Red Monkey

May 9, 2008

Doodle Daze

So, quiet week, eh? Perhaps on the blog, but certainly not life this week! I had another job interview Monday - my favourite kind, we talked for a bit and then Tuesday, I was emailed an assignment to complete. The catch was I had 48 hours to design, cut, and code a website of approximately four pages. They wanted to see creativity, use of colour, movement and sound. In 48 hours. Design a site look, cut the images apart and optimize them. Build at least one Flash piece - design, code. Put Flash into a page. Code all the pages. Write a rationale for the choices made and insert that on the pages. Cut a small sound byte to use in another Flash piece to demo sound. Forty-eight hours. Not a week of work, but nearly a week's worth of work in two days.

I was busy this week, working feverishly from Tuesday morning straight through until Thursday morning - and then attempting sleep and some finesse work later Thursday.

So, this week is also Doodle Week according to my bud, Claire. She's designated various days with various kinds of doodles, and while Animal Doodle day isn't until tomorrow, that's what I have to show today.

These are all sketch versions of images I'll be using in the baby book I'm painstakingly doing by hand para mi sobrino.

 

 

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:23 AM | Comments (4) | Sketches | Stumble

May 4, 2008

More Drew Moss practicing

After the vampire Batgirl the other day, I decided to practice the rest of Drew Moss' excellent page.

So, here's the center three panels:

No more rats for her. It's strictly bag lunches from now on. Yum.

She doesn't like to fight but happens to excel in it.

The Bat gives her a bracelet that feeds her hunger. He says it will make her normal but she is always hungry.

I think I'll try the rest of the panels later on this week or next ...

However, there's a slew of things bubbling up this week, so I'm not sure whether I'll have time or not.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:48 PM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Stumble

April 27, 2008

Holy Vampire Bats!

So my favourite way to improve my drawing - particularly drawing people standing in poses that aren't utterly stiff - is to find someone else's work and copy it. It's a time-honoured tradition and it's earned me a few friends along the way. I first practiced some of Mike Rohde's excellent SketchToons back in December of '05. Later it was "RubberyJido" over at deviantArt just this past September as I learned how to use my Copic markers.

Earlier this month, I discovered Drew Moss over at deviantArt. I instantly adored this comic book page he drew introducing a "new" Batgirl. So far as I can tell, this isn't something from DC officially, just a concept that Drew came up with. You should check out the full page he did - the text and design had me thinking this was going to be an actual Batgirl book.

His Batgirl concept is on the left and is inked, so the blacks are quite stark. Mine is on the right and is just a pencil sketch, so the blacks are muted.

Not too shabby. I can always see plenty of flaws, the most irritating of which are the changes I made to the face. Stare at it long enough and it's quite obviously off-balance. Meh. Still, it was good practice for me and I think I'll probably try to draw the bulk of the remaining panels as well. I need the practice and I enjoy the stark b/w drawings to help me really concentrate on shadows and light.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:33 PM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Stumble

April 20, 2008

Ninja Mandy

Playing in Illustrator with one of my favourite cartoons: The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. I obviously need to spend some time in Painter and work through some tutorials on background painting as I'm really unhappy with the basic lame background here.

On the other hand, I was really happy with both the freehand sketch of Mandy and the version I did in Illustrator as well. So I give you now, Ninja Mandy:

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:49 PM | Comments (5) | Sketches | Stumble

March 25, 2008

Sketchy - yet another update

At this point, I'm flitting around the web looking up pictures of rusted junk ... and illustrations of rusted junk. Do I want him realistically rusty? If so, I'm headed in the wrong direction at the moment. Do I want him cartoony-rusty? I may already have made him too busy if that's the goal.

Then I remind myself that this piece is an exercise in learning Painter - sure, I want a nice looking piece when I'm done, and I'd love to be able to use at least a version of him in an online comic. But the real goal - learning Painter and improving my eye and my experience. :)

So, this is the little robot guy in the middle of my learning to use Painter and in the middle of rusting him up and attempting to add some depth. Remember ... he's still in process.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:05 AM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Stumble

March 21, 2008

Sketchy - the next update

So, I'm continuing to play in Painter and try to get the hang of the program. I've actually only done a little bit with pastels, pencils and markers, but nothing with acrylics or oils. I'd always thought that the Painter program was only going to be useful to people who, well, were used to painting.

