Eighteen Months Later...

Hey, my blog is still up. Might as well see if it still works. I'll just pretend like it's the next day.

I took a week off of work and it was good to have a break. I hoped to find the time (and the drive) to ignite some of the personal projects I've been daydreaming about, but I conjured nothing of substance. Chores and practical diversions chewed up most of my anticipated free time. I did manage to doodle this little collection of characters, though!

Drawn in Clip Studio Paint. Open in a new tab for a larger image.

Most of these figures are out-of-my-head freestyle creations. A few were adapted from photos I saw online, although they no longer resemble the source material. A couple were inspired by people I sketched during a visit to a street fair this summer. 

Drawn in Clip Studio Paint. Open in a new tab for a larger image.

During the process I ginned up the swatches and loosely adhered to the color schemes. I thought it would be fun to limit myself to three or four colors per character and see what I could come up with. However, if I felt I needed another color I’d add another swatch or two. And in some cases I switched out colors that weren't working for me. In the end I used any color I wanted and the swatches were nothing more than a reminder that I shouldn't use too many colors.

I aimed to keep the drawings simple. I began each one using the lasso tool, blocking in big shapes, adding and subtracting as I went along and then waded in with a pen or brush tool to add details. I like the simpler ones better, generally speaking. I overworked a few of them and spent more time than I intended but I was having a good time and that's what this was all about in the first place.

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I've made illustrations for work since I last posted but I fell from the habit of sharing them here. I've shown several on Twitter just because it's easier, y'know? I felt the impulse, wrote two sentences and tweeted I them out. But I've stopped doing that, too.

But blurting out the artwork in that manner diminishes the experience for me. I can't even recall the last drawing I launched into the void. Twitter has turned into a ephemeral stream of forgettable fragments. That's okay, I suppose; I guess that's what it's designed for.

I have a young daughter and in my more pensive moments I believe that a blog of my work, accompanied by some of my thoughts about it, would be a more substantive memento than a rat-a-tat spray of tiny images and abbreviated captions lost in a nearly unsearchable database. I might try to revive this blogging habit for that purpose.

Now I'll post this to twitter, too! Rat-a-tat!

Random Heads

Head sketches based on mugshots found on the innernetz. Used one those floppy brush pens that gush, dry out, gush, dry out. Hard to tell what you're going to get from beginning to end of each stroke. Great Fun! If that's your idea of fun. (I hate it.)

The End

More Head Sketches, Screen Captured!

Goofing around with Photoshop, Premiere, iMovie, GarageBand and the YouTubes. Whole lotta For Dummies manual-reading going on around here.

It was fun to do this but there was a really crappy lag while filming. (Videoing?) Not great drawings but, of course, I got nervous because I always do when somebody might be watching. I got through it. Hope to do more silly stuff like this.

Where Did The Pokemon Go Go?

I drew this for a short piece – written by Angela Hill – that ran in the Bay Area News Group's quarterly magazine. And, just now, I see that they published it online, as well. Angela always does good work.

Drawn in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop. Open in a new window for a very large image.

The article pondered the sudden rise and swift fall of the Pokemon Go phenomenon. My illustrative offering suggests that, possibly, they were hunted to extinction.

This fad did not capture me. I think my gray hair and bifocals rendered me Pokemon Go-proof. Or perhaps it is because my daughter is too young and therefore I was not swept up in the excitement.

I'm more of a retro-gamer. If it's not more than twenty years old I won't even look at your "silly video game." I sort of faded from the cutting edge when the Sega Genesis disappeared from the toy stores. But I do game on the iPad and hit websites like GOG.com where they sell old computer games on the cheap. Masters of Orion 2 is my latest purchase, along with Afterlife and EV Nova; and I occasionally fire up my late 90s iMac to play Unreal Tournament (1999 edition.)

That means, twenty years from now, Pokemon might seem cool to me. So, you might find me wandering the streets in 2037 with my retro 2016 iPhone, dancing and waving my cane while I shout: "I finally got the Squirtle!"

The End

Blue Tooth At Home

I did this a couple of years ago for a story about blue tooth devices for home and car... I think. It's been a while and I can't find the story online, but that sounds about right.

I'm a bit rushed today so I don't have time to do all the usual legwork, but I'll update this later if I get around to finding the story, the pdf for the printed page, etc.

Small Blog Update

I drew this a couple days ago; tweeted it, tumbld it, google+ed it and that was going to be that. I have a work-related, fancier illustration to post, but the publication date has been postponed so I can't show it here yet. In the interest of freshening up the blog, I'll slip this quick doodle in while no one is looking.

I was sitting on the floor in my daughter's room while she was drawing with crayons. Since she was so studiously making marks on paper while I sat idle, I stopped goofing around on the internet and did a quick sketch.

Drawn on the iPad. The app is "Paper" by 53. Ten, maybe 15 minutes drawing time. 

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I've flaked when it comes to drawing on the iPad, mostly because I can't stand drawing with my finger. There's something about the friction on my fingertip that drives me nuts! But by not drawing on the tablet, I'm neglecting the main reason I wanted an iPad in the first place.

I've had a few styluses in the past but they don't seem to last very long. I just found another stylus that has a tough looking tip. It's finicky and doesn't register on every stroke unless I'm very deliberate about it, but it's okay. I'm still waiting for the perfect, pressure sensitive pen and over-size iPad! It should be like a portable Cintiq, but hopefully not so pricey. (It is Apple, tho, so it'll be double, I bet.)

As a blog bonus, this is the drawing Evelyn was making while I was sketching her. She says "it's a happy face and some shapes." I should add that my drawing above is of Evelyn and some shapes. We are a pair, me and she.

Drawn with crayons on legal-size paper. 

The End.

Texas vs. California

Hey! Found this the other day. It is my very first op-ed illustration, done for the Oakland Tribune back in 2001. I believe the story was about the growth of Texas in relation to California at the time; population, business opportunities, some tech companies moving for tax reasons, etc.

Drawn on actual paper, with pencil and pen. The white swirlies in the water were done in photoshop and are among my first lines drawn digitally. Weird how things have changed.

Gosh, I really wanted to do op-ed illustrations and cartoons, and I did for a couple of years, but that particular career is pretty much dead. The editorial cartoonist and illustrator is almost a mythical beast at this point; there are more Bigfoot sightings than editorial cartoonist sightings.