Happy Belated Birthday Doodlewall!!

another t shit i made. this time its from a frank miller drawing in the dark knight returns. wearing this one tomorrow.

where we left off:

love you guys. also a poem we read in class today:

So You Think You Know Scheherazad

So you think you know Scheherazad

So you think she tells you bedtime stories

that will please and soothe,

invents fairy creatures

who will grand you wishes

Scheherazad invents nothing

Scheherazad awakens

the demons under your bed

They were always there

She locks you in with them

And when you struggle to escape from them,

and when you run

to the very end of the corridor, you find

that it leads only to another corridor

and every door you open is a false door

and suddenly you find yourself in a room

within a room within a room within a room

and suddenly you find yourself forced to meet them,

the demons she unleashes,

the terrors that come from

within you and within her

and suddenly Scheherazad is nowhere to be found

but the stories she unlocked go on and on--

This is the power of the telling of a story--

and suddenly you find yourself

swimming through the sea to the Reef of Extremity,

flying to the Valley of All that is Possible,

walking barefoot on a blade

over the Chasm of Flames,

landing in a field where you wrestle with Iblis,

whose form changes into your love

into Death, into knowledge, into God

whose face changes into Scheherazad--

And suddenly you find yourself

The poem is by Mohja Kahf and I like what it says about the nature of stories and the storyteller.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOODLEWALL!

The doodlewall is one year old today! Soon he/she will be potty trained and calling us mama.

Awww. (Sorry dudes, my biological clock is fucking going nuts. Every time I see a kid between the ages of 2 and 6 I go nuts and miss the siblings. Perhaps that's not the biological clock, maybe that's just homesickness).

Ok, so I attempted to do the "your dudes style" thing, and guess what.

Rachael, I hate you. Don't you know that this takes forever? My hand was so tired. But it was kind of fun, and I like how it turned out, but it's not as much like your style as I wanted. Something about it is still in my style, but I don't know what it is.

I mixed our style up by still drawing two dudes, but I gave them plausible gay deniability. Sure, they are kinda wearing faggy 30's-ish clothes, but they are not making out. Compromise. And I tried your hatching style I like so much, I think your lines are a little heavier, and you use less pure black... so its what our baby's style will be. When we have one together. Or 10.

These are supposed to be an attempt at Allison's style. It didn't really work so well. Basically it brought me back to the style I used when I used to doodle with Allison instead. These were really fun to do, but not like Allison. I still have to work on her style.

These are some fake blind contours, which I like when Allison does, but these look more like my style.

This is also my style from, like, sophomore year. But I tried to doodle in Allison's style. It's hard. I can't really pin down the difference in the way we draw/doodle. I know there is one, but I don't know what it is. Do you guys?

Comics comics comics... and some doodles!

So, here is the next page of Kurt's comic. It's kind of fun, but I am glad I'm halfway done. 6 more pages to go.

OK, I have been actually doodling now. I haven't been doodling for awhile, instead I have been drawing comics or little animation characters over and over and...
Anyway, I decided to just doodle, not think about what I was making and it was pretty fun. It brought me back to styles I haven't really done since senior year.

Another doodle of John Wayne and some animals.

A paint doodle. This was less doodle-y, cause I have a basic idea in mind, but try to keep it loose and mindless.

OK, more Cain and Abel comics. I still don't have a title for this thing. The super easy one would be "My/His Brothers Keeper," but I don't want that. Something biblical probably. There are two comics I love, whose titles I love, and try (unsuccessfully) to get inspiration done. One is "Goodbye Chains" which is about a communist trying to end capitalism, and it is set in the old west. So that is a badass title. The other one is called "Metanoia" which is a Greek word and wikipedia says: "metanoia is a rhetorical device used to retract a statement just made, and then state it in a better way." And the comic is about a second chance. I think that is pretty badass as well. Also, its a similar theme to my comic, the whole second chance thing.

Also, I can't put it online without a title... choices choices. Oh well, I haven't gotten far enough in to do that anyway.