So, this is the little robot guy in the middle of my learning to use Painter and in the middle of rusting him up and attempting to add some depth. Remember ... he's still in process.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:55 PM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

March 20, 2008

Sketchy

Quiet week, eh? I've been sick for a bit over a week and messing about with various projects a little aimlessly. Last night, however, I got a bit motivated. You see, a friend pointed out a grand "new" website to me a few days ago: Gorillustrator and I immediately became both entranced and frustrated. Dammit, I wanna be able to do THAT. So after going through the Gorillustrator's entire site and a few days of futile whining, I downloaded Corel Painter X last night. Then it took HOURS for stupid Wacom's site to come up today - apparently it was down for at least 3 hours this morning and apparently I didn't have the driver installed on this machine somehow and managed to use the tablet and not notice the missing driver until I started messing about in Painter trying to figure out how the hell to do pressure sensitive brushes. (I have only just downloaded the driver and still haven't figured this out yet. dammit)

So, whilst Wacom.com was down this morning, I decided to play with a sketchy-sketch of Metalman, a character I'm developing for yet another project: Los InterWebz.

Now I just have to figure out how to use Painter like the Gorillustrator. Yeah. That oughta be ... umm, easy. Uh-huh.

UPDATE
So I've spent a good chunk of the day experimenting with Painter X and my Wacom tablet. Now that I actually have the silly driver installed, I get some better features out of it that I wondered why I couldn't get to work before (like pressure sensitivity). But I'm also having to re-learn how to draw digitally because a lot of actions work a little differently now.

All of that is lead up to the fact that this is all I've gotten done in the past three hours or so.

I'll update again either tonight or throughout the weekend as I attempt to learn how to colour digitally with Painter.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:08 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

March 14, 2008

Don't Feed the Trolls

My bedroom in high school and the first year of college, was, more often than not, pitch dark. It wasn't for the lack of trying to lighten it up - my mom bought the most sheer curtains she could find. And when I demanded "bed dressing" that matched my personality, Mom made matching curtains out of an extra set of the sheets. (White, with a stripe of rainbow down each long side ... yeah, I know. Early indicator?) Stark white walls, mostly white comforter, sheer curtains which let in the light from the street light at the corner of our front yard. But my favourite way to be was laying on my bedroom floor, all the lights out, just the glow of my "jambox"-stereo's equalizer dancing up and down. And that last year of high school when I scrounged together all of my money to buy my prized Magnavox Videowriter, I would sit at my desk, adding the amber glow of that cheesy word processor to the dim light of my room.

When my creative writing teacher first told us how he would go to an all-night Waffle House to immerse himself in the biomass (to borrow Stephenson's word), I was appalled. How could anyone write with all of the cacophony of activity and light around them? F.J. insisted that it was a valuable way to observe characters, to practice dialogue. Being far too much of an introvert, I could not really wrap my head around this enough to do it. That was about 1986 or 1987.

A few years earlier, my dad brought home a stunning new toy - a Commodore 64. He was amazed and gleeful like a little boy on Christmas morning discovering his new Red Ryder BB gun or Radio Flyer sled. He practically squealed as he opened up the package and pulled out that brick of a keyboard/computer. A whole 64k stored in this sucker! He explained to me, in one of our rare actual conversations, it used to take a machine the size of about half our house to do what this little sucker could do. I remembered one of those rooms - Dad took me to work with him once ... an icy air-conditioned room filled with huge metal cabinet-things. Punch cards. Later, rolls of paper tape.

Mom forbid the acquisition of a modem as efficiently as she'd forbidden cable television - but the boy across the street had a modem and I watched as one letter after another would pop onto the screen from some distant person. Heh, and watch those letters disappear as the person hit backspace to correct a typo.

But it wasn't until I was nearly done with my seven year stint at university before I discovered MUDdog and email and just how fascinating this online Waffle House could be. That was somewhere around 1992-4.

I've been hooked ever since.

This morning, once again, I've turned off all of the lights. I have the band Sick Puppies blaring on the stereo, though not as loudly as I'd like - my neighbors are still sleeping. The glow of my keyboard and laptop screen - and the blue glow of the stereo are all I want. I'm writing against the deadline of sunrise, remembering how easy it was for me to get lost in my introspection as a teenager and 20something in the dark. How much easier it was and is to reflect honestly on myself and my actions as well as the biomass I observe around me.

I recognize that I'm damaged
I sympathize that you are too
But I wanna breathe without feelin' so self-conscious
But it's hard when the world's starin' at you

To me, this is the most interesting thing about the internet. You have all of these people with their foibles and faults and strengths ... you have these intercies, these nodes, of common interest where this diverse mass of individuals pour their thoughts into shared pixel representations.

Why do we do this? Why do we strive to share our experiences and thoughts with everyone else? Why do we strive to get people to understand what we're thinking, feeling, wanting?

It seems to me that no matter how introverted or extroverted an individual is, we all are reaching for some connection beyond just our self - to know that we are not totally alone in our thought or experience or feeling. That someone groks at least a fraction of who and what we are.

