Monthly Archives: October 2016

Happy Halloween!

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Sadly, I will be eating sushi and watching Frankenstein with the Fox during trick or treat, so the children of our fair city will be missing out on this flaming pumpkin action this year. 

Behold! The Ultragorgon!

No, it isn’t a confused tribute to Stranger Things, but rather to something that actually happened in the ’80s: The Jim Henson Hour. In this episode, “Monster Maker,” a kid visits a puppet shop and sees this half-finished dragon puppet, the ultragorgon, which later comes to life and teaches him things (bad things, I seem to recollect). The ultragorgon is massive. In real life, it took 8 puppeteers to animate him. Looking back, I don’t really remember The Jim Henson Hour and seemed to recall this as being associated with his previous project, The Storyteller. Much like Jim Henson, that project was wonderful, and ended way too soon. The Jim Henson Hour wasn’t terribly successful, and the network pulled the plug on it instead of giving him a chance to get it right, and Henson died about a year later. But “Monster Maker,” as a stand alone story, is a lot of fun.

I loved the design of the dragon, and thought it could be adapted to other things, so I’ve had the picture for a while, and when I decided to make the most elaborate jack-o’-lantern I’ve ever made, I pulled it out. It’s not really an exact match or anything, but it did come out pretty interesting for a misshaped pumpkin with a face cut into it. The nose was originally more complex but I accidentally punched it out. Oh well. You always have to do the smaller details first. Once you’ve made big cuts, you don’t want to mess with what’s left or you can knock the pieces out. The eyes are nice, and the ridges at the top of the head and down the center of the face. You can’t really see the horns that wrap around the side The thing about pumpkin carving is that you only do it once a year. If we did it once a month I bet I’d be much better at it.

Tn the right you can also see the edges of the cat pumpkin that the Girl carved mostly by herself, after spending 45 minutes staring at her pumpkin and talking about what she wanted to carve. She accidentally punched her whole design out, so The Man had to pin it back in with toothpicks. You can also see a bit of the Boy’s “derp” pumpkin. I guess it was supposed to look goofy but actually it looks worried and scared. It reminds me of my paternal grandmother, whose catchphrase was, “Oy vey, I was so worried.”

Next year, I will allot myself more than 90 minutes to carve a pumpkin, and get better tools, and work in a spot that isn’t completely full of flies, and I will make the greatest dragon face pumpkin the world has ever seen.

Halloween Insult Comics, 2016

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It’s not a lie. His mama is really covered in mold.

I lied! Whilst looking at my old comics from Halloweens past, I came across the original version of Halloween Insult Comics and realize that if I could find the original file, I could just write some new insults on the old image. And then I realized that I could use the horizontal type tool for the text, which is much more efficient than hand lettering. So this is a new comic. My hand is mostly OK now, and I have commission comic for cash money to draw this weekend.

 

How and Why by Robert Graves

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How and Why by Robert Graves

This is sort of a repeat, in the sense that I’ve posted the image before, but sort of not, due to the way I started blogging, which was to create 6 months’ worth of posts in a week. It always seems so sad when someone’s just started something like a blog and you go there and barely find any content. So I decided to backdate the entries to make it look like I had been blogging for 6 months before I started publicizing new posts in any way. Consequently, there’s some wonderful content that’s been viewed by about 6 people.

I love this piece; it’s always been my intention to clean it up in Photoshop and, if I can get permission from the estate of Robert Graves, to sell prints. The original hangs beside my desk and has for years, and yet only now I’m noticing a missing apostrophe. There’s a few higgledy-piggledy lines. Ink used to make me more nervous than it does now. It’s weird that the text isn’t straight even though this was all penciled out before inking, and I used a ruler and everything.

My hand is getting better; next week comics will return. Originally I wanted to post a picture of some kids wearing QvD merch today, but apparently it’s not a good time to get permission from the family so I’m waiting to see if I can’t get a photograph of some different kids in my clothes. Otherwise I’ll share another of my favorite Trickster’s Hat projects.

A Fish Is More Than Nothing

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You clean your brushes your way and I’ll  clean my brushes mine.

By doing the bare minimum with my thumb for a couple days, I have taken it from ~5% to maybe 50%, which is an improvement, but still not optimal, so I’m sticking by my resolution to draw no comics this week. What we have here, instead, is a quick painting of a fish I did last after I had painted all those origami fish and didn’t want to waste all the unused paint I had squeezed out on to my palette.

What I’d like to do is more drawing/painting from live models. Seems like the only way to improve. Most artists have a better connection between their memory and their art; I’m still more a writer than an artist, and I can hear/see words in my head much more clearly than I can see pictures, although apparently it’s possible to train oneself to understand things like light and shadows across 3-dimensional objects, even though they’re harder to grasp when you lack depth perception.

Real Paper Comic Books

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You may not know you want then. You may not want them at all. But I have them.

If you would like to own this one-of-kind, limited edition Bonnie Jo Campbell Comics comic book, and you are unable to travel to one of Bonnie Jo’s readings, or to the Michigan News Agency in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where they are being sold, I have a small number of comics for sale, meaning you could receive this stunning collector’s item and help a starving artist at the same time.

If you know me personally and can come to my house, come over and I can sell you one at retail price. If you don’t know me or aren’t near Tucson, you can still harness the power of the internet. PayPay $5 and your shipping address to littledragonblue [at] yahoo [dot] com. But don’t do this if you are my grandmother, because I mailed you one yesterday.

