IF: Metamorphosis

So... its really been a year since I last posted! Its kind of hard to believe.
It seems pretty apt as a topic to come back with. The past year has not been without its challegnes, and continues to be difficult.
I've been through a very difficult time, and hopefully will come out the other side stronger for it.
Someone close to me also has been in a difficult place, and the same should be true for them when they reach the other side.

It was a quickie this week, to try and get back into the habit of drawing and posting - both of which have been lacking in my life over the past year.
Its not a great image, but its not bad for a half-hours' work.

IF: Surveillance

  

Surveillance.......who better than the World's Greatest Detective?

IF: Yesterday

"Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it."

      

Groucho Marx

IF: Talent

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious" Albert Einstein

I messed up this drawing and am now sad and frustrated. You can see about half the image is more solid, dense and blurred than the other. That's because I drew a lot of it, accidentally, on the wrong layer. I made a rough white and grey image first to scribble over, and inadvertently switched to this layer halfway through. By the time I realised, I had about two hours' worth of drawing which I'd have had to scrap, if I had done what I should have done, which is to start over.
No way, Jose!
So I ported it across from one layer to the other, but that entire block was opaque due to the background. Bottoms.
So, this would have been a bit nicer of an image had I been either a) less careless or b) less lazy.
But I'm not!

Illustration Friday: Jump

The question which would win in a fight between a crocodile and a shark has recently been much contested.

Assuming the crocodile has had ample basking time and they are a size-for-size match, I'm backing the croc. Though I don't know how they fare in open water.

Sharks are still cooler, though.

I didn't draw this for IF originally, but for a friend with whom sharks have been much discussed, and which recently have featured the shark/croc dilemma. 

It just so happens that the topic 'Jump' rather fits the bill as well.

But is it really jumping if a creature has no legs?

Illustration Friday: Swamp

What are the three hazards of the Fire Swamp?
Fire Spurts, Lightning Sand and the ROUS's.

Illustration Friday: Shades

"We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, its dark.....and we're wearing sunglasses."

This week's IF topic: Shades.
It pretty much had to be this or Terminator.
Jake and Elwood won the toss.

Illustration Friday: Fluid

"I can no longer sit back and allow......the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

Wow..... it really has been some time since I posted or in fact did any drawing at all.
My last post was just after losing my last job, and with being unemployed, looking for work, and starting a new job its kind of taken me a while to get back on the wagon. The Drawing Wagon.

This week's IF topic is 'fluid', and whilst I scratched my bonce trying to come up with an idea, I kept thinking of Dr. Strangelove and Brigadier General Ripper's obsession with body fluids. So I drew him with Captain Mandrake. The scenes with the two of them are my favourite parts of the film.

Illustration Friday: Asleep

"Shhh! The Birds Are Sleeping...."

is the name of this week's pic.

Most of the time, I'm very anal and perfectionist about drawing. I always want everything to be just so and will spend hours labouring over every inch or pixel. And then almost always dislike the outcome, because of working so hard and ending up with something other than what I envisaged.

So, this week was an exercise in freedom and simplicity. I came up with a concept which I could draw without worrying with the usual (Is the perspective correct? Does that look like a hand? Does it need shadows? and so on and so on). I wanted something quick, clean and simple.

Well.... turns out, over four hours later, it wasn't as quick and simple as I'd wanted!
I got enormously involved with smoothing out lines, and redrawing shapes so they were a little bit nicer than before, even though I told myself there would be no re-drawing.

When you are a child, you draw something and you know what it is. If you watch a small child draw, they are often so decisive and know exactly which scribble needs to go where. Its a wonderful method. And, whilst I'm not attempting to emulate a child's drawing (because its not possible), I wanted to try and recapture some of that feeling. I took a cue from the way children focus on details rather than overall form or shape - so a bird will have a beak and wings, but might well not be bird-shaped, or have any other features.

I think its easy to see which ones I drew first, and which ones were the later creations, more free and loose.

Illustration Friday: Safari

Initially, I was dead keen on the idea of a balloon full of giraffes with cameras going over a city - which would allow for kooky perspective, plenty of little visual details to explore, and the chance to hang accessories around giraffe's necks at various heights . I knew from the off I'd struggle with that, though. Which isn't really a reason not to do it, but I decided to pour my effort into something which is more 'me'.
And so, this.
The tiger is from the olden days - an IF topic of 'Wilderness' - and I loved drawing it and was pleased with the result. So, I thought I'd revisit it and make a little triptych.

My main complaint is that the crocodile looks much more graphic/cartoony than the zebra or the tiger, due to the heavy dark outlining. I wanted to go for a contrast in texture - from scaly smooth, to short fur, to thick and hairy. I'm super-pleased with each piece individually, but I think old Mr Croc is just a bit too disparate in style.

Oh, and yes I'm aware you wouldn't see a tiger in the same place as the other two........

Illustration Friday: Beginner

Its interesting how often you see people making like harder for themselves, just through not relying on their own ability to overcome the task at hand. I'm definitely one of them.

A very labour-intensive offering for this weeks IF topic. There is a lot wrong with it - the pattern on his pantaloon-thingies, both his hands, his tiny tiny legs, and more besides.
That said, its not very far off from what I ahd in my head and I'm pleased because of that, and because its not a usual sort of drawing for me.

Illustration Friday: Lesson

Today's Lesson

Little Jane she wakes up from a dream
a gun like a jawbone down the waistband of her jeans
Mr. Sandman can recite today's lesson in his sleep
he says
there ought to be a law against me going down on the street

Little Janie pipes up and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Down the back of Janie's jeans she had the jawbone of an ass
Mr. Sandman runs around the corner, trying to head her off at the pass
he sticks his head over the fence
and yells something way too fast
it's today's lesson, something about the
corruption of the working class

Little Janie wakes up on the floor and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Janie says we are all such a crush of want half mad with loss
we are violated in our sleep and we weep and we toss
and we turn and we burn
we are hypnotised, we are cross-eyed,
we are pimped, we are bitched,
we are told such monstrous lies

Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real cool time tonight

Mr. Sandman has a certain appetite for Janie in repose
he digs her pretty knees and that she is
completely naked underneath all her clothes
he likes to congregate around the intersection of Janie's jeans
Mr. Sandman the inseminator
opens her up like a love-letter and enters her dreams

Little Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real good time tonight
Yeah, Little Janie wakes up and she says
We're gonna have a real good time tonight.

Today's Lesson
Nick cave and the Bad Seeds

Illustration Friday: Duet

Casey and Dorian's karaoke sets are always legnedary.

Its a quarter of the way through already, and this is my first post of 2011. After post-Christmas settled down, I spent weeks battling (and losing!) against a particularly vicious virus on my poor laptop. And then I got made redundant and have subsequently been concentrating on other things.
Not the most auspicious of beginnings to the year, but its bound to get better from here on in!!

I left some of the guys behind to keep the blog warm for me, so thanks to The Robot, the Box Giant and all the squirrels.

Here's to good thing scoming in 2011.

Happy Bloggin' Christmas, Everyone!!!

After waking it up from hibernation, I thought I'd perk up my snoozing blog with a fab festive post!!
To everyone who has looked at, read, commented on, followed, or wept in sheer wonderment in front of my humble blog, I extend the warmest wishes and wish every single one of you a very Happy Christmas and all the best for the year ahead. And to everone else, I wish the same.
Due to a lengthy project at work which involved putting in very very long days, and then coming back to work after five weeks and having to get a handle on everything I'd missed etc, and what with it being a particularly busy time of year..... I sadly must admit I've neglected my blog and my drawing. I have a few aborted attempts at drawings tucked away in my CPU, but this is the first thing I've actually spent any time on or finished in a goodly while. It feels good.

Once again, Merry Christmas one and all, and a Happy New Year. Let's keep our pens and pencils (and keyboards!) busy throughout 2011.

Big love,
Ben
x

Illustration Friday: Spooky

Its proving tricky to find the time for this week's illo, so I've dashed off a quickie.
Klaus Kinski's performance as Dracula in Herzog's re-imagining of Nosferatu is extraordinary and masterful. The toughest bit was finding a shot to draw in a film which is crammed so full of beautiful, melancholy, and dramatic scenes and cinematography. I chose the view of him watching Lucy from the window of his building because there's just something delicious and macabre about that unearthly face and those desperate, talon-like fingers seemingly suspended in space.

Illustration Friday: Transportation

It was going to be a robot wearing a pair of jet planes like skates, zooming through the stratosphere.
It was going to be a robot on a penny farthing.
It was going to be a bunch of robots on pogo sticks.
Whatever happened, it was going to involve robots.
This is what happened.
Its not very good.

Illustration Friday: Beneath

"When beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it"
From 'Moby-Dick'
Herman Melville

Illustration Friday: Old-fashioned

With apologies to Grant Wood.

Illustration Friday: Acrobat

A nice splodgy illo for this theme. I was going to do a bat on a tightrope, but stumbled across an awesome photograph on Google and felt the need recreate it in part. Though this drawing has a very different feel to it.
Check out the photograph here: http://www.danielforsbakk.com/index.php?showimage=99
its well worth a gander.

Illustration Friday: Proverb

After a bit of a break during which I frantically tried to meet a deadline whilst forgetting to sleep or eat, I return to IF with a welcoming and delicious theme for me to sink my brainteeth into.
The proverb in question is 'A Cat may look at a King' which sprang immediately to mind, as it always paints such intriguing pictures in my headhole. I originally intended to have a wee timid King perched fearfully on his throne, from underneath which an enormous, monstrous moggy glared at him.
I love the way the pen (or electronic pen-substitute) can develop a mind of its own as you draw, and all of a sudden you are a million miles away from your original idea.
And this was the result. A little rough n' ready, as the more I worked on it the more I was ruining it so I decided to quit whilst I was ahead. The title of the piece is:
'A Cat must look at a King (every once in a while)'