Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Three

I love making fun of people for stuff I made them do.



Hopper's eyebrows are really annoying to draw. No matter angle he's at, I give them the same shape, which doesn't make sense in a three-dimensional space. Kinda like the Flinstones face flip thing.

Good thing it's a flat comic.

BowWow Kirby

I think a description would only take away from this

Pickles and Christmas

Thur it is.



Here's one of Dad's Christmas gifts, so that means he's not to look at my blog until Christmas day, under the penalty of a slap upside the head. Both of my other readers are free to read it now.

My parents and I have recently started following this pickle tradition, even though we have no idea where it came from. Apparently, no one does. It's fine by me, as finding it means I get another gift, even though I'm pretty sure the gift is just one my parents were gonna give me on Christmas day anyway. Fun nonetheless.

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part Two

STELLAAAAAA!! ...I mean BIRTHDAY GIFT GLIIIIIITCH!!



Imagine if you will some guy who can't stop playing Animal Crossing that triggers the notorious birthday gift glitch. A glitch that freezes every single member of town indefinitely and has no apparent solution.

Actually, the player gets frozen too, but that wouldn't make for a very fun comic arc. This crash would happen sometimes in the previous DS Animal Crossing game when you gave a neighbor a gift for their birthday, and the likelihood of it happening increased the longer you've been playing. So when a crazy person like me that plays the game almost everyday for two and a half years gives a gift, it's almost guaranteed to happen. Eventually, I just stopped getting them stuff. They didn't seem to care.

Let's see where this goes.

Birthday Gift Glitch, Part One

Hoo boy, here it comes.



This is the first part of what may be a several part arc, depending on how many jokes I can get out of it. I don't wanna spoil it, so I won't say much about it in this post.

But it'll be some Twilight Zone type sh*t.

Binary City...?

Holy crap, I think I saw a 2!



Here's a intermediate ceramics project, although you may not be able to tell by looking at it. The numbers in the computer are made of clay. The computer is not.

Unfortunately, I didn't get my own photos of this project, and had to pull this small one off of the ceramic department's blog. And I can't retake any pictures, as I've reused the computer to make that short lived abomination. You can't tell from this photo, but the numbers are sitting on a circuit board, with the numbers and smaller gadgets to look like buildings and skyscrapers and the green of the board to be roads. So it's a digital city, or something.

Just use your imagination.

And the Law Won

Pain.



Nothing terribly special this time. I was at Virginia for four days for Thanksgiving and I didn't have my computer with me, so I just did a quick redo of my mugshot pic with the little time I had. The original pic was the first one I ever posted for this blog. Time flies. Or goes really fast, anyway.

MERRY... Thanksgiving...

Not that I don't like turkey, but...



I sure do get depressed easily.

For once, I remembered a holiday was coming up and did a comic about it. Since I start these a week before I post them, I usually don't keep any upcoming dates in mind.

I've always hated how early the Christmas spirit tends to kick in long before Christmas is anywhere near us. I love Christmas songs and decorations and what not, but only after Thanksgiving. Heck, the day after Thanksgiving is fine. Just don't get me excited for the holidays when I still have to wait a long while for said holidays to show up.

November has Come

Ha! Get it!? Cuz the current month is November, and this sketch has 2d and Noodle in it! And they're Gorillaz band members! And the name of one of their songs is November has Come! You see what I did there?



When was this one made? I believe the date says 06 on it. Good times, maybe.

Yeah, so I like Gorillaz. Favorite band. The fact that they're always portrayed in animation and illustrations helps that, but I also genuinely like their music. All of it. There's plenty of other artists I like, but few where I like every single piece of music they make. The only other group I can think of that I can say the same thing about is Gnarls Barkley. I guess I'm doing Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo fan art next.

Freakin' Out

Two different copyrights in one!



Yeah, so Chrissy, along with another Animal Crossing bunny named Francine, remind me of Mr. DOB. Here's a very tiny image of him by his creator, Murkami:

They're all DOB. At the same time.

If you'd like to know more about DOB and Murakami, I talk about them a bit more in my previous post along with one of my college paintings that's pretty similar to the fourth panel of this comic. In a nutshell, Murakami makes art that comments on and sometimes makes fun of anime and otaku culture.