These are really beautiful, high quality comics, professionally printed. If you’re a fan of Bonnie Jo Campbell, or of QWERTYvsDvorak, or of weird, uncategorizable, literary indie comics, or of supporting people who create art evert day that it doesn’t feel like their thumb is about to fall off, they come highly recommended.

Big Gem Mandala

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Do you know how hard it is to find matched stones?

Basically, my right thumb is jacked. It was sort of offering hints that it wanted to rest but it was already committed to a variety of time-sensitive projects and now it’s not really performing much at all, unless you count a symphony of pain as a performance. I’m trying to keep it immobilized. Usually, this passes in a week or 2. It’s been worse. But it’s also been better. I’m scared to seek medical attention because the last time I did they just made it worse.

So I might not draw comics this week. There will be other stuff to post about. With pictures. Gotta try to make this thumb lasts the rest of my life. At this rate, it won’t.

Delirium Fish Headpiece

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It’s the fully adjustable crown of fishies of my dreams, and yours too, I’m sure. 

The final piece for my Delirium cosplay: a cloud of fishes floating around my head. Turned out to be a good thing that I couldn’t find any prefabricated fish ornaments because these origami fish are banging and jamming and swimmingly wonderful, plus, you know, extra layer of surreality. Why is that person wearing a halo of origami fish on her head?

Learning to fold origami fish didn’t take all that long, surprisingly. They’re painted with acrylics to match the tutu. Start to finish making the fish only took a couple hours, and since I already had the paper from 1000 cranes and the paint from a few other projects, the fish cost nothing to make. The headband was 15 cents and the tiny barrettes were 10 cents each. The wire was the most expensive part.

Also made a set of cloisonné fish earrings from old charms, one of which was my mother’s, and the other of which was a gift from the Vampire Bat. Now, assuming that I can find my regular clothes required for the outfit–fishnet shirt, fishnet stockings, colored stockings, leather jacket–the cosplay is all ready to go. I’d search out the pieces now but The Man is sleeping.

 

Proof of Concept

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Layers! Onions have layers; reality has layers. You get it. 

This is a proof of concept drawing for my next big project about which I am stoked and can now discuss: collaborating with the always-amazing Linda Addison to create 1 or 2 comics for her upcoming book of interconnected short stories, Negative Spaces. Originally, based on the tile of the book, I have envisioned a very different style–much more black, much simpler lines–but after we talked about the project for a couple hours, the layers started to come together.

This image won’t be an actual comic panel: it just demonstrates the style in which the eventual comic will appear, more or less. Still needs some tweaks, but the idea is that each layer of reality has its own weight and solidity.

  • The background is a manipulated photograph; in the next iteration I’ll leave off the stippling and just play with the contrast and brightness to take it down to line work.
  • The human character is a pencil sketch, with the interiors filled in with grayscale to pull it forward from the background.
  • The kid’s imaginary friend is drawn in crayon, then reproduced at 50% opacity so it’s partially transparent but still heavy enough to interact with the kid.
  • The 5th dimension beings are a 3D polymer clay model set on the scanner bed to make them hyper-real.

These aren’t the actual 5th dimension beings, whose design specs have not yet solidified: it’s 3 different angles on the “chronic pain and insomnia” figurine from my personal demons collection, because it was the only monster I had lying around that seemed as if it would lie easily on the scanner. The actual 5th dimension beings will be flatter, for maximum scannability.

Of course, these comics have to be black and white, but knowing that in advance gives me the opportunity to experiment and possibly understand how playing with grayscale can add dimensionality

Hench 4 Life!

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#24: We can take my Nissan Stanza.#21: Oh, shotgun, called! Totally! The Monarch: What color is it? Is it diabolical? Or at least butterfly colored? #24: It’s powder blue. Mostly. The Monarch: Great. 21, what do you drive? #21: His powder blue Stanza.

If you’ve never watched The Venture Brothers, none of this can possibly make sense to you, but if you do watch The Venture Brothers, it should all be hilarious. And yes, I’ve seen The Venture Brothers and I know Brock Samson says, “Today you are murderflies,” not Henchman 21.

This is the 3D card I made for The Man’s birthday this week. He’s been making noises about doing this as a cosplay, so it seemed appropriate, although I think he’s doing the original 21, not the 2 Ton 21 iteration I’ve depicted here. And also, he’s probably going to talk in the 24/Ray Romano voice all night, if I know him, which I do.

This version is sculpted from polymer clay. It’s about 2.5 inches high and maybe 1/8 inch thick. I should have done his utility belt but I was tired. After baking 21, I used hot glue to stick him to heavy card stock, to better protect him from getting lost or broken. He probably needs some kind of shadowbox situation.

“Today you are murderflies,” is a great birthday greeting.

 

 

 

Likability

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Clearly, I just haven’t been trying hard enough. I can be more unlikable with a little effort.

The world doesn’t make any sense, does it? I’m more of a random act of kindness and senseless beauty kind of person. That only goes over well in smaller communities, apparently. The first school election I ever ran in was for secretary of the English department graduate committee the last year of my MFA progrm, a position for which I was nominated in absentia and ran unopposed. It was basically a forced appointment because no one else would do the job.

Obviously, anyone who practices as much random kindness and senseless beauty can never run for public office.