Fweak, Fury and Terror

Because it's Sunday somewhere.

I have some exciting things to share this Sunday, including some snazzy doodles and a few attempts at drawing comics. Yeah I do that stuff sometime. All this for Sunday August 30, 2009--the final Sunday of August, nearing the official end of summer. This is the 242nd day of the year and there are only 123, count 'em, 123 days left until next year.



Patrick Boivin does not disappoint with this awesome Black Ox skateboard short. Mr. Boivin is definitely on my list of favorite things Canadian.

I recently discovered hireanillustrator.com which I will now be using as a springboard to celebrity and ridiculous wealth. I'll write when I've become too big to address you in public without bodyguards and a throng of reporters. ;)

Let's see a show of hands for people who use stumbleupon? Oh come on you'll tweet but you won't stumble? Am I really addressing the cult of Disney Channel Celebrity Fans? Oh well. Here's doodles:

1) my attempt at classical figure construction which reminds me strangely enough of classical roman sculpture. can you tell i struggle with anatomy, especially hands? 2) a look into the mystical process behind my scribbles aka wasted Friday night and uinspired faces and bodies 3) loosening up a bit. i scanned up the original page before i started inking the girl on the left. what seems like good foresight is actually failure to commit to a finishing line.

Also whet your appetite on these mediocre comic strips:

1) originally on one of the above pages; it's just a practice with gestures and minimalism 2) kate beaton is addiction in its silliest form 3) what came of a germ of an idea: a series of strips wherein the protagonist gets "one shot" (of various definitions) but ultimately fails; it is the epitome of my own sense of imminent fail.

But wait, this just in from Sgt. Fury and the Black Terror!

Do you music junkies out there know about thesixtyone.com?

I found out Jack Conte has a page there. Originally Kina Grannis brought me there. I was just wondering if those of you plugged into the internet music scene could give me the run down on what sites are good, or where you go for music and why. Seriously, is that too big of a request?

Also is it too big a request for someone to just say hi? Pretty please? Say (moving along) did anybody see the E! True Hollywood story on Michael Jackson this past week? What's the name of the guy who kept saying "fweak"? That was rad. Ahem. I mean. I don't have time to watch tv.

I've been lifting pencil and pen to paper a lot lately. I had mistakenly run off a 20 page wad of bank mumbo-jumbo while trying to apply online for a new account, thus forcing me to use the half-wasted sheets as scratch paper. It was therein I discovered that my drawin' mojo is more fully released when I'm not dealing with the pressure of the pristine page, but rather allowed to scribble on dummy pages. Hooray for discoveries!

I've also been taking my Zi6 with me on drives and have compiled a good hour or so of clips. I will be trying out Zweistein 4 later today to see if I can actually edit this scrap yard into something one can invest 3 or 4 minutes of their time watching. (crosses fingers). Well, I hope everyone is well. I miss you.

See you soon.

Sgt. Fury and The Black Terror are copyright their respective owners. Requests by the copyright owners to have these works removed will be addressed immediately by the site admin.

Fire and Feast

On this day in the year 79 A.D. in the event of the feast day of Vulcan, Roman God of fire and smithery, Mt. Vesuvius erupted. That must have surely scared the crap out of everybody. In an unrelated event, approximately 1900 years and 1 month later my parents conceived me. Awesome, no?

Historically this day also marks the execution of Wiliam Wallace in 1305, George III declaring the American colonists seditionists in 1775, the first cry of the Filipino Revolution in 1896, the beginning of the Battle of Stalingrad during WWII in 1942, and also a ton of other non-polemic events. No seriously. Like space stuff and treaties and people being born.

Welcome to the noodle.


PomplamooseMusic - Expiration Date

I <3 Pomplamoose. Like a lot.




A Vado HD short film by Almostzero



A live action and animated film about Winsor McCay drawing Little Nemo for moving pictures. Worth the wait to see some amazing animation even by today's standards.

For those of you with less patience: a cut to the chase.

I recently discovered the work of KMR

at CGUnit
which has a giant list of equally enchanting artists in the side margin.