And he made Mr. DOB. So he's awesome.

Phillip Meets Mr. DOB

...then he wakes up.



Here's an advanced painting project. We didn't have specific guidelines in that class, and I had always wanted to do a Murakami style painting/drawing with his mascot, Mr. DOB. I asked my teacher if it'd be okay to paint with someone else's style and character, and he said it ain't no thing if I don't claim the style and character as my own. Which I don't. So don't go emailing Murakami saying I took his style. Just consider this fan art.

Anyway, I posted this cuz it'll lead into my next Animal Crossing comic. Mr. DOB tends to have different wonky, phychedelic forms in Murakami's various paintings and sculptures of him, and I figure that he has the power to do that to whatever he feels like doing it to. In the case of this painting, he's doing it to me. I assume it'd hurt like hell, but I'm also shaking hands with a celebrity, so my several mouths are smiling anyway.

What surprise, here's some detail shots:

My Bad

Late comic is late.



Forgot to put this up on Monday as I usually do. I'm sure both of my readers are very disappointed.

I was tired of drawing guys all the time in these Animal Crossing comics, so I threw in Chrissy, who recently moved into my town. I don't know if she'll stay, but I can still give her a role in the mean time.

There's yet another reason why I decided to put her in, which should be revealed in the next comic. The suspense is killing you.

Space Filler... and some girl

Space Filler's my hero.



Here's another old, blurry sketch. I actually recorded the date on this one when I drew it. 2005. 2005? That was forever ago! Even before I transfered to the University of Delaware!

This one's got a street cat named Space Filler, who, surprisingly, fills space in what would otherwise be an unbalanced composition due to the girl's legs and feet on the right. He's labeled if you have trouble distinguishing him. I remember I did this to try drawing at a different angle rather than eye level, which I still do too often. Maybe seeing this again will inspire me to mess with those angles again.

Okay, so NOT winning doesn't help either...

The softer side of Kanye.



Remember when I said the previous Kanye comic would be the last one I do? I lied.

As the comic says, the second fan art contest I entered is finished and I didn't place. Shazbot.

Here's the post on my entry if you wanna see how not to win.

Once again, the dudes that started the contest didn't feel like posting the winners on the official Muramasa website where they announced it, but at least they put it on the Muramasa Facebook page. If you scroll down enough, you'll eventually find the winners' art that makes anything I draw look like a pile of puke.

*UPDATE*

Alternate ending by John:

We'll miss ya, Captain.

The fourth panel is also how I look at the end of the last episode of Cowboy Bebop.



Man, I got a game over on the first enemy of the first level. I'm really bad at this.

If ya haven't heard, Captain Lou Albano passed on recently. I'm sure most people will remember him for his wrestling career, but I and possibly many other gamers will remember him as playing Mario in the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. He did both the live action segments and the voice of Mario in the animated segments. It seems kinda weird now that Charles Martinet has become Mario's official voice, but back in the NES days, Captain Lou essentially was Mario.

He will live on through my daily "Do the Mario" routine.

Swine Flu

I think this is gonna be the next Pink Floyd single.



This is an idea John got a while back. He actually drew an image on a napkin when he thought of it:

With skills like that, I don't know why he insists on me drawing his ideas.

Take from this what you will, but I swear we aren't cop haters and we fully support and respect law enforcement. Heck, we have two cousins that are pigs... I MEAN COPS! They're cops! Donut eating pigs shouldn't be called cops. I mean... D@MMIT!

...erg...

OINKOINKOINKOINK!

Bustin' Out

Oh look. It's a rock or somethi--HOLY CRAP!




Here's another Intermediate Ceramics project. Not much to it. If ya couldn't tell, I aint much of a clay person. Although it's mostly a big mound, it had to be hollow, so I had to do the time honored tradition of getting a huge mound of newspaper and building the clay around that, so that the newspaper would burn in the kiln. But before it when off to cook, I put in that dude trying to break out of said mound. Don't know why. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Cranialrectumitis

Enlarge the image at your own risk.



Cranialrectumitis is a very serious medical conditon discovered by my uncle Kevin. Symptoms include delusions of grandeur and irritability.