What I constantly strive to understand, and I'm not sure I'm capable of really understanding it, is why some people are literally so lost in their own individuality that they cannot hear the experiences and feelings of others.

I can't even begin to recall how many times I have read the pixels of people who define their world by "I'm right" and you're either 100% with me or 100% against me. So when I see one of these people laying their pixels down in a frantic dance of light and dark dots, I'm sucked in by my own curiosity and confused fascination. When I watch as they blithely ignore the community around them and choose to take disagreement as attack; when they insist on reading a helping hand as condemnation.

And, then, of course, all of our shared human foibles come to the fore. The helping hand and the civil disagreement becomes frustration and anger - which does become attack and condemnation. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the outer edges of the community in confusion and often shock. It's like seeing the "perfect couple" have a real fight finally. You see sides of these people that you never suspected lurked beneath all the letters they've strung together on the internet.

And when the smoke clears and all the participants who are able to do so actually sit back and take a look at what happened and how they contributed to the explosion, they are left with this conundrum:
How do I both "protect" my self, ideas and beliefs ... and balance my emotional reaction ... and walk away from the trolls who only want a fight and to get everyone riled up?

How do we differentiate motive on the net without body language and tone of voice to help us decipher our pixelated world?

In my experience, it becomes about building a context. If one person's response to disagreement is to always either ignore or attack, with no middle ground attempting to bridge differences and create understanding, then that person is probably simply trolling for trouble. It's a subjective thing. And, in online communities, it's a dangerous field to walk across. Newer folk are going to tend to side with the troll when the old hands attempt to slap down the troll out of frustration. The old hands know the history and have often decided to take a stand to defend their community and hunt the troll until they've left the community. New people, not knowing that the troll may be currently presenting the mask of the maligned victim in order to garner support and thus keep the battle going on longer, may openly side with the troll in an effort to defend their new community from bullies.

The term troll is highly subjective. Some readers may characterize a post as trolling, while others may regard the same post as a legitimate contribution to the discussion, even if controversial. The term is often erroneously used to discredit an opposing position, or its proponent, by argument fallacy ad hominem.

Often, calling someone a troll makes assumptions about a writer's motives. Regardless of the circumstances, controversial posts may attract a particularly strong response from those unfamiliar with the robust dialogue found in some online, rather than physical, communities.

Experienced participants in online forums know that the most effective way to discourage a troll is usually to ignore him or her, because responding encourages a true troll to continue disruptive posts — hence the often-seen warning "Please do not feed the troll".

Frequently, someone who has been labelled a troll by a group may seek to redeem their reputation by discrediting their opponents, for example by claiming that other members of the group are closed-minded, conspirators, or trolls themselves.

No matter how even-handed ... how just ... we try to be, the fact of the matter is, we are not perfect. We snap. We jump to conclusions. We get tired and cranky. And what separates us from the trolls? We are able to step back and re-evaluate our behaviour, to try to learn from our mistakes, to learn when to stop reacting next time and walk away from what we feel is trollish behaviour.

To creatures who seem to intrinsically need to be understood, it's a hard thing to walk away from that chance at communication. But some battles are won only when they aren't fought at all ...

The light is beginning to make the curtains glow ... so now I leave you with this ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:26 AM | Comments (3) | Blog | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Sketches | Stumble

February 14, 2008

Cre8ing Some Buzz

Yeah, yeah, hush. I used that 8 on purpose because I'm talking about the site Cre8Buzz today. So there. Hmph.

Anyhow, Cre8Buzz is a pretty cool little site for bloggers. Generally speaking, MySpace, Friendster, Dogster (no, sadly, I'm NOT kidding), FaceBook, blah blah blah, they all bore me. In fact, they remind me of the silly days of GeoCities when everyone pretended to put their websites into little neighborhoods like all those li'l pixelpals were really hanging out kinds of buddies. So when my buddy Jodi said, OH you just HAVE to try this one, I rolled my eyes at first.

Wow. You still get the tons of gratuitous friendings, but most of the people who friend you either stop by your profile and/or your blog on a pretty regular basis. I, of course, suck at keeping up with all of the people on my friends' list, the same as I suck at keeping up with all my pixelpals' blog. (And yet, I'm irritated when they don't keep up with mine. I know. I'm an arrogant jerk sometimes. *sigh*)

Anyhow, I'm really digging the Anthill, as we affectionately call the Buzz (after their logo mascot, Antman). Well, not digging like an anteater or something. I meant to say, I'm enjoying it. Sheesh. Gotta watch the metaphors around you lot, don't I? If you want to check it out, gimme a buzz and I'll send you an invite.