So look what came in the mail . . .



Also I made lumpia.



I have the ten disk twin peaks gold box edition out from the library as well as Will Eisner's seminal Comics & Sequential Art, and a couple of life drawing books. Man I really want to get the lead out. Get it, get the lead out? Huh huh. I'm lovin' having the time to explore the stuff that really grabs me, but alas money's becoming a problem. So pretty soon here I might start putting stuff up for sale. The best way to go about it, I'm not quite sure of. I could use one of the traditional online stores (redbubble, cafepress, etsy, zazzle), or maybe even try the ebay thing. I really don't know at this point, but I'd love suggestions. One idea I had for another blog was to draw someone's portrait for a donation. I've only done one thus far, and it was for a penny donation my buddy Ace made. Does any of this sound like a good idea to you all? Drat! Talking to myself again.

Have a happy Sunday everybody :)

Sorry So 2000 and late

Good Afternoon Noodlers!

This afternoon I find myself trying to consolidate backups of my personal images, videos, music, etc. from a 16gb flash stick to my new black armor. I found a 320 black armor on clearance for $70 so I quickly scooped it up. I'm thinking now I should have picked up the other 2 and hocked them online, but oh well.

Congratulations to WongFu Productions for their CNN feature! I continue to be delighted by their rising success.

I LIKE THAT BOOM BOOM POPE
by NationalLampoon

If I have to like an internet meme this week, this is it. Boom Boom Pope! Chea.


Rebecca Clements rocks my socks with kinokofry!

http://kinokofry.com/2008/05/05/extra-004/



Obsolete Boy draws on cups. The world goes ape shi-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13895571@N04/sets/72157614580046629/




I couldn't resist


I wanted to show off the results of scanning with the new office jet I bought from a craigslist seller ($45 bucks! it was a steal!)

1) 100 dpi (from 300 lpi scan), 128 color indexed profile, 751 pixels wide (30% shrink), 2) same but 64 color index , 3) original size 64 color index , 4)same but 128 color index


I wonder if any of you all really need a lesson on image compression . . .

Did I ever mention how much I love the work of Alex Toth?

I Also enjoy the work of Steve Rude and Howard Chaykin.

Can you feel me gearing up for Sgt. Fury and the Black Terror? It's got to be coming soon! Yes, my pet. Soon. So very soon.

In other final notes, I've been working on a web-comic project, but so far am unhappy with the artwork. I may branch out into a livejournal or deviantart to get the visual stuff off the ground. What do you guys think? I think I may even pick up a paintbrush soon. I can't wait for my hd cam to arrive! I'm squealing like a little girl here. Hahaha. Will it be safe for me enter the vlogosphere as well? Hmmmm . . . things to ponder. Enjoy your Sunday my lovelies!

Sunday After Noon Do Whatever Increases Creativity & Happiness

S.AN.D.W.I.C.H.

Maybe a little too often I go into trance-like obsessions with past events in my life, sometimes glorifying moments, sometimes adding extra shame to things I regret. It always turns into something of a research project, or an excavation of mementos I've kept with me. I am a bit of an archivist, but more on that later.

To get to the point, this line of thought came to me tonight while reliving my college years. Or more precisely, reliving moments in film classes, my predominant course of study. I discovered web sites of two people I went to school with who seem to be enjoying very active careers in tv and cinema and photography. Another ghost of my past has resurfaced with a vimeo account presenting a single short film project he put together.

In the last few days I've been toying with the idea of participating in the world of vlogs (aka video logs). I had become obsessed with retracing my steps since youtube's debut in late 2006, and the rise of current youtube celebrities. It becomes far too easy to find oneself envying these young vloggers' exploits, and wanting to become initiated--wanting to be a member of their exclusive society and become a legitimate videographer like they are.

And then it hit me. I spent thousands of dollars and 5 years of my life learning about professional filmmaking. Vlogging should be like using toilet paper: it should require a little skill, practice, and planning, but should be a nearly effortless and regular routine. Poop humor. Aren't my aspirations set high?

