Arrested Development was the best TV show ever, and then it was cancelled because you didn't watch it. If you did watch it, ignore that last part where I attacked you needlessly.
I love Mary Poppins! But as wonderful as that movie is, I'm actually talking about Mary herself... the fictional nanny. I love her. My wife knows I feel this way, and she's okay with it... probably because, even if Mary Poppins was real, she would now be in her early 70's. When I was a kid, she seemed old and disagreeable, but then I grew up and was pleased to learn that Mary Poppins is actually quite hot. It's a jolly holiday with Mary... no wonder that it's Mary that I love.
While watching BBC's Planet Earth a couple of days ago, I saw some footage that blew my mind... and now I know something I'd never even assumed before: otters are complete jerks. It's true! Much like high school girls who seem sweet and innocent in pictures or when there's just one of them present, otters become largely unbearable when they're in groups.
When I was in middle school, I used to write papers on our typewriter. Yeah... I'm that old. When I hit the wrong key, I had to go back and re-type the accidental letter a dozen times with the white tape to cover up the mistake, leaving a grayish smudge where the faulty letter once was. Typing a paper took forever. And the second draft took forever again, because the whole paper had to be re-typed. Freaking nightmare!
I considered several titles for this one. Lil' Smokie... based on the name of the delicious, bite-sized sausages I overate in college. American Dog... the title of one of Disney's upcoming animated films. And Well Done Little Dog... with the comma purposely omitted. But in the end I opted for Hot Dog on a Stick, because I admire restaurants that choose to exist only in mall food courts. No sell-out, street-side locations for that employee-humiliating hot dog chain.
I know a lot about mobsters... for instance, they are bears. Having just read that, I doubt anyone will be surprised to learn that I've never seen a single Godfather movie or so much as a minute of a Sopranos episode. But based on their trailers and what I've gathered about the mob, mob bosses are a lot like bears. They are big, they are hairy, and they kill people who get in their way. The only difference is that mob bosses have guns. Do bears have guns? Just in case, I'm not going camping... as though I needed more reasons not to camp. As it turns out, I'm addicted to toilets.
I loved playing in the sand when I was a kid. I'd build roads and tunnels at the beach for my Matchbox cars or re-create Tatooine's Dune Sea from Return of the Jedi in our sandbox. Boba Fett got lost in that sandbox on several occasions, which is bound to happen to anyone who consistently falls into the mouth of the Sarlacc in the Great Pit of Carkoon. Looks like my childhood sandbox adventures were pretty nerdy.
Welcome, blog visitors! You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while. That's because I spent the last week in Orlando. I took this picture on Tuesday at the Magic Kingdom. If you look at it while sitting in a cauldron of boiling water, you'll feel like you were in Orlando on Tuesday too. I don't love the humidity, but it was a nice vacation all the same. Is it even considered a "vacation" to go to Disney World when you work for Disney? Did I take a week off of work, or did I put in an 80-hour week?
I cannot spell "Tyrannosaurus." After several failed attempts, I copied and pasted it from another site. As it turns out, I'm just not that bright. But I take comfort knowing that this must be a common spelling hang up, because somewhere along the way everyone started calling the thing a "T-Rex." I guess most people can spell "T," so we stick with what we know.
I grew up with three sisters and a mom… the only man of the house (as long as you don’t object to using the word “man” that loosely). While my friends were watching The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team with their brothers and dads, I was watching The Love Boat and The Facts of Life with the Lewis women. Thanks to this lack of childhood exposure to boyish things, I grew up without much interest in comic books or superheroes… unless you consider Tootie a superhero. There would be a case for that, but I’m not going to make it right now.
As a kid I had glorious visions of filling up our entire house with water and swimming from room to room. It never bothered me that most of my possessions would be destroyed in the flood or that my family would immediately die from electrocution if someone were to turn on the TV. Even knowing that the lack of breathing would only allow me to enjoy my aquatic wonder-home for about a minute before I drowned didn't stand in my way. All imaginable impossibilities aside, there was only one reason I never actually turned on all of the faucets and flooded the house. You guessed it... sharks.
Unlike the boastfully extravagant St. Louis Arch, which is 630 feet tall and a predictably boring 630 feet wide, the S.T. Lewis Arch stands a reasonable eight-feet tall and is roughly three manatees wide. No one likes a "show-off" arch, and I'm guessing that's why so many people Google "St. Lewis Arch" instead of Googling the more popular, similarly named "St. Louis Arch." It was those Google-using, spelling bee champions who inspired me to create my very own arch. But unlike the one in Missouri with its cold, stainless steel, my arch is made out of the animals I most like to draw... and a cardinal. You like that, St. Louis? Bring it.I love that last one. Google's a magic mirror now? I guess you could just search for "shark" and then click on "images," but where's the feeling of a royal decree in that? And you just want to see the ocean sharks? So no "non-ocean-going" sharks, then. I guess that's pretty specific. "Things," on the other hand... maybe a little vague. As for the rest of the list... cheetahs got endangered when lots of them died. To bread a chipmunk, dip it in milk and then roll it in flour and bread crumbs. Flying pigs don't exist, so based purely on that fundamental logic, I would guess that a flying shark is going to taste better. However, managing to get a taste of a shark while it's flying may prove to be difficult. Good luck with all that. And lastly, a boxing kangaroo stands for truth and justice... maybe some other stuff. It's hard to say because they don't speak, but I like to think they're not just boxing without a purpose.
If you're familiar with Sesame Street's classic "Ladybug Picnic" segment, you already know that twelve ladybugs attended the picnic for an afternoon of sack-racing, rope-jumping, and the inevitable whine-a-thon concerning the over-pricing of furniture and rugs. The ladybugs seemed like a fairly likeable bunch, but then it occurred to me... unless fate is repeatedly crossing my path with the paths of the exact same ladybugs, there are quite possibly hundreds of ladybugs out there... or at least more than twelve. So what about all the ladybugs who didn't get invited to the exclusionary, elitist picnic? Still waiting by the phone... crying... thinking of "knock-knock" jokes they might have told. What about them? I'm beginning to think that that fire wasn't an accident. (The fact that they had marshmallows kind of tipped me off).
Once again I've drawn something that caused my wife to say, "I think you need therapy." She's serious too. But you see, drawing is the therapy. Now that I've drawn this semi-violent scene, I don't have to try it in real life with real chicks or real bunnies. The violent tendencies are relieved, and nobody's hurt. Therapy complete. Thanks heavens I have art as an outlet... I shudder at the thought of how innocent chicks may have suffered otherwise.
I've given up using food for inspiration... now I'm just combining TV shows I liked as a kid. It's still not creative, but at least it doesn't make sense.
As you may already be aware, Battle Gators do not exist. What troubles me most about this fact is that all the supplies you would need to build a Battle Gator DO exist. Assuming you don't have a history of violence or terrorism, it would only take four or five days to gather the necessary weapons. And then, what... maybe ten minutes to strap everything to an alligator? In less than a week of very minimal work, I could possess the ultimate weapon. But alas, I'm lazy, and I haven't a single alligator to my name. Oh well... a man can dream (which is exactly why I take so many naps).
Today Disney released their 46th animated feature: Meet the Robinsons. Wait... this is going to sound way cooler: Today we released our 46th animated feature! Sweet. Okay, so I didn't have anything to do with the movie, but I did work on the video game. Here are a few of the storyboards I did for one of the game's cinematics. I tried to find a sequence that wouldn't give away anything about the movie or the game... just wanted to advertise them both a little here on my blog. If you haven't seen the movie yet, what are you waiting for? It's pretty nice, and the Bowler Hat Guy's great. So go support animation, Disney, and ME by seeing the one and playing the other.
I'm tired of making up stuff to draw from my own head. From now on I'm just going to trace food and maybe add a tail or some eyes if I need them to complete the image. This will likely leave me with very awkward-looking, disproportioned crimes of nature, but my brain demands a rest. Plus I'm eating anyway, so there's one less thing I have to do. So long, creativity. Hello, misshapen elephant.
Sometimes I see a beautiful, attractive girl with some creepy, weird-looking guy, and my first thought is, "How did that guy get a girl like her? Is he really funny? Is she really blind? What's going on there?" Then I think, "I hope everyone isn't that critical of this photo, because I was really sick that day."
Did my blog really need another flying pig? Probably not, but this one kind of happened on its own. On Saturday I decided to make a video showing the transition from "blank piece of paper" to "finished, colored, character sketch" and put it on YouTube for the world to yawn about. After setting up our video camera on the kitchen table and pressing the "record" button, I realized I still didn't know what I intended to draw. Turns out the "flying pig" is my default sketch... so here he is.
I never had a gun for my Nintendo... too dangerous. But whenever I visited a friend who had one, you could be certain I was shooting poorly animated, heavily pixelated ducks well into the evening on "Duck Hunt." Unless you sat inches from the TV and scraped the gun against the screen to ensure your aim, you were bound to miss an occasional duck. And the moment you did... enter the mocking dog. You think that's funny, dog? Well, laugh it up, because I just decided what I'm doing with this last bullet.
I've never been hunting, but if I did I imagine that the first time my dog laughed at me for misfiring at a duck would come just seconds before the first time I shot my dog.
I drew this for our "Chicken Little: Ace in Action" game. In one of the cinematics, Abby references Modern Mallard magazine and waves a copy of it around. We probably should have handed my rough sketch off to one of our incredibly talented Avalanche painters, but for some reason we didn't, so now my rough, little magazine cover has an appearance in the game. This duck is pretty much a direct rip off of Mulan... at least as far as her attire goes. It's nice working for Disney because you can totally rip off Disney and no one cares.
When I saw that this week's Toon Club topic was "Imaginary Friends," I didn't know what I would draw. I never had any imaginary friends... unless all my friends were imaginary. I guess that would explain the low turnout for my birthday party.
A battering ram is a siege engine... something like a large log, which, when propelled with significant force, is able to crush through walls or break open locked doors and gates. A battling ram is what dumb people call a battering ram.
Just cleaning the desk... found these sketches. Why is the big, superhero fox squeezing the neck of an unarmed rabbit? Doesn't really seem like a "superhero" thing to do. Superheroes don't strangle rabbits... they kick them.
Maleficent is a reasonably pretty lady with stunning cheek bones, but she manages to mask that beauty and elegance beneath a giant cloak of "crazy." Where do you have to be mentally to vow to kill a baby because you weren't invited to a party? With Mr. Blackbird on her shoulder, she keeps company with semi-retarded demons, and she not only has the ability to turn into a dragon, but she actually found the need for it at least once in her life. I would gladly try my hand at defending her in a court of law, because it's clear that "evil" takes a backseat to "insanity" with that one. She's definitely one of my favorite villains ever.
Most of the new TV's that are being made are in widescreen format. As soon as widescreen TV's are your only option, you full-sreen DVD-buyers will have black bars on the sides of the picture instead of the top and bottom. But whatever kind of TV you have, you'll always be missing part of the picture. It's like wearing horse blinders to the Grand Canyon (which I would only recommend for pack mules, because those trails are dangerous, and you pack mules need to be focused on the path ahead). But if you ever go to the Grand Canyon, see the whole thing without horse blinders... in widescreen... the way it was divinely intended.
I drew this for Toon Club's Favorite Cartoon Villains topic, but then I changed my mind because it looked too much like the screen cap I used for reference. I figured I'd post it on here anyway for the unfortunate people who Google "Headless Horse Man" and end up at my circus freak.I like how some people apparently ask Google questions instead of just searching key words. "Dear Google... what do cheetah's do?" A poorly worded search such as that can yield poor results full of inaccurate information. Next time try something simple like "cheetah behavior." But since you're already here: cheetahs sleep, sit, run, stand, walk, eat, lie down, breed, hunt, blink, yawn, and die.
And as long as I'm responding to Google searches... a couch is only as wonderful as it is soft. Zombie cruises are currently unavailable because zombies are more interested in inflicting property damage than they are in playing shuffleboard at sea. Twelve years ago you could get peanut butter and root beer at Karstadt in Hamburg... they might have Cheetos. "Chipmunks" is the plural form of "chipmunk." Therefore, it's impossible to answer how "it" eats because chipmunks are "they." Nice riddle, though. And Selachophobia is how I called when I am afraid of sharks.
A while ago I downloaded "Texas Hold 'Em" to my cell phone. I use my phone more for that game than I do for talking to people. So far I've won 1240 tournaments and 42 world championships. I would calculate how much time I've wasted, but the results would be depressing... and my only calculator is on my phone, and I'm not about to waste valuable battery time on a boring calculator.
Valentine's Day... the one day of the year that Michael Bolton's music doesn't drive me crazy. That's a lie. But it is the one day of the year that I don't find the color pink nauseating. Another lie. But, honestly... Valentine's Day is the one day of the year that I'm not allowed to watch "Lost" because it's not romantic enough. Why a Wednesday, Valentine's Day? 
For the Avalanche Art Blog, the topic was both "love" and "too cute for comfort." I combined the two and threw in some good old "forced emotion." What do people think is cute? Puppies and babies, right? Add several spoonfuls of sap, and the cuteness casserole is ready to serve. Don't eat it, though... it's designed to make you gag.
A while back I drew a mermaid and wrote something about manatees being the possible source of the mermaid myth. Manatees? Really? Perhaps its time our historians of mythology consider other possibilities. Not even sailors get that drunk.
This week's Toon Club topic is "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I love Disney's version in Alice in Wonderland... one of my favorite animated segments from anything ever.
I did this last night for the Avalanche Art Blog... the topic was "Villains," so I went with the obvious choice: the Western Black Bear. It would be hard to find a more feared villain in the folklore of my mind. Although I'd rather write something stupid about the bear, the old west, or how I'd benefit from looking at visual reference of a gun before I try to draw one, instead I'm going to explain the process I use to arrive at a final image like this one. I've never been much of a painter, so here's how I've managed to get around that with the help of Photoshop.
