My new lifestyle has brought me the wonder of Tezuka on tap and what a wonder his characters and story-lines are! The more I watch the more I am amazed. They started off with a hint of the unusual and the longer the series goes on the more outlandish and experimental they become. I also love the little cartoon shortcuts, and nods you get like the horse opal skidding to a halt or the odd bending of the laws of physics for amusement. It is therefore a real pleasure to study his character constructions - in the hope I'll learn some of that fluidity that I can feel as i reconstruct his drawings. Above is Sapphire, followed by some bloke from a strip called Manga college, and below is a rather grumpy looking mustachio'd chap called Tawashi. He looks like a policeman or a detective to me, its the curtain on his nose I think, that does it. Otherwise, I have been doing commissions, and getting paid ! (wow) Which is quite a revelation I must say. It feels good to put the effort in and be rewarded, though I am tempted to take a break and draw just for fun for a bit. (Especially as I am working in an office half of the time.) We'll see how the cat-food stocks are running and act accordingly.
I've been working on a children's book about this little guy. Really lovely to do children's stories because its just straight up loveliness. More please!
These characters (from the court of the boviquee) would make a good chess set. Animated chess, so its not just move one place - they walk through places and if they take a piece, there's a fight, or a seige or whatever. I suppose it'd have to be a bit different to real chess, you'd have potential scenarios, combinations of moves, and you'd choose them and depending on how the opponent chooses, the pieces would confront one another and you wouldn't know exactly how it would pan out (to keep it interesting). Sort of chess but three moves at a time, and animated. Wish I could design computer games! Sometimes. Maybe I should just make animations. There's a huge wall of complexity in the way though. And time. Someone said something about Ghibli studios software becoming open source. Did they?
I've not been doing much this last week or so as I moved house. It's nice the new place, more roomy - less barny. I had to so some art, after some days, it was getting to be a thing.
This is taken from some photos of Hatsumi Sensei demonstrating a ninjitsu disarming technique for those occasions when you get attacked by a sword.
This is a panel from perhaps the craziest of my self penned webcomics, and that is saying something as they are all a little (lota) bit zany. Its called the Streatham Quartet. I used to live in Streatham so naturally I drew a comic about mites that get enslaved by one of their kind who has evolved into an evil crab. They loose their ability to procreate (except asexually) which is no fun at all, and must travel through time in a tree (trees are time machines didn't you know) to reverse the terrible effect of this schism in the natural course of things. It involves some funky technology and weird mite mythology which leads them to recruit all sorts of creatures from a roto-bug (an adapted stag beetle) to a crow, a colony of mice, to Merlin himself in the course of justice. All is well in the end when Crapoctopus is shrunk to a manageable size before disappearing altogether when the mites true parents finally get it on, as we can see in this fine illustration that I have snazzified for your eyes' pleasure. Its difficult to follow and a bit rough round the edges, but like so many things ONE DAY I will sort it out and RULE THE WORLD - I mean, try selling it or printing a copy or something.
I thought I'd brush up on these ladies as there was a lot of work packed into this little comic - Vert about an old circus elephant that was buried in our town 100 years ago. Also that elephant was sweet, it got lost a bit I think in the comic strip though it was a nice idea!
Donkey Kong was one of my favourite games as a kid, so I thought I'd dream up a version of the game where Wario and Elmer are driving him and his kind to extinction. Clearly we as the players have to stop them! Why not bring a few real life issues into the gaming world? In an industry bigger than the movies, not only could it make a difference, it could be fun.
Please go to the special website set up for Lawrence's dream-like story, This is only Chapter one, so once things get settled in the New Year (am making some major changes for a while) I will pick it up again!
Here is a readable version. This is my wish-fulfillment comedy take on the inevitable difficulties family obligations lead us to face at christmas!
This picture is already annoying me.
It is merely a facade that does or doesn't reflect who I am inside. I drew this (rather than continue the series I was working on) because it's from life (and I am the only human here right now) because I read today that you should draw from life in order to synthesise all the information without losing the essence, as you can using photo reference. (Though I wonder if a camera-mirror does that too or if because it's a live image it counts as life?) Is it the spirit or is it just about two or three dimensions? I was reading about some artists I like, not least of which was Sempe. The other thing about self portraits - someone said the other day that 'artists are all vain'. Though if you spend your life drawing things, focused a lot if not completely on what you see, then of course you become aware of appearances not necessarily enamoured of them. Steve Rude the other day got really animated when relaying how he finds analytical or meaning laden approaches to art and drawing irritating. But I can't understand how an artist can want to make art devoid of meaning or depth. I get what he means in a way, as in you just have to draw what's there and draw it well, but to completely reject the invisible in art is a mistake to my mind at least. |
The ARTIST
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