The first was the bass player at Inara George & Van Dyke Parks' concert at the Largo a little while ago. I liked his style, but for humor's sake, decided to give him a ukulele.
This one came together easier than most which was nice.
James:
His guitar:
And since I don't know anything about guitar, I asked him to give me a hand placement for general accuracy.
When I was almost done I came across this picture on Flickr that reminded me to add the rim light:
Here's the rough sketch and the flat color. I notice now in the rough sketch I'd puffed his chest out a bit more and tilted his head back, those elements sort of got lost in the process.
Looking back over my reference images, I feel like I could do two or three variations on this design, maybe push it a little further or clean it up.
I've always loved Project Rooftop, and I was really bummed that I missed out on their Iron Man contest, I had a lot of ideas, most of them revolved around making it "old-timey" and "atomic/deco/chic" and it turns out the winner of the contest did all that and more. I adore Daniel Krall's style. I felt the actual suit design was a little too busy and clashed with the streamline/atomic nature of the time period, but holy cow does this image just bowl me over every time I look at it.
For the pose:
The bi-plane:
In Cooperstown I'd seen an old Baseball uniform that had a shield on the chest, similar to Superman's. I couldn't find that style online, but I found this:
And I've always been in love with the Rocketeer's design. Looking at it again now, I think I made the border and buttons around the S too small.
I went through dozens of S's trying to find one that would work best on that off center jacket flap. I finally settled on the Alex Ross Kingdom Come S, but a little less angular and more animated.
The last piece of the costume to come together was the spats. I was still taking my cue from the baseball uniform, and the lighter socks under the darker knee socks, or sock-stripe stirrups. And I was thinking about the red boots, more like shin guards, similar to Darwyn Cooke's Wonder Woman. But once I drew the off white over the boots I was like "spats! that's it!"
Here's the uncropped:
Notice how the shading is inconsistent to the light source. Originally I didn't have the sun behind them, but as I tinkered with the image, this unexpected hot spot showed up behind the plane and I thought "cool I'll make that the sun and flare it out a little." But I didn't want to redo my shading, especially since this was a costume design contest and it would have defeat the purpose to put him in silhouette.
I also feel like maybe the blue-grey leather vest is coming across as evil? I tinted it blue to keep his color scheme, but I wonder now if brown leather would have come across more friendly.
A roller disco superhero with a milkshake was just some of the ideas Bexy tossed around. I tried to combine them to the best of my ability.
Dazzler was the first thing to come to mind:
Researching 70's outfits was fun. At Bexy's request I altered the jumpsuit to be a pants/blouse set so she could show a little belly. Who am I to deny a little belly?
Sometimes the little details can take over, like the Ms Pacman game in the background. I just realized Ms Pacman is a BBW herself!
And Bexy:
Rough sketch:
Flat color (I switched to sidesaddle to showcase the rollerskates and make it more pinup-ee with the turned in knees):
For the flames I wanted to emulate the some styles I'd found in old posters. The last poster with the glowing woman, was something I couldn't quite work into this, but I'm definitely keeping it in mind for the future.
Danielle, serene and fierce.
The rough sketch, the flat color and the uncropped final. As you can see I my first version was too passive and posed for such a kinetic scene.
I want to steer everyone in the direction of Cartoon Brew and their story on Hattie Noel, the beautiful fat actress and dancer who modeled for Disney animators as reference for the hippo ballet sequence in Fantasia. Especially awesome is the clip they found of Hattie at the center of a song and dance number doing the jitterbug for the movie "Irene."
I love it when these things get out of the vault.
Week later update: Color version is up, here's the line art from last week.
Saw a great little documentary this weekend, "Hell On Wheels" about the resurgence of RollerDerby in Austin Texas. They had a raffle and I won two V.I.P. tickets to the next Derby Dolls match! Wooooo Derby!
Here's two variations of the caricature. Part of the reason I'm unsure about it is the heavy shadows, so here's one without and one with half-way between the two.
Unrelated, I caught my first few episodes of the new American Gladiators on the plane and I have such a crush on Hellga.
Along with color, I'll be back later this week with all the fun Space-Girl pinup references I found.
Tuesday Update: Here's the line art from Monday.
Friday Update: Here's the flat color from Tuesday.
Saturday Update: Here's a whole shipload of Space-Girl pinup references. The first three I mentioned back in this post.
These are the new ones I found when I was look for specific inspiration. Danc of Lost Garden created this, which I loved for the haircut and the subtle tron-lines segmenting the sleek spacesuit:
Andrew North did this piece, which I dug for the emblem and the collar and the uniform style. Also: Batgirl!
Rob Ullman did this girl, which I liked for the ring triplets on the gloves and boots.
This piece, signed "Garcia" but labeled "thebottom" on the file? I found on Google images and I wish I could link the artist but I couldn't track down the original source. I dig the haircut and the mod suit. EDIT: Thanks for the link Erasmo!