Oh, and also, your head is stuck up your @ss.

Just Don't Win Anything

Or at least don't announce it when you do. It'll make things a lot easier.



I swear, this is the last Kanye comic I'll do, so don't worry. I know it's stale by now, but I couldn't resist.

Let's talk about this contest, shall we? Ignition finally announced the winners of their King of Fighters XII fan art contest. Rather than announce them on the game's website and let others view the winners art, they thought it'd be more fit to just list the winners with their first and last names reversed on their forum. Class act, guys.

Here's the post on my entry, if'n ya want to take a gander.

Shelby's teh Awesome.

As are the Williams in general.



This is a sketch of an actual person who is a regular at the bowling alley I work at. Her parents are friends with mine (who also work at said bowling alley; it's more or less a family business), as they've been regulars since they were kids. Anyway, one of their youngins, Shelby, got a hold of my mini sketchbook, looked through it, approved, and asked me to draw her. This, my friends, are why kids are the best kind of people in the world. An adult would never ask me to draw them. If an adult sees my work, they say, "Not bad. You should work at that sign place." Yeah. Thanks.

She seemed to like the cutesy anime stuff I drew, so that first one is just a straight up anime-ized portrait, which turned out good except for that dark spot on her left eye. My stupid mechanical pencil for jerks poked a hole through the paper. Then I tried a more cartoony sketch of her actually bowling:


I'm rather proud of how the pose turned out. I've been working at this bowling alley for years, and I still find the bowling pose awkward. Not just in drawing, but in general. The attempt in the sketch ended up being much better than I thought I could do.

I also found out that Shelby's older sister, Stephanie (who is also teh awesome), is quite the artist herself. She drew a quick contour sketch of Dad on a napkin, which I documented rather poorly with my iPhone camera.

Should I go out on a joke? Nah, this post is big enough.

Happy Birthday, Melissa!

Nothing could go wrong on this wonderful occasion!



Bah! Stupid Kanye! Keep your douche-baginess to yourself!

This is yet another comic written by John for a friend of his. He was quite particular about how Kanye looked and had me sketch him a few times before finalizing. One of these days I'm gonna make him rewrite a script just for the sake of making him do it over again. Then on the 10th draft, I'll say, "Actually, the the first one was the best. Let's go with that."

Then I'll wake up on a hospital bed with several cuts from a broken beer bottle on my neck.

Oh, and happy birthday again, Melissa!

Golden Axe, Part 2

What's this about Jenny?



The actual happenstance of getting the gold axe in the game doesn't resort to this, but I might have gotten it quicker if it had. In the game, you just hafta wait for her to be randomly nice and give it to you. And she hardly aint ever nice.

Eye Made Another Painting

Why did I put this on the ceiling right above my bed?



Here's another Intermediate Painting... uh... painting. I can't remember the exact directions the teacher had for this one, but I remember something about "micro" in there, thus the meticulous painting of veins and lines in the iris.

"Creepy as hell" might have been part of the criteria, too.

Sending Some Pies

Better not be rhubarb.



Happy Labor Day! Now get back to work!

Not much to say about this comic. Just thought I heard Rob 64 say "Sending some pies" once, thought it was funny. So... uh... yeah.

*UPDATE*
John tells me the "some pies" thing was his idea. I say he's a little too drunk to be thinking straight, but just incase it was, I'll say it might have been his idea. Brothers. Oi.

And now for something completely different.

Nintendo thought it fit to make not one, but two bug eyed Animal Crossing characters to scare the crap outta me:


"We'll kill you when you sleep!"

Get in the Car Again

So you know where I coming from, here's a pic of the entrance to the bowling alley I work at with the recently placed, gaudy address numbers:


And now here's this thing:


I think I'll put this up somewhere in the building knowing full well that almost nobody will get it, as most of are customers are seniors. As in old, not, like, hispanic males. But if a few young people read it and get it, it'll make my day.

Hot Daisy

Well, hotter than usual, anyway.



Well, I'm now screwed for life. I've have stepped into the boundaries of perversion. God help me.

