More Dubs vs. Cavs

Here's a collage, arranged for a Mercury News special section preview of the 2017 NBA Championship. I know, I know – that was weeks and weeks ago, but I've been lazy about the Blogspot upkeep.

Photos: Mercury News ace, Nhat V. Meyer; AP guy, Marcio Jose Sanchez;
Jason Miller working for Getty Images

As usual, I didn't have much time to work on this assignment, and – rather than try to do some elaborate drawing or cartoon – I thought it would be fun to use some photos and create something reminiscent of a rock poster. I was hoping to be a little edgier but, again, not much opportunity for exploring ideas. The image above is what ran in print.  

Below is a modest tweak for online presentation. Horizontal images are preferred for online, which is always an extra batch of work since one must squash and recompose the job as the deadline guillotine falls. There was an extra spoonful of disappointment when I realized it's more square than horizontal. Ah, well. It would make a pretty good CD cover.

The End.

The Warriors Again

This is slightly belated, but: The Golden State Warriors are the champs! Again! It felt weird typing that the last time (a couple of years ago) and it might be even more bizarre now since it looks like it could be an annual occurrence. The past few decades have been grim for those of us who have a sentimental attachment to the ancient days of Clifford Ray and Rick Barry, or the exciting years spent with Run TMC. I don't follow the NBA like I used to but it's cool to see "Golden State Warriors" and "champions" in the same sentence.

We won't mention what happened last year, tho, 'kay?

When it became a distinct possibility that the Warriors might sweep their way through the playoffs, I started to work on this illustration, but it looked like the image below.

It became clear halfway through the fourth quarter of game four that LeBron wasn't going to let such a historic feat happen on his watch; and that was a bit of a relief for me, since I would have had to finish the illustration by the next day for use in the Sunday publication.  

I used the extra shift to re-think it a little bit, and to focus on coloring, which is the most time consuming part of the drawing process, in most cases.

Sooper-Man

Just a quick post to jolt the blog back to life. I'm still goofing around with Anime Studio/Moho in my spare time, of which there has been very little. Haven't animated anything yet but I'm re-learning how to rig stuff. Here is a quick figure I drew for practice, but I haven't animated him yet.

The End!

Test Run

Purchased the latest Moho/Anime Studio update. Very cool, but I've forgotten what I learned back when I purchased an earlier version a few years ago. Can't figure out the freakin' walk-cycle to save my life, altho I had that down once upon a time. The rigging tools have stymied me, as well; and all of the youtube tutorials have left me in the lurch. Grr.

So, this is all I've figured out so far, and it's something I could've done in Photoshop, but it's as far as I've gotten. Imagine the horse is a fully rigged silhouette that gallops along until it gets down to the water. Then it steps carefully in before accelerating offscreen, stage left.

The art is a discarded piece I made a year or two ago, but I had to extend it quite a bit to fit the screen size, spending more time painting than learning how to animate. Bad planning. Again. More soon, unless I toss the computer through the window.

The End

Super WiFi

I created this illustration for a story by the always informative Troy Wolverton of the Mercury News, and you can read his most excellent work at this link. The image was drawn and painted in Clip Studio Paint with a bit of Photoshop.

Open in new window for a larger image.

After struggling for some time with a workable concept for the topic, I decided to create a simple parody (or homage) of the movie poster for the first Christopher Reeve "Superman" movie. My first submission to the editors was basically the sky and the emblem. Mr. Wolverton wrote: "Maybe the shield could be at Superman's farm out in rural Kansas? Like a lonely homestead out on the prairie?"

The scene where Pa Kent dies in front of the barn immediately leapt to mind. That shot – the barn, the house, the windmill, – I've always thought it was lovely. So, I tracked it down through the magic of Netflix and painted it in at the bottom.

Horizontal re-working for the online presentation.

I wanted to do an animated version, too; but it was long past the print deadline. In fact, I didn't get it done until... well, until just now!

Whoosh! That's all I've got for today.

Lois & Clark

Goofing around with the Clip Studio Paint drawing program. Touch of Photoshop for color tweaking.

This was part of the brainstorming work while trying to come up with an idea for an illustration to accompany a story about super wi-fi. Nothing came of this doodle.

Hey! It's That Guy, Again

Gotten a lot of mileage out of this president already. How many Obama-related assignments did I get over the previous eight years? Hm. Nothing on my blog, far as I can tell. I had a couple, I think, that I didn't get around to posting, but The Donald has been way more... "interesting," I guess.

Illustration for the Sunday, March 12 front page
of the Mercury News and the East Bay Times.
Photoshop and Clip Studio Paint Pro.

I am not a big practitioner of the photo-heads on cartoon bodies manner of working – I prefer to caricature – but it saved me a lot of time and I liked the way it turned out. I found a much better, sinister, laughing Kim Jong-Un head shortly after I sent the image to the designer for the final time, but there was a flurry of re-sizing and redrawing to fit a late size-change and I couldn't bring myself to give it one last tweak.

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.

A Character Doodle

Rather than scratch out more head doodles (see several recent posts) I thought I'd do a full-figure character drawing. It occurred to me to illustrate a character from a game I've been goofing around with.

Anybody play "Cataclysm, Dark Days Ahead?" Here is my interpretation of my latest character as he looked before leaving his recently acquired farmhouse to desperately search for pots and pans to cook with. I think he got the purse off of a little zombie school-girl he dispatched, with great remorse.

The shirt is pinker than intended. Pretend it's more crimson colored. Thanks.

This is Moses Duvall, and he recently survived a Moose attack. Don't laugh. An angry moose is serious trouble and Moses was lucky to escape with his life. While he healed, he spent several days coping with a nasty bout of the common cold. Then he suffered a serious infection from a deep bite wound received during a melee with several zombies. (That's possibly when he scored the purse.)

Cataclysm DDA is a game I've had on the iPad for well over a year, and only recently have I learned how to make it go, although I'm far from being successful at it.

Mr. Duvall has avoided death for twelve days, game time. In my short CDDA career that's a pretty good run. He spends most of his time dressing his wounds, scrounging for wild vegetables in the bushes, and boiling toilet water to make it safe to drink. Yeah, you have to do that. It's all about surviving any way you can. And run like hell if you see a moose.

The End.

Heads. More Heads.

Some more little head drawings. All of these were improvised, no reference.

Kind of a cheat to keep the blogposts flowing by posting half-arsed scribbles but it's inspiring me to get the lead out and start drawing in my free time. I'm usually so burnt out from work that it's hard to persuade myself to assume my working pose after having been there for 8, 9, 10 hours already. But I'm enjoying it. Still have to take lots of breaks and I should exercise, too, but it's fun enough that I'm starting to look forward to it!