Kean So did this one, I can't remember what I took from this one, but I had it open with all the others in my inspiration window.
Now for some post-comic inspiration. When I was trying to track down the Garcia/thebottom artist on DeviantArt I found all these great pieces, that, while they didn't inspire me this time around, I'll keep in mind next time:
Bonus points to whoever gets the reference in this comic's title.
I gotta go to bed but I'll update tomorrow with all the cool mermaid art I found while I was looking for reference.
There Will Be Blood is both amazing...and not quite. Hard to explain, there was no part I didn't like, but by the end I wasn't sure about it.
Fido on the other hand is fantastic. No reservations, go rent it.
Monday Update: here's my mermaid reference.
There's a restaurant down the street from me that has a drawing on their menu of a mermaid with two leg/fins instead of the traditional legs coming together to form a tail. I should have walked down the street to take a picture but I figured I could find similar stuff online, but this little knick knack is all I found:
I gave up on Google pretty quick and moved onto Flickr where I found this by tartx. I liked the texture and the layers and the general old timeyness.
Similar to that, I found a plethora of beautiful old timey layered textured mermaids by heyjupiter.
Planning specifically to draw a rubanesque mermaid I found curvygirl's adorable collection:
And about as perfect as can be I found out about a restaurant/bar in Zihuatanejo called "La Sirena Gorda" or "The Fat Mermaid." Here's a picture of their wall art, more courtesy of auntiem.
Weeks later update: after I finished the space cadet pinup I wanted to go back to the mermaid and give her a bit more texture and tweak her color a bit. And add freckles. Here she is as I originally finished her:
Last week for my birthday present Meredith took me to the LA Philharmonic Presents: Sounds Of The City with a bunch of great artists, the stand out of which was Miss Zooey Deschanel, enjoy some bootlegs:
I like Luc Besson...but I don't, you know? Granted I haven't seen all his films. I hated but can't stop watching Fifth Element, I really liked The Professional (but never saw Leon), and I really hated The Messenger, I dug the Transporter but that's the end of the list there. I haven't seen La Femme Nikita or any of his early stuff. For some reason I still like him though, maybe it's cause even when he's bad you can still see his enthusiasm shine through.
But Angel-A knocked my socks off. I was totally head over heels in love with it until the very end, then the happy ending made me take a step back. I still love the movie, but I prefer to imagine a darker ending that never was.
I only know Jamel Debbouze from Amelie but that was enough to hook me when I first saw the preview. In the behind the scenes video you can see he was a bit nervous about carrying a whole film, and a little excited and anxious that he had to do drama as well, but from watching the movie you'd never know it. He owns the film.
Rie Rasmussen starts the movie sort of simplistic, like Lulu in Fifth Element, but her performance sort of snuck up on me cause about half way through I realized I was totally into her character arc. And of course she's visually iconic. With heels she's 6 feet tall and towers over the 5'5" Jamel. I love extreme height/size juxtapositions. The script also puts a few nice spins on the angel concept.
The movie itself is beautiful, all the locations and sets are meticulously framed so no shot is wasted. The black and white is a little funky compared to an old black and white film. I don't know if this is cause I'm used to seeing dirty grainy old movies or because it was shot in color and converted to black in white like most modern day B&W films (I don't know if it was, that's just my assumption). The movie also does a great job of staying simple. There's a few moments of digital trickery, and I actually think they could have done away with them entirely cause the film was so strong in it's editing. But they do a good job keeping the effects subtle so I won't give them too much shit for it.
I got one of those fancy kitchen aide mixers for christmas so there is much baking to be done this year. Should probably draw a new comic sometime though...
The Tough Cookies lost this weekend in a not so close match. :(
But on the plus side their new venue is huge and cool and Sunday's Felt Club was fun. I'll add pictures in the next day or so but here's some links of my favorite vendors:
Ex Libris Anonynous had an amazing assortment of old books converted into journals. I bought one as a gift. Part of me is pained to see pretty old books "ruined" but another part of me thinks they do make the coolest journals (though depending on the book, their plastic rings look a bit cheap).
J Is For Jewelry had a necklace that I wanted to buy and wear even though I'd probably look like a dork. It's not on their website I don't think, but it's a found holographic Muybridge style animation that they set in a pendant. I should have taken a picture.
The Weekend Store was selling typewriter jewelry that I really wanted too. It inspired me to come home and immediately bid on eBay on a few typewriter key lots (I lost). I wouldn't have used them for jewelry, I would put magnets on them and put them on my fridge and I would have the coolest kitchen. I did a search to see if the idea's been done before, and it kinda has, but $175? Yikes!
I bought a new wallet from 11:11 cause it had a dinosaur.
Motormouth Press I really wanted to buy from (I mean come on, ICE CREAM), but I don't really send cards to people? Maybe I need to start.
I'm getting my Buster Keaton hat pressed and stiffened so I won't have to worry about it getting all floppy next time I wear it.
