I must have drawn these guys ten times... and I couldn't get them to fight once. In fact, one of the times they were dancing. So the question of "grizzly bear vs. Bengal tiger" remains a mystery... because bears and tigers are too reasonable and understanding to fight. Stupid, uncooperative sketches.
I've often wondered what the outcome would be if a grizzly bear and a Bengal tiger got into a fight. Barring a zoo outbreak or a second worldwide flood, this fight will most likely never take place. I guess that's good for tigers and bears, but how will I ever know who would win? Any theories? I pick the bear, but that's just because he cheats.
There was a period in my life when summer was my favorite time of year. I would swim all day or take five-hour naps or play basketball or tennis until it was too dark to see. Late at night I'd watch The Arsenio Hall Show long after I would have already been asleep the rest of the year, then I'd sleep in the next morning until The Price is Right was on. TV programming was the only reason I ever knew what time it was. I had no responsibility... nothing to accomplish or work on. Summer vacation was a three-month break from everything. By the depressing first day of school each fall, I had completely forgotten how to read and write from a summer of allowing my brain to atrophy inside my sun-baked head. Summer was wonderful... then I got older.
I drew this several months ago for some reunion t-shirts. The Garns have giant heads, so the weather-balloon-headed octopus was an easy choice. Because what fun is a family reunion if you're not wearing matching t-shirts that draw further attention to your family's genetically shared abnormalities?
One time when I was a kid, my mom left me in the care of my dad for the night. Somehow he made the grossly erroneous decision that I was old enough to watch Jaws. I'm not even sure I'm old enough to handle it now, so his math was off by at least thirty years. Good call, Dad. Before that night I didn't even know "scary" was an option for movies. I thought movies were about magical lands and singing animals. Five minutes into that thing I knew I never wanted to swim, bathe, or even run through the sprinklers again.
If you've seen The Neverending Story in the last 20 years, you've seen it more recently than me. I don't remember a lot about that movie... just that the main villain was "nothing," the horse sunk into tar because its self-esteem was low, and of course, Falkor - the flying snake-dog with udders or tentacles or something. I guess when a snake and a flying dog breed, the result is a "dragon." What a messed up movie. What?! It was written by a German? No.
I stumbled upon this gem while looking through some old boxes. It was probably drawn around the same time as the Pinocchio sketch I posted a while back. There are several things about this one that I consider worthy of my own praise. For instance, the crocodile's wandering eye... that's a nice touch. Also, the crocodile's other wandering eye... equally stellar. The leaf on Captain Hook's hat is an interesting twist. Then there's Mr. Smee, striking an impressively flamboyant pose there in the background. But I think my favorite thing about the whole glorious image is Peter Pan's double-jointed knee... or his dislocated hip... or his badly twisted ankle. Whatever it is, I'm going to consider it the highest level of dexterity ever seen in the history of artistry.
I've heard that a lot of kids I know and some I don't have been drawing flying pigs for the last little while because of a video I made. I feel that there is a limit to how much winged pork you can draw in a lifetime, and while I fortunately haven't reached that point, some of these poor kids did weeks ago. Since they don't know how to draw other stuff, they're still cranking out pigs. To keep them from burning out on drawing completely, I put this new video together. Look, kids! You can finally draw something else! I wish I had used a darker pencil… something for me to remember when everyone's sick of drawing hugging bears and I have to make a new drawing video. Hey, kids - DON'T hold your pencils like this! It works just fine, but the resulting ridicule never ends.
This is the cover of the final book in the Harry Potter series: "Harry Potter and the Worthless Education."
Recently I was thrilled to learn that ESPN Classic airs reruns of American Gladiators every night at 11 o'clock. For me this has meant less sleep, but it has also meant a great deal more laughing about blunt force trauma caused to mullet-wearing heads. Nitro, Gemini, Thunder, and the gang... oh, the flashbacks.
This is the "Star-Bellied Lorax in the Hat" that I drew for Toon Club's Dr. Seuss topic. I originally wanted to create my own Seuss-ish creature and write a poem about it, using made-up words to bridge otherwise unrhymeable gaps, but I wasn't feeling very creative. Speaking of made-up words, how would you spell "unrhymeable" if it was a word? Not even a suggestion, spell check? I'd like to have a Lorax of my own, because it would be interesting to know what the trees are thinking.Well, "How" to you too, Chief! Looking to add some chipmunk drawings to the outside of your teepee? Do they have stencils for that kind of thing maybe? I wish I could be of more help.
Online sketches of lizards? Do you really need to say the "online" part? Have you ever been referred by Google to a sketchbook someone's carrying around? And if you're not that specific you're going to have to track down the guy who drew the lizard yourself and ask to see it?
How do you make widescreen movies fullscreen? Let's see... sit really close... move plants and bookshelves to block the sides of your TV... wear horse blinders. Plenty of ways.
Do kangaroos have arms? Is your internet presented in Braille? Because if not, I'm not sure how you'll ever get your answer. Well, I guess there's the "ask ANYONE" option, because that's who would know if kangaroos have arms.
And lastly... who even knew you could do a Google search that long? A blue cheetah, huh? That could defend anyone against a polar bear? That seems to be asking a lot of an animal that's retarded AND stupid... especially a discolored jungle cat. (If you do that search, my blog is the number one result. Where have I gone wrong?)
Hey, look! Another Arrested Development sketch! This is Lucille Bluth... a terrible person, and therefore a great character. Here are some of my favorite "Lucille" quotes:
Saturday night there was a sneak preview of PIXAR’s newest film, Ratatouille. Anyone who knows me will already know that I was there. There are probably bigger fans of PIXAR than I am, but aside from John Lasseter, I don’t know any. You know what I just realized? I haven’t sent a portfolio to PIXAR in more than a year. Either I really like my job or I’ve gotten lazy... probably a combination of the two.
And just one more thing for the movie-going public... if you have to text message during the film, maybe you’re too important to see a movie in the first place. If your wife is about to give birth and you’re expecting a call, maybe you shouldn’t be at a movie either. The technology that offers you enough light to see who’s calling you or to read the text message you just received is the same technology that is blinding everyone behind you. They may not say it or do it, but everyone wants to punch you in the back of the head. Just a head’s up.
"Restless, Buster went to the kitchen to find something to help him sleep when he came across Lucille's emergency stash of wine, which he mistook for a giant juice box. It was the first taste of alcohol Buster had since he was nursing."
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.
