Author Archives: littledragonblue

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About littledragonblue

Dreamer, Writer, Artist, Lover

The Sound of Printing part ii

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This is probably the most people who are actually supposed to look like real people that I’ve ever drawn into 1 comic. 

Page 2 of “The Hills Are Alive with the Sound of Printing.” Took a little extra time as I wasn’t 100% sure of what the client wanted in panels 1 and 3, partly because creative people in fits of inspiration tend to have atrocious handwriting, and partly because (as only realized much later) I only read 1/2 of the notes. Also, the panels got cluttered pretty quickly, so I had to figure out which graphic elements to ditch (mostly people’s feet; originally there were a number of cowboys boots in this comic). I also had to leave off the speaker on the sound booth in panel 2 because the sound booth is already tiny and I couldn’t make it look good. Just imagine that the technician’s voice is coming through a speaker. Still, after it seemed done and uploaded, I decided to go back and add some fringe on the singer’s shirt in panel 4. It didn’t seem flashy enough for cowboy couture.

I’m especially pleased with the little pop-out heart for the gospel singer. It was a perfect compromise when it became apparent that a box would take up too much space.

I learned several things in the course of drawing this comic. The first thing was what a steel guitar is. Apparently whatever I thought a steel guitar is was wrong, but luckily, I had The Man around to set me right. The second thing was that The Man knows way too much about music. I had to look up “Little GTO,” but when I asked him if he knew the song, he could just start singing it. That song is like 50 years old; it came out 10 years before he was born. Then he gave me a short lecture about GTOs. Because he also knows way too much about cars. Of course, I did look up the Hi-Lo’s and WMU’s Gold Company. This comic will be distributed in Portage, so its intended readers will already know that WMU is Kalamazoo’s Western Michigan University, where I earned my MFA, but did not hear of the Gold Company.

The Sound of Printing part i

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Those are some big speakers. I guess print shops are noisy places. You need big speakers.

Here’s something new: working for money. The printer who made my Bonnie Jo Campbell comics, Craig Vestal of Portage Printing, hired me to draw a promotional comic for his shop. He wrote the script and drew the thumbnails. This is the first page I’ve created from his notes.

I had just read a Smithsonian article about Wes Wilson, the designer who created the psychedelic-style concert posters in the 60s, and decided to draw the title in the same style as the original Sound of Music movie promotions, which has that groovy ’60s feel even though the movie is set during WWII. Craig sent me photos of all his classic stereo equipment and of the Brown Brothers.

This is page 1 of 3. I don’t know what number comic this is, but apparently Craig has hired a number of artists to create a quantity of comics detailing the history of his shop. Clever. Comics are the best.

I can’t believe it’s an insomnia comic

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No, seriously, though, I can’t believe it. Did I write this? I don’t remember writing this.

No sleep 2 nights in a row? You know what that means. Insomnia comics! Somehow, in the fog of sleeplessness, the confusion of juggling 3 projects, and the haze of constant low grade worry surrounding a delightful variety of life issues and unfinished business, this comic spewed forth from my brain. I was literally writing something else, an article that was supposed to get filed last Wednesday, and then somehow I started making this comic. My mind and fingers started making this comic without me.

Best guess, it only took about 45 minutes start to finish. I really don’t remember, but the clock seems to line up that way. In this state, it probably would have been 4 hours had I decided to hand letter it.

 

Shamrock Window Mandala

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It’s good luck. I swear!

I studied French for about 8 years total in middle school, high school, and college. I don’t speak French, or understand French when other people speak it, but I used to be able to read and write and French, and I did make a pretty decent effort to learn it for eight years. Pretty early on in my studies, I was taught the word rosace, which translates to “rose window.” As a child, I found it perplexing that I was being taught to say in French a word that I didn’t know in English.

Now I know what a rose window is, although, with the exception of possibly one or two cathedral tours in Europe, I’ve never had the opportunity to use it. A rose window is a type of mandala, of course, a large, expensive, and easily breakable mandala. But this isn’t a rose window. It’s a shamrock window. Less costly, more durable.

Today I sent out the comics books for which people have paid, so if you bought a comic from me, you should expect it Thursday. Then the Fox took me out for sushi and to the see the National Live Theater Frankenstein with Benedict Cumberbatch, which is a really smashing bit of acting and highly recommended if you have the chance.

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.