Within the context of the games she appears in, I like Princess Daisy more than Princess Peach. Don't get me wrong, no one can replace Peach as the damsel in distress and occasional playable heroine bent on revenge for the numerous kidnappings, but in all the Mario sport and party spin-offs, Daisy's a more likable character to me. More of a tomboy, not as prissy.

I also think she's cuter. I like her shorts.

Ahem.

Back to being a pervert. Now that I've done this and gotten away with it, I fear I'll become too comfortable doing this kinda stuff and become one of those hentai artists that have nothing better to do than stay in their houses 24/7 and draw characters not of their own creation in sexual poses while secretly pining to have them, knowing full well they can't, cuz they're, like, not real.

The below sketch illustrates this:


I mean, I already "secretly" pine for EVE. So I'm doomed.

Old, OLD School Muramasa

Foolish samurai warriors wielding magic swords.



No comic, entering fan art contests again, brb. This one is for the upcoming Wii game, Muramasa: The Demon Blade. If ya don't know about it, look it up, cuz it's a beautiful looking game. For the website's fan art dealie, rather than make a pathetic attempt to get on the level of detail of the official game artwork, I figured I go with something more stylistic. The game takes place in ancient Japan, so I tried drawing the two playable characters, Kisuke and the pretty Momohime, in the style of the figures found in those old Japanese scrolls. The catch is that those types of illustrations usually aren't too actiony, so I looked to Samurai Jack for the poses and angular style. I could be wrong, but I think I remember hearing that Samurai Jack's look was inspired greatly by those old Japanese scrolls too, so it seemed like a decent choice.

Once again, here are the original sketch and line art. I tried to do that thing were the words are in english but kinda resemble kanji. Meh.



And here's a bigger image so you can see the Photoshop filter I used to give it a srollish texture.

Tree Full of Lead

This is how pencils are actually made.




Here's one of my projects from my Intermediate Ceramics class. I can't remember if we had a specific criteria for this one, nor do I remember if I had any particular meaning to this, other than to say that pencils come from trees. The wooden ones, anyway.

This wasn't one of my greatest works, as the roots kept braking, and I didn't coat the bottom, having been told that it would make it stick to the kiln. Later, I was told that just means I shouldn't paint the bottom surface and that painting up to the edge would have been perfectly alright. But my teacher, Lauren, was pretty easygoing about it, and just pretty in general. She was quite a good teacher, for a grad student.

The University of Delaware ceramics department blog can be found here. It's run by Lauren, Abbey Donavan (another awesome teacher I had for Beginning Ceramics), and several other teachers and students. Heck, even former students, as I'm still officially an author of the site and no one has tried to kick me out yet. It shows whatever the teachers may find interesting as well as many of the students' work.

Meet the New Boss

Same as the old boss.



Here's another comic written by John. Terrill (the one sporting the black cap) is one of his fellow asset protectors at Wal Mart, and according to him, Terrill's talk with a couple of wannabe shoplifters in the first three panels is exactly what went down in real life. The fourth panel seemed like a natural addition.

For this, I figured my usual cartoony style wouldn't fit, so I used a more edgey style with lots of straight lines and harsh corners. This was inspired by the 90's Batman animated series, which is one of the best shows ever made ever. If I ever need to draw edgey comics again, I'll just keep doing it the Batman way, as trying it on my own as I did with Ironic Commando makes for ho-hum results.

It's a Stapler Remover

Oh boy.





I figured I should post this project to get it out of the way, as it's one of the less interesting ones. For this Design I project, we had to make a large, cardboard scale model of some object that was not so large. I chose a stapler remover. Go figure. This project was eventually used as part of our last Design project, which I'll eventually post if I can find the photos for it.

I was rather pleased with the way it turned out, and I got good praise from Drew, my design teacher. But even so, you can only get so much out of such a mundane object.

Maybe I'll do a paper clip next time.

Eyebrows

Like the Wind Fish, Moose is in name only, for he is not.



I thought he was gonna say sideburns. Moose also has wicked chops, which is another sign of awesomeness.

Finally, a character other than Hopper who'd I'd prefer to stay in town. But that's two men so far, so some girl characters need to start moving in before there's too many d**ks on the dance floor.

And now for something completely different.

Hopper's face does not work: