2008-01-29

2008-01-24

Left to right: Roy - project in the making with Andrew, frog, studious rabbit - a present for Becky because the last one hopped away, tried to do Scrooge McDuck, syringe alien - I quickly sketched him from one of the guest lecture's powerpoint slides that had to do with children with spasticity and botox injections to relieve it. I really have no idea why she used the picture.

2008-01-24

I tried to draw something more serious. I don't like the way it turned out honestly but you have to start somewhere right?

2008-01-26

Left to right: Steve the Vortigaunt - doodle from the Half Life games and sort of a character in a future project, rock star - I admit I was thinking about Metalocalypse, Sanchez - character in a future project, robot - I was thinking about 'Lost in Space,' an unfinished robot - angular robots like Optimus Prime are harder to draw than I thought.

And thats it for now- I've got more stuff to scan and I'll get to it later.

2008-01-21 Sad sad cthulu

Right, explanation:
Cthulu, if you have no idea who or what he is you should look it up on wikipedia. Short version: HP Lovecraft, a 1920's gothic horror writer, created this great old evil and he, it, is generally depicted as a squid-headed monster. I like to imagine him looking more like Zoidburg from Futurama but that is just me.

Speaking of Futurama: the Brain Spawn title over Cthulu's head is from an episode of Futurama about these floating brains that- try to take over the world? I don't remember.

The title above Cthulu referes to the World of Warcraft guild that I was/still am a part of: The Brain Spawn. I do not play right now but if you do- these guys rock.

Now why is Cthulu sad? The forums I linked to above mentioned something about the Brain Spawn's god and referenced a picture of some monster from the game. In response I drew this saying that made Cthulu sad and jealous as the Brain Spawn's theme is somewhat Cthulian (the crest/tabard design is an insidious looking squid, which looks Cthulian... or something like that).

On another note I colored it in Microsoft Paint and it really shows. I have Adobe Photoshop but I am at a loss as to how to use it.

2008-01-18 I'm cheap - first submission

Let's face it, I'm not devoting a lot of time to this because it is a hobby and I'm really not putting a lot of money into this either.

This is why I use this kind of paper:

This is a cover page. At my university when you print something the printer program spits out one of these before you get the papers you printed out. This is to keep things organized and waste a great deal of paper. Naturally, being an American University, they do not recycle so these cover pages get thrown into a pile and then thrown away. I realized that the back is blank so I have an unlimited supply of scratch paper (at least until I graduate).

The name is part of someone's last name with some random numbers by it. "bende975" did not need extra scratch paper so now its mine to use how I please!

My first submission is a doodle. One of my classes was particularly dull so I doodled.

Robots? I was looking at Super Nintendo Emulators and thinking about a game that has thwarted me for a long time now: Metal Warriors. Metal Warriors was a side-scrolling game pitting you: Captain Stone of some organization against the Axis forces (Axis, honestly?). The point of it was that you got to run around in these mechs. The coolest part was that there were different kinds of mechs that you could use. My favorite was the Havoc suit- which is what I was thinking about when I was doodling in class.

Introduction

Ever doodle? Not draw, paint, sketch, etc. But doodle- scribble on a piece of paper, outline letters, or find yourself making geometric patterns?

In high school, out of pointless rebellion and boredom, I drew (in pencil) on my desk. Naturally I did this after a particularly amiable, but entirely too smoky, teacher told us not to on the first day of class. At first my doodles were fairly harmless. I usually doodled swords, maybe nebulous shapes or designs, or perhaps even a formless figure yet generally they were just mindless movements of my left hand over paper (left-handed, yes).

One day I drew a half-circle, no. Well, I drew a rectangle on its long side, then I tried to make it look 3-d, then I drew the half-circle into it. I left it there and went to my next class. The next day, however, someone had drawn someone skateboarding on my half-circle-rectangle as if it was a half pipe! I looked at it in awe- someone had added to my graffiti! I started to draw, not doodle this time, but my hand moved with purpose. Gone was my attention to early American history and my smoky teacher- what mattered now was drawing on my desk.

I drew a dragon. Just standing there looking off to the side with its mouth open. Then I added the next critical step- I signed my work: "The Desk Artist." Never before had I ever been so proud of a doodle. I started doing it in every class. Every assigned seat that I had to sit in, I even tried to draw on the gym's stadium seats, and with every drawing I signed: "The Desk Artist."

My dragon was, again, added to by my mysterious friend. This time the dragon was spewing flames into the shield of a knight, who brandished a sword and full plate armor. It was brilliant- until I got caught and severed detention cleaning desks for that teacher. Oh well. I didn't stop me from drawing in other classes with teachers that did not honestly care. I finally met my mysterious accomplice while taking one of those standardized government tests... the I- I-something-or-rather, ITBS test? I can't remember. Either way I finished early, looked over the answers, and realized I had a good 20 minutes left of sitting there- naturally I started to draw on the desk and, of course, signed my work. As we left a fellow student stopped me: "So you're the guy!"

My friend was a much more accomplished artist than I was and was also in the same history class I was in, in the same seat, but in the period after me. This entire experience opened me up to wanting to draw.

So, naturally, I didn't do anything for about 10 years or so. Now here I am- perusing a completely unrelated degree to art of any sort. I found that I really liked comics- loved them. I tried buying comics regularly but that started to get expensive. Then I found online comics- lots of them, some that were several years old. I would go back to the first comic and read it from the beginning. I read about 40 webcomics and the list expands every time I find something new that I like to read. What is this journal about? Doodling, drawing, sketching, storyboarding, whatever- a gallimaufry, a smorgasbord, a plethora of unrelated creativity merely for the sake of doing it.

Right now I am a pretty sub-par artist. You have to roll around and spit up on yourself before you learn how to support your own head, roll over, crawl, sit up, waddle, walk, and then run yeah?

My goal: (amorphous as it is) improve my ability to draw.

• Start out simple: once a week doodle dumps.
• Start only with pencil doodles.
• Develop a personal style.
• Learn how to ink.
• Learn how to color with Photoshop (this is a ways in the future)
• Develop an online comic

Why: I'm doing this for myself, if other people like it rockers, if no one does- I don't care.

Let’s rocks this!