13T09:53:00.000-07:00

10 points to the Disney fan who can tell me what film the title of this blog post is from. For everyone else, here's another Dragon Cat.

Are they dragons or are they cats?

2011-05-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

They're a little bit of both. I'm sure this isn't a totally original idea, but it's fun nonetheless.

Bully

2011-04-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

Super busy this week but not very productive in the sketchbook department. Here's just a little something.

Don't pet

2011-04-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

Pretty Girls

2011-04-21T02:03:00.000-07:00

Just one of the many great things about my day job, is how many pretty women walk by each day. Not that I look, but ... yeah ok, I look. Unfortunately, I usually have to wait a few hours to record any of them in sketch form. Sometimes I'm more successful than others, but it's always fun to try.

Romulans!

2011-04-20T02:07:00.000-07:00

I'm a big Star Trek fan and I'm reading an old ST Novel, so I thought I'd doodle some Romulans.

Invaders

2011-04-13T00:36:00.000-07:00

Two more aliens that I guess I still had in my system. I really like this first guy- mouthless, but otherwise he's a mix of identifiable parts. Not as impressed with the Gatorman down below, but kind of some fun shapes on his body.

This and That

2011-04-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

Villains of the Cute Animal World

2011-04-08T00:02:00.000-07:00

I've been drawing some unlikely villains- cute animals who are also bad guys and master criminals. Don't be fooled by their small stature and fluffy bottoms- they'll slit your throat as soon as look at you. This is Bill "Downy" Waddlemyer, the mad bomber of Lake Sludgeshore. Wanted in a string of city park robberies.

Here you see Bucky Bunnino, Godfather of the Bunnino crime family, contemplating his next move. Wanted on charges of racketeering, gambling, and carrot laundering.

This is Alberto "Twitchy" Agitario. A nervous little guy,

he's a big player in the inner city crime scene. Though he makes a lot of noise, it's well known that he won't get his paws dirty, leaving most of the heavy lifting to the big dogs on his payroll.

And finally Dr. Helmut Eichhörnchen. Once a brilliant scientist, hoping to create a variety of Oak Tree that produced three times the normal number of acorns, he was severely disfigured in a lab explosion. Thanks to the efforts of the criminal organization N.U.T.Z., Dr. Eichhörnchen was augmented with the latest cybernetic prosthesis, but the incident left him mentally unbalanced, and he now uses his enhanced abilities in his quest to take over the world.

Ladies

2011-04-06T02:24:00.001-07:00

Roadkill

2011-04-05T14:48:00.000-07:00

A bit darker of an entry than you'll normally find here on my blog.

Don't worry, I won't make a habit of it.

H is for Hippopotamus

2011-04-01T02:21:00.001-07:00

King

2011-03-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing too inspiring today but I realized that I hadn't posted anything in about a week. I've got a bunch of stuff to put up but have no time to scan and crop so this will have to do for now. Stay tooned...

Dogs don't like Oysters

2011-03-22T00:17:00.000-07:00

This was directly inspired by one of Garrison Keillor's Tales from Lake Wobegon. Just a throwaway line about someone who thought they'd feed their dog oysters, and how much the dog hated them. I thought that was a great image.
Even better was his description of the dog trying to make itself throw up by putting it's own paw down it's throat.

Me Draw Meela

2011-03-18T00:20:00.000-07:00

As I've mentioned before, I'm a big fan of SpaceBase 8. In fact, it's the only webcomic I read. No, seriously it is. Anyway, just for giggles I thought I'd draw Meela, one of the characters in my own style. What makes Meela so ripe for reinterpretation is that even though artist Dave Smith's style is so distinctive and a big part of Meela's look, she's also got some elements that can easily stay intact and make her recognizeable even if she were reinterpreted. Those cat eye glasses, the hipster hair and clothing...

Anyway I'm really making this sound like a bigger deal than it is- all that to introduce my doodle. Meela is Space Base 8's resident administrative assisstant, though she very rarely seems to be at her desk. But that's how I drew her, filing papers. Even in space, there's lotsa paperwork.

You might want to check out Space Base 8 for yourself. Aside from being funny, the art is incredible. Check it out!

Tuesday Sketchdump

2011-03-15T02:35:00.000-07:00

Piratical Cat-ical Friday

2011-03-11T00:31:00.000-08:00