Exciting weekend.
Anyone in LA should check out Abbas Kiarostami's films playing at the LACMA the next two weekends. I saw an early film of his, The Traveler, on Friday, so beautiful.
Sunday night update: I spoke too soon! Right after I posted I got a second wind and decided I could at least whip up a rough sketch and the dialogue. Yay for inspirado!
The picture I posted that was going to be in place of a comic this week: "Fluff"
My friend is a film archive student at UCLA and she got me in free to a double feature Friday of Take A Letter, Darling and Bachelor Mother. They're pretty incredible. Unfortunately they're not on DVD, but if you can find them anywhere in screenings or VHS it's worth it.
Here's the "blue pencil" sketch I posted last week:
We had this phone when I was growing up. It's a red base with Kermit sitting in a mod executive chair holding a yellow phone up with his crossed legs.
When I was doing the musical I thought the bold colors would fit right in and I asked my dad to ship it to me but he'd just taken it to Goodwill. A few years later I decided it was time to have this phone (even though I still haven't used it) so I started searching eBay and flea markets until I found a reasonable price. Now I plan to buy the PhoneLabs' "Dock'N'Talk," a device that runs your cell signal into a landline phone. It's sort of overpriced though so I've been putting it off.
Making ice cream and brownies was much more important than drawing the comic this weekend. If my comic ever ends, chances are it will be because of the ice cream maker.
Here's the marshmallow picture I posted in delay of Monday's comic:
I've never painted ceilings before or molding or two colors in the same room or a two colors on the same wall
Should be fun!
Monday update: Results!
First order of business (easy order of business) was my cereal shelf. I have a pretty built in molded shelf above my sink that I've been using for my cereals (like Seinfeld). But cereal boxes are covered in ads and promotions and sort of ugly even though I dig the colors and cartoon characters. So in my old apartment and this new one, I'd just been placing them ingredient side out (lame). Then I got the jar idea and found these tall narrow ones at Ikea for $4 and got a wooden dowel from Lowes and screwed it in front as an earthquake precaution. Safety first!
The big project of the weekend was painting. This was my original paint plan:
And here's the before picture of one side of my apartment. The blue bedsheet was a quick-dorm-room-solution to no drapes that turned into a three month solution for no drapes. But as you can see new drapes are there on the theater seats to be installed:
Yay color! I took this picture before I installed the drapes but I did it, honest. My friend and I could only finish the aqua and the orange before we went to see 3:10 To Yuma, but afterwards I decided that I really liked the aqua/orange/white combo and I'm not going to use the green. It took three coats of orange to cover the gloss white finish on the shelves and the ceiling was a pain in the butt to paint but so pretty.
Me being pleased with my new apartment. I still need to clean up the edges and corners with white cause we were planning on using the green paint to cover our mistakes at the time. Can't wait to do the bathroom and the kitchen!
Counter space in my kitchen is at a premium and with the arrival of the ice cream maker it was no decision, nuke box gotta go.
Monday update: having trouble finishing this week's comic even though it's a fairly simple one. Lets try again tomorrow.
Tuesday update. Ok! Pushed through my laziness tonight and wrapped it up. I got a new computer last week (an iMac) and it took me a while to get the hang of the bigger screen and increased resolution (I'm drawing in 300dpi now!). Let me know if anything seems different. I tried to keep everything close to the same (brush width, overall brightness/color, etc) so there wouldn't be any jarring style shift midstory.
The cupcake photo I posted in place of a comic on Monday:
That's the main room. The door to the left is the kitchen and the door to the right is the bathroom. The couch at the bottom opens up for my bed. When I'm more settled I'll have before and after pictures.
Monday second thoughts. Something bugged me about the comic today. I thought it felt too "emo" and my friend said maybe too "Buddhist" but either way it didn't feel right. So I changed it a bit.
Here's the original if you missed it or if you prefer it:
I used the same recipe as before. Only this time I added more strawberries and strawberry extract. It made the flavor pop, but unfortunately, it made the batter too loose (the strawberries were fresh and just washed, so they were probably holding a lot of water). I also overfilled the cups and undercooked them.
At the same time, the chocolate icing set a lot faster than before and was starting to loose it's spreadability by the time the cupcakes cooled.
The outcome was cooked cupcake batter that had poured over the cup and actually created a shell around the wrapper. But the cupcake it self was crumbly cause of the loose batter and undercooking. So when I tried to apply the thick icing, they all fell apart.
After ruining about five I finally figured out a pattern to gently icing them and peel off the batter shell. Then I put them in the fridge for a day and a half (I pulled them from the Night Hawks menu). When I brought them to work as rejects, I guess they'd dried out some, because they held their shape and everyone liked them. So it sort of worked out in the end?
So the reason my address has a hyphen in it is because www.nongravity.com is owned by a Eastern Europeon sky diving group. This amuses me for some reason.