Oh no! What a terrible page! What a dark place in my comic history. This is the page where Cain becomes attracted... to a girl. Eugh. And you know what is gross? Shit happens between them. Why do I do this to myself?

This is my desk/workspace. I like seeing you guys' area, so I thought I'd post mine. With my ink, and my paintbushes and my movies and stuff. Yeah. Look at that view. (You can't see much in the photo, but it is awesome.

Anniversary

tangent: this is the artist ibrahim el salahi of sudan.

he was at the johnson museum (at cornell) talking about his art.

I took a picture cuz i thought he looked really artisty in his little hat and all black clothes.

This is my workspace. Is it a creative mess or just a mess?

The dorm's built in movable desk light is actually really nice for drawing comics.

the doodle wall is turning one this thursday!

to celebrate i thought it would be cool if we drew in each other's styles. For example rachael would draw something in dakota's style and something my style, i'd do rachael and dakota's style, and dakota would do me and rachael. (take whatever sexual innuendos you want from that you immature perverts)

i don't think that the due date for this necessarily has to be this thursday but whenever you get it done.

I think the most fun thing about this will be seeing your style done by two other people. hahaha. okay. cool.

10 Dead Princes Part 6: Beheaded plus some comics and fanart

So, here is my 6th dead prince. This boy is beheaded (obviously), and I took the walls from the Queens houses in the Tower of London, where I went to at the height of my love for Anne Boleyn, and the Queens houses are where she stayed before she was beheaded. (Also, I stood where she was beheaded. It was a pretty amazing experience.

In fact, a big part of my dead prince inspiration comes from the Princes in the Tower, who were murdered in the Tower of London. Look at this beautiful painting.
http://tudorhistory.org/people/edward5/princes.jpg
I bought a postcard of that painting when I was 12, and have had it on my wall at home ever since. Kinda pedo, but I was like 12 at the time so it's OK. But I'm thinking of these kids a lot with the dead prince paintings.


This is fanart of Sherlock Holmes.

I love him so bad. I read all those abridged kid books about him when I was little, but never read the real ones. I should get to that.

I just saw "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes," where they strongly imply that Holmes is a homosexual, and he explicitly states that he and Watson are in a sexual relationship (however, he is lying to get a woman to leave him alone). But when Watson confronts him about it... it was a great scene as only pre-sexual revolution movies can deliver.
Now that everything is accepted and legal and stuff, there is a huge lack of subtlety. It's worth it, but I miss how authors used hints and codes, an undertone of shame, and nothing was explicitly stated. (Like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which I can never stop myself from referencing. Sorry).

I love book Watson. He's so cool. Movie Watsons are always dumb, for comedic effect.

Here are the next couple of pages of the comics I am doing for that guy. To be honest, I was not impressed with what he gave me in terms of story. (Horrified, was more like it). But I feel I was able to pull out a skeleton of a story, and build on it.
He wants me to keep working on his other short stories after I'm done with this, but I think I am going to say goodbye to him after we finish this collaboration. I mean, I just dont have the energy to work hard on something I am not passionate about. The reason I can do my own comic is I keep thinking "This is one more page untill they make out. One more page." (Just kidding, kinda).

No, the story is not realistic, so it's OK that there is a patch of grass in between two buildings and stuff, and that there is nobody on the street. It's supposed to be kinda surreal, but it doesn't get really surreal for a couple more pages.

academic slump or: Allison Gets Comic Serious [feedback requested]

Non sequitur: How cool is this? I feel super professional. (thanks neil!)

Now for business.

So Amanda had this really kick ass dream and she typed it up and emailed it to me. I printed it out, its a page in 1.5 spacing. I am going to draw it. Its funny because i don't feel comfortable drawing any of my dreams (and I have a whole book of them) but i wanted to draw amanda's right away.

Secondly, I actually need opinions please. I know we don't have to comment on every one (i didn't comment on rachael's last one) but i talked to her on the phone about it. So one way or another gimme some somethin somethin.

