~ It's just a minor sketch... ~

And now for a bit of early 80's nostalgia from D.C. and the Beltway: Minor Threat:

Did these while having youtube clips of the band playing in the background. Tried not to pause or dwell too long looking at the footage while drawing - which actually helped I thought.

Anyhow, the drawings are pretty loose and sloppy.

And I know, there's something to be said about clarity when doing crowd scenes. But trust me, if you watch the video, you'll see what I mean...



Some links to other clips where the audience is being tossed around in a dryer. (This show's happening inside of a replica pirate ship, by the way):

-"Seeing Red" (This one's got a double stagedive at about 0:36)

-"Stand up" (First song of the set. Audience literally explodes within 0.5 seconds. Guy with a whistle jumps onstage and directs traffic.)

-"Little Friend" (Breakdown near the end is pretty off the hook - there's at least one jumpkick to the face.)

-"I Don't Wanna Hear It" (Michael Jackson launches off stage at about 1:03.)

-"Sob Story" (Although not the fastest or most intense song, the last part between 1:13 and 1:40 captures for me why I dug on this band so much.)

-"Betray" (Pretty much says it all. They fully throw themselves into the song, with some sharp Sinatra dance moves near the end.)

~ Guns, Robots, Reapers, Founding Fathers... ~

Haven't done a digital color piece in awhile. I'm not sure if that's helped or hurt any. Well, anyhow...

.........

And what's a 4th of July without a 20 min. sketch of a founding father, ah? Mr. Thomas Jefferson, ladies and gentlemen of the jury:

"I sincerely believe … that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale." *

Hmmmmm... now that doesn't sound anything like our modern society. C'mon, we're smarter than that, Mr. Jefferson. I mean, who would ever think that a nation - which won a two-front World War, landed on the moon, and invented the Internet - would willingly run itself into a housing bubble, credit funk, and a national deficit - all of which would end up making it an indentured debtor to its own banking industry, its own Federal Reserve, and ultimately to other countries? And all of this via small plastic cards and "creative" financing? Ha! Not us, Tom! We're smarter than that...

....Now where'd I leave the keys to the Hummer and the speedboat?...

Ah, here they are, buried beneath this Fannie Mae stationary and my limited edition Enron copy of "The Selfish Gene"...

....
* Thomas Jefferson; Letter, May 28, 1816, to political philosopher and senator John Taylor, whose book 'An Inquiry into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States' (1814) had argued against the harmful effects of finance capitalism. [Link]

~ Revolyutsiya... ~

"Lev Tsarya", Ch. I:

........

So that was one way to go about brainstorming for an idea while drawing: Storybooking the whole intro.

I found the importance of coming up with the character design sheets first before settling into a sequential involving several main characters - if for nothing else than to codify their look, uniforms, and getting comfortable with possible facial expressions. Was interesting to go back to page 2 (first one done) after hitting page 15, and realizing that a couple of characters had to be redrawn; "Wait; who's that again? Oh yeah..."

I'm usually pretty good about kicking myself to do the exploratory sketch thing first. (I actually had a couple of full page illos of these characters before this.) Then again, I wasn't anticipating doing a short sequential off an initial loose sketch (second page, first panel).

..Snowball kept on rolling, and found myself just making it up as I went - which probably shows. But I did my best with improvising and not going back to readjust panels (although this happened a few times). First pass, with all the bells and whistles happening as I was drawing. ("Ah wait, this guy could be the angry leader.", "This guy could be the simple peasant that always lifts his hat to everyone.", "This is how the inner sanctum and Patriarch will look."; "These are the two prisoners they release.","This is how everyone gets into a Keystone Cops scenario.", etc)

But it pretty much follows the same theme as the WWII sequence I did a while back (on the portfolio page) - just added a few little things here and there. Stories can be the same as rough sketches - exploring and reworking the look and feel until you get an offshoot that's more refined.

Anyhow, there's hopefully some clarity in the panels. Some of it's pretty crammed, but that's what happens when this stuff's happening in one go. Besides, story's supposed to be organic and all - which is just another way of saying that it does its own thing while having some sort of structure in the meanwhile - kind of like an Amazonian jungle, nitroglycerin, or Windows Vista.

~ Between Drawing and Revolution ~

...Been late in uploading anything this weekend due to being glued to the TV - and no, it wasn't because of the Bill Murray Marathon they had going on AMC (although I flipped over to it a few times - Caddyshack is a good counterpoint to the news).

Watched most of what's been going on in Iran, flipping between CNN and Fox. Even stayed up to listen to McDonald's co-founder and Baby Milk Factory advocate Ali Khamenei give his speech, with the crowd doing a pretty decent job catching their cues to yell "Death to [insert name here]... Death to [insert nationality here] !"

Speech was long, and I only caught the last half hour. Stayed up and took notes:

...Illegible notes. And equally illegible sketches.

............

And yes, I did the Ayin sketches during the speech as well. I didn't consciously draw her "rushing-forward-with-knife" in relation to the Ayatollah giving his spiel. (*cough*):

(I wasn't really happy with this pose of hers in the last sequence, hence the redraw - and I'm not sure I'm really satisfied with this sketch either - and I'm starting to sound like a broken record in these blog posts of mine. I promise, I'll post better sketches with less whining next time.)

.....

Speaking of revolution: Since I'm just about done with a several-page prologue to a story idea revolving around a Russian Revolution, here's a preview panel:

Since I suck at drawing historical details accurately, it's an alternate universe deal revolving around a future Revolution in the Holy Empire of Tsarist Russia. Either that, or it's my lame attempt at making a comic that falls somewhere between August 1914 and Big Trouble in Little China.

Given that parallel, it will have plenty of historic and spiritual motifs. More important will be the huge free-for-all shootouts, running through dark tunnels, freeing prisoners, blind old wizards in catacombs. And wildlife - with four legs and wings. That are as tall as a water tower.

Did I mention that it has wings?...

Fin.

~ Short Sequence... ~

...Which I actually finished this time. Well, sort of. (See end.)

This should've had some kind of dramatic name attached to it, kind of like those chapter headings in graphic novels. You know, something like "Death Dance" or some such. (Other hit titles include: "Waltz Between Worlds", "Grim Creeper", "Slowly The Shadow", and "Super Happy Funland Awaits IV: The Reckoning".)

Wouldn't you be embarrassed if you just defeated Death with a mystical butter knife?

Anyhow, I think I could've put more emphasis on the Death Agent being invisible/incorporeal to everybody else besides the main character. More shots with him floating through people unawares? Hmm, nah; probably just more clarity in the shots I have already.

.......

Some panels that didn't make the cut.

An idea that hit me later: I should've had her stall by digging for change for a homeless guy, right before she does the turn-around-with-knife thing. Then I could've had the bum at the head of the crowd while they're gawking at her, with him toothing "She's crazy!" (all while peeing his pants).

......

On a side note, I found this picture online while searching for something else:
Pretty sure that's Ant Ward, Justin Wright, and Sam Marin (CalArts character animation folks). Kind of cool how even 3/4 back view can still make for distinctive character profiles.

~ And now, an interlude... ~

Yes, I've been bad. I haven't updated. Which means the characters have to console my laziness with a round or ten...

And a random post-it with my crappy Japanese from memory. The sentence has nothing to do with the character. Or maybe it does....

Many more sketches these past weeks, but the above were the ones I didn't second guess posting online.

Many more later.