Slightly Fishy

A generous friend of mine was kind enough to burn me a CD of H.P. Lovecraft stories, which I hadn't been introduced to before. Here's an attempt at depicting 'the Innsmouth look' ... I'm afraid it came out rather more as a graphic style than a set of physical characteristics. Mike Mignola seems to be able to do it possibly without even trying, though he's brillant and well-read enough it's probably conscious.

Kung Fu Eye Action

Me: ...I always pictured Shadwell kinda scrawny but Moody, if not buff, then posessing a shadow of his former action hero self.
SMK: Moody with Kung Fu Eye Action


Thanks to a well-timed viewing of A Muppet Christmas Carol, Mad-Eye Moody is, has been, and ever shall be Michael Caine in my head ... though here he looks a bit more like Billy Connolly. Probably 'cause he's being silly. And I have forgotten how to draw convincing impacts, if I ever knew. Throw in more secondary action! Yeah!

P.S. In case anyone was left hanging by that Dragons post, and hasn't seen this yet, I got a bit carried away and wrote a sort of essay on what I like and dislike about genres of fantasy.

The Scapegoat

Sometimes it's beneficial to attempt a caricature from memory, thereby getting a more accurate impression of the character rather than relying on specific details. I was resuming my long-abandoned attempt to caricature Billy Boyd as Pippin for a friend's Christmas present (I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog so I think I'm safe in saying that) and noticed he has roughly the same eye shape as Lee Ingleby, so I doodled this little Hollom on the way home from my sister's. A distance of a year or more from the last time I watched Master & Commnader (?!!?!!!?!???) seems to have benefited me in this regard.

Lemony and Beatrice

I picked up the Road to Perdition soundtrack yesterday, and upon listening to track 13 (appropriately) I was struck with this image of the meeting between Lemony Snicket and Beatrice (not that Beatrice, obviously) over a root beer float, as implied in The Beatrice Letters. The picture is better if you've read the book[s] and/or are listening to track 13, but I hope it stands up on its own...

Dragon Dragoon

The presence of dragons is a pretty good indicator that something is the kind of fantasy I don't really like. The scalèd beasts are useful for comedy, at times, though. My dad put the image of dragons on horseback into my head and I couldn't resist.

Snicket Photos

I took my camera on a walk, on a recent rainy day, and managed to snap some shots in the vein of the odd dissociated photos in Lemony Snicket's Unauthorized Autobiography. Unfortunately I couldn't convince all passers-by to dress in period costume or amusing disguises so they're all landscape shots, but I'm inordinately proud of them nonetheless.

    
  

A Bit of Madness

This sequential gag sketch took far too much time and effort, but it was fun. It stars William de Worde from Terry Pratchett's The Truth, Haruko from FLCL, and Rimmer from Red Dwarf. I read this line in The Truth:

He went back to his lodgings and had a look at himself in the mirror over the washbasin. A large R, printed in bruise colours, occupied a lot of his forehead.
He stuck a bandage over it.

... and the following just dropped into place. (Click to enlarge)

Genius

There's a show on BBC Radio 4 called Genius which asks for 'brilliant, if unworkable' ideas from the audience. One fellow last week suggested that chickens in battery farms be given virtual reliaty headsets to make them think they're free range and thereby lay more or better eggs. Eventually the host presented the unavoidable train of logic that this would lead to the Chicken Matrix, which prompted this from me:
Truly a noble use of Photoshop. Yes, indeed.

Sign of the Season

Now that the weather has cooled down and is getting wet, it's time for the innappropriately dressed girls to pop up like mushrooms. Their native habitat is the shopping district downtown and their diet appears to consist solely of venti lattes from Starbucks. Calls vary slightly by the individual but generally consist of complaints about the weather delivered in a nasal tone and sliding up in pitch at the end. Scientists are still uncertain as to how their fattening diet is not reflected in their gracile physiques, or how, despite being well-connected to general media, they remain completely ignorant of the weather forecast.

Splashing Around

Here's a painting I did for a friend's birthday . . . it's been a while since I've used paint (real paint!) so I wanted to start off with something simple. I hope some more will be coming along before too long . . . after I finish my Halloween costume, anyway. Priorities!

Anyway, it's framed a bit wider than what shows up in the matted framed officially final version. The composition is a little better in the frame but it cut out some of the detail on the near tree trunks that I had had such fun with.

Investigating Images

Here's a sort of concept piece I did a while ago to illustrate a location in Terry Pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. The geology is largely based on the coastal plain near Bellingham, Washington, which is strange with its island-like hills poking up out of the flatness.

The Mysterious Cyberspatial Adventures of Twirly Noodle

So this is the Mysterious Land of Blogspot.

Hmm, not bad. Pretty shiny. Hey look, I can see animation artists from here!