Okay so here's my problem. When she first goes in the cave i wanted to emphasize how dark and windy the cave tunnels were. But as you can see on page three i didn't shade the cave at all. That's because at this point the whole thing is inside a giant cavern and i don't want to color everything black. Is that a bad choice? does it make it look weird next to the super shaded cave panels on page two? Do the people need more detail?

Thanks.

Doodles + comic

I am not dead, nor have I stopped drawing. You guys are making me look bad.

Please look at all these blown up (comic pages especially)...they look much better.

Doodles first.






























These were inspired by watching the "Terminator: Salvation" trailer on the YouTubes. I have not seen this movie and probably never will, but I'm kind of digging the whole post-apocalyptic guerrilla soldier look.



















More Terminator stuff. I have a lot of trouble with color which is why the guys' face is so dark; I just kept adding layers.



















And since I'm spending so much time with it I figured I should show you guys what I've been up to with the comic; something about seeing it on the computer screen makes me so much less satisfied with it. I have to scan all this stuff into photoshop so I can take out the text so I played around with the colors a little. It's gray in real life but I kind of liked the blue treatment so I'm sticking with it.

10 Dead Princes Part 4 and 5: The Plague and Shot

Hey, so I got some more dead princes for all ya'll. I thought about this series while I was painting them, and I should say, a lot of the inspiration is coming from 120 Days of Sodom. That book is fucked up. (Plot=4 pervy noblemen locked in a castle with a harem of young boys and girls and the terrible things they do to them). I am already uncomfortable reading it, and they are not even killing or hurting anyone in their harem yet, but there is urine involved in like 50% of their shenanigans.

Ok, anyway, here is my 4th Dead Prince. This is of the plague.

I never knew vomiting blood was part of having the plague until I researched it. The Black Death was disgusting but so interesting. I mean, it makes sense, but I was amazed to learn it was the biggest epidemic of all time.

Dude. Why couldn't it have been an epidemic where people die peacefully in their sleep? Eugh.

And lots of people think that it was the cause of modern anti-semitism (and to a point, the Holocaust), because Jews kept cats, so they were not infected so much, and they became scapegoats. So it's possible that the black death continued killing vicariously.

Crazy.

Ok, too many tangents. I am Mr. Morgan.

This next dead prince got Saint Sebastianed. Bam!


Yup.

Hey, these are pretty quick. I only started this a bit over a week ago and I'm halfway done. I don't understand why the AP Portfolio took so long. These are about the same quality, (better, even, then some of my shittier pieces). Just tack on two more dead princes and I have a concentration. (I wonder what Mrs. O would say about it though).

10 Dead Princes Part 3: Disembowelment

Ok, so this is my 3rd dead prince. He has been disemboweled. Basically, I had fun trying to make his organs kind of cute. Also, a more limited color palette so his organs would stand out.

Also, I love in fountains when they have those little boys holding fish and smiling. They have some in my favorite fountain, The Fountain of the Great Lakes. Basically, it's a statue of a bunch of ladies pouring water on each other, and each lady represents a lake. And there are the fish boys on the side. I would look it up if I were you. I love it and read there all the time. Also, Allison, you have been there a couple times, I talk to you there a lot.

This next guy was going to be another dead prince, but I'm not so sure. It just doesn't really fit in with the others, and also, I feel I could do more with drowning then this. But, I had fun doing the wet shirt effect.

These are some sketches from my life drawing class. This man was not as handsome as I drew him, but I accidentally made him look like Tom Selleck from Magnum P.I. and I liked it. He also reminds me of Commissioner Gordon a bit.

My class said these next ones looked like communist propaganda art.

A blind contour of a Bodhisattva, I believe.

This was one of those modified contour things where you couldn't look when you draw but you could in between things.

A dude dressed like Bacchus. He was sexy, but I did not capture that in my picture.

Secretly, I don't love my life drawing class. Six hours is too long to go without sitting down. And I get stressed out and don't make good stuff.