All vlog-deprecation aside, I think it would be really healthy for me to dive right in. Youtube and other vlog hosting sites are like internet sketchpads where one could rough out the framework of a colorful and ebullient career. From my initial experience with the world wide web (waaaay back in 1995) I had stumbled on the idea that publishing one's work would become a largely democratic phenomenon. And now it would seem to me that the major obstacle for me would be self-censorship.

Far be it from me to rehash clichés regarding the journey of a thousand steps or pebbles in a pond. In fact, this pontification is already pretty tiresome. So here's a sketch-dump:






notes: please excuse the sloppiness. the doubles are a) scanned and adjusted for exposure b) taken with a camera. i need to learn the finer art of getting the most of my scanner. the last two are scans as well while the first is a photo. pencil (2h) and blue pen have a hard time showing up in scans.

Yes, long before I picked up an arriflex-s, or learned to boom a sennheiser, I drew my heart out. Mostly my inspiration came from flipping through early-eighties era X-Men; John Romita Jr., Paul Smith, early Marc Silvestri with Dan Green, Rick Leonardi, etc. Occasionally I just got overwhelmed by the joy of pre-adolescent power fantasies in awesome cartoons like Thundercats, Voltron, or the Mighty Galtar.

I want to buy a Kodak Zi6 that I found clearanced for $100. Maybe soon I'll start vlogging. I have a cheesy little cover song vlog to post pretty soon. Who knows if I'll advertise that here, though.

Camera tech is getting so kwazy mah neezy!

SprintCam v3 NAB 2009 showreel from David Coiffier on Vimeo.

New York in 3D from Tachyon XC on Vimeo.

and other notable tech:

http://gizmodo.com/5326643/fuji-finepix-real-3d-w1-tested-declared-coolest-camera-of-the-year
http://hackaday.com/2009/08/06/tangible-holograms/

squealies

Barnaby Ward's Sixteen Miles to Merrick is online fo' freeee!
http://somefield.com/merricks_online/index.html

New Terry Gilliam film saaaay what? Heath Ledger? wha the fuh?
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/features/exclusive/

it's old but it's new to me
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-true-stories-behind-5-famous-wtf-images/

Okay that's it for now my beloved. I'm off to have me a Sunday Afternoon Sandwich.



Dayum it's late!

Can't go wrong if it's so right being wrong

Okay I know this isn't the first time, but please let me apologize profusely for the lateness of today's noodle. Actually, I hope you all (who are you all? I wonder . . .) are enjoying your Sunday out and about in good weather. Over here the heat is simmering down into something a little more tolerable. I've just spent the last hour putting together a new workstation to deliver you folks entertaining content. What type of content will it be? Who knows? For me the sky is the limit! That's at least how it should be, don't you think?

I have some doodles and such to share, but we'll get into that later. Once again, I have to regrettably put off my intense and in depth look at Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes as well as the ultra-vintage, ultra cool Black Terror. But don't let that curb your enthusiasm, because today is Sunday and this is your noodle from yours truly!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

So basically I'm like John Connor now, right?

I really like this moleskine sketchbook, and the tons of others that regularly show up on behance: http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Summer-drawings/270023

This one is for people who were going through a quarter life crisis 5-10 years ago: http://www.11points.com/Personal/11_Famous_People_Who_Were_in_the_Completely_Wrong_Career_at_Age_30

Beaver and Steve is my new favorite comic that I'd never heard about that's been running for years and is now on hiatus. Here's a link to the archive

Oh btw, did I ever mention Roza? It's one of the best crafted web comics out there. Go catch up with the story.

This is one of the best shows ever. If you missed it, hulu has now saved your ass exactly 20,000 times. While you're there watch this.


Okay here's the sketches. The first is actually a light-boxed clean up from a much more frustrated sketch. The second is my half-assed color test. Might I mention I don't have the art school education of the people I aspire to emulate. I'm looking at you Tyson Hesse.

Anyhoo, that's the noodle for today, as I'm sure you're all tired (who are you people?) from waiting for this post all day. Rest easy my beloved.