Step 2 - Now that I do a lot of storyboards, I've abandoned the skill of drawing on model. So the "design" of the character becomes a loose version of what the final drawing might kind of look like. But I at least have something to base my final drawing on, so I continue with a rough sketch of the character in the pose I want him in.
Step 3 - After using very basic shapes to get the gesture I want, I add all my details in what I consider a rough sketch, but probably not as "rough" as a lot of people draw. I sharpen my pencil a lot too. I hate drawing with a dull pencil. That's the main reason my rough sketches stay somewhat clean. 
Step 4 - With the drawing mostly nailed down, I trace it using an ink pen, sometimes making minor changes to shapes and smaller details like fingers that weren't quite right. I've done a fair amount of animation clean-up, and that's pretty much what this step is. It mostly takes patience and a steady hand. I also generally use a thicker line for the outermost lines and taper them into the form where necessary.
Step 5 - I scan the drawing into the computer, then in Photoshop I desaturate the image and adjust the brightness and contrast to make the clean-up line solid and clear. Then in the layers window, I duplicate the image twice and throw away the background. With the selection tool's tolerance set at 32 (which I believe is the default setting), I select everything behind the bear and delete it from the lower layer. Then I un-check the "contiguous" box from the selection tool's settings and click anywhere on the image that's white, which selects all the white area in one click. I delete that area from the top layer. Man, this sounds more confusing than it is. Then I lock the two layers. Now, finally, I can drop colors into the lower layer without losing any of my line drawing, which sits above it on the top layer. This paragraph makes less sense than most of the of crap I write on my blog. 
Step 6 - Next I color the outline (the top layer) using colors that are darker and a bit more saturated than the color of the object I'm outlining. Sometimes I skip this step and leave the outline black. Coloring the outline makes it seem rounded instead of flat, so when I have time, I prefer coloring the outline.
Step 7 - Using the selection lasso, I select various areas of the character and "feather" the selections. I feather more for round shapes and less for hard shadows. Then I adjust the hue, saturation, and brightness to add shadows, highlights, and reflective lighting. 
Step 8 - By the time I get to the background, I've usually worn myself out on the drawing, so I drop a quick shadow under the character, mess with the opacity of the shadow layer, and call it done. But sometimes I want more of a mood than the white background offers. Enter the gradient tool. I choose some colors I think I'll like then use them to make a sky and a ground. Then I mess with the hue and saturation until I'm satisfied with my cheap, stupid background. 
Step 9 - Then to finish it up, I add some clouds or something. In this drawing I airbrushed in some haze in the background to fade out the ground line, and I added some foreground dust. Then I flattened the whole image and did a little more adjusting of the hue, saturation, and contrast of the image as a whole... trying to unify the colors a little more. And that's my final drawing. Here it is again so you don't have to scroll all the way back up to the top.
Hopefully some of that made sense. I apologize to my family and friends who came here for weirdness and got a lesson in not painting. Back to the senseless ramblings next time. I hate trying to make sense for this long.
This week's Toon Club topic was Star Wars... an overwhelming topic... so many great characters. I drew a handfull of Yoda sketches, but they all looked terrible compared to Genndy Tartokovsky's Clone Wars designs. So I went with the obvious next choice... Princess Leia and the metal bikini. The legs are a little messed up... oh well.
In Christopher Reeve’s Superman II, Clark reveals to Lois that he is actually Superman by removing his glasses. She never saw through his intricate disguise before that moment? Way to go, Lois... you're being bumped up to detective. As long as the Daily Planet staff was dumb as dirt, Clark Kent might as well have been a gorilla. Why is Clark never around when Super Gorilla shows up? I wonder if they're the same... wait - Clark's a gorilla who wears glasses.
Why did the other ducks target one as the "ugly duckling?" Aren't ALL ducks ugly? Never in my life have I seen even one attractive duck. Fortunately I don't really look at them that way. If I ever see a duck that strikes me as "really hot," then I've got problems.
Yesterday I wanted to draw something, but I didn't know what. While I was considering my options, my iPod played "Ventura Highway" by America (the band, not the country). I like that song, but the last verse is quite puzzling:
Man's best friend... is that what dogs are? Then explain what happens to my so-called "best friend" when he stops in front of the TV on a big 4th-and-inches play. Let's be honest... man's best friend is food, then TV, then football, then football on TV, followed by cars, naps, video games, airplanes, model trains, and so on. Based on my findings, dogs are wedged way down the list somewhere between "chopping down trees" and "buying a new belt."