Meanwhile, the Buzz is having a t-shirt contest ... and here's the design I'm entering ... make sure to click to get the larger image to pop up (still a fast load time on it, though) ... squishing it down to 400 px to fit into this template layout killed the detail of the logo. Wish me luck, the winners are announced on Monday.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:27 PM | Comments (6) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

February 5, 2008

Safari Sketches

Some fast pencil sketches for a baby book project. Several of them are only in the outline stage, others are a little more fully realized. Kinda going for a cave drawings type feel ... but I'm waiting for feedback from the almost-mom ... so things may change drastically yet. :)

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:03 AM | Comments (5) | Sketches | Stumble

January 27, 2008

New Explore T-Shirt

I started out on CafePress quite a while back. Posted some designs, sprang the $60 per annum for a "pro" site that let me put Design A on a baseball shirt ... and Design B, too! (If you don't spring for the pro shop, one style of product = one design ... boooooooooring. At least, that's the way it used to be. Then they pissed me off, took an extra year's $60 from me and I won't have anything to do with them anymore. Bah)

Anyhow, after I left CafePress, I went to GoodStorm. (What is with all of these companies and software packages and such smooshing together two words without a space but still capitalizing both words? Oh, I know cuz then it's easier to make a web address, but still. WordPress, CafePress, GoodStorm. Bah)

GoodStorm had some incredible artists designing stuff. More shirt colours, but fewer shirt types. And no "ancillary" products like bags and pillows and mugs and posters. But, the company was way cool. You made more money than you did with CafePress - and best of all! They didn't charge you $60 a year to put up multiple designs. Awesomeness.

Now, GoodStorm has been bought out by Zazzle. *sigh* It's not that I don't like Zazzle. I do. They offer more products than GoodStorm did. But, now I'm back to the same damn restrictions I had with CafePress. At GoodStorm, I could utilized the entire t-shirt for a design. If I wanted it placed in a particular area, I could contact the good folks at GoodStorm and know they'd place it where I wanted and it would be COOL. Now I'm back to a smallish area placed way up high on the shirt. No wrap-around designing available, either.

I have updated one of my favourite designs for now and have it available at Zazzle. I'm not positive that I'm staying there, however. Zazzle doesn't do white ink on their "light coloured" products which puts a big damper in some of my designs and would mean that I could only offer those designs on white shirts or dark coloured shirts. And since I would have to offer the white shirt and the dark coloured shirts as separate products (in other words, I can't create one product and then pick and choose what colours I want available. I can choose all dark, all light, all, or one of a few subcategories like organic).

I do know that Zazzle has done shops for places like The Disney Store, Build-A-Bear Workshop and others ... they're a good company. I'm just not sure they're right for me yet. Just not enough control over my designs. But, I've played with the site for only a day. Maybe I'll find more details as I get used to their interface and explore some more. Or maybe I want to leave t-shirts behind and move on to posters and cards. I'm not sure. Mostly I'm just sad about the change.

Meanwhile, does anyone know of any other product shops which might offer more control to the designer?

UPDATE: On recommendation from a few people, I've also started a store at RedBubble. I have a little more control over placement and a LOT of control over the shirt colours. Plus, Zazzle does not print white and RedBubble does!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:42 AM | Comments (2) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

January 1, 2008

Cheese Circles

The current project ... a page from Cheese Circles: A Children's Book for Grown-Ups.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:13 AM | Comments (4) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

December 15, 2007

Miguel Calaveras

Click the image for a 1024x768 wallpaper version.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:01 PM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

October 5, 2007

Big Boy

Patrolling teh Intrawebs is his job. Whenever he sees injustice ... whenever he sees a rude dork who needs smacking down ... wherever he sees seriousness in need of lightening up ... MIKSTER is there in his patented Big Boy Pants.

(Hopefully he doesn't kill me for this!)

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:18 PM | Comments (15) | Sketches | Stumble

September 18, 2007

Blue ... Rubberyjido

This is my following the EXCELLENT tutorial available by RubberyJido at Deviant Art. This is not something I made up on my own, this is just me doing some practicing and trying to learn my Copic markers.

Click for the larger picture.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:20 PM | Comments (4) | Sketches | Stumble

August 27, 2007

Do You See What I See?

... a star, a star, shining in the east ... blah blah blah. I suddenly forget the rest of the words anyway.

I should start this post by mentioning that I once nearly got thrown out of the Dallas Museum of Art for proclaiming my views on modern art. Well, sort of. See, I was dragged to the art museum by my other half who was an art student at the time. And we made the mistake of going to the modern wing first. Whilst I was really hyper. And there was this canvas that was painted red. Like with a roller. Just ... red. No funky shape. No design in the red. Just a canvas painted red.

This offended me. Any monkey can do that. There is no art in a red canvas. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes the crap the art establishment refers to as art is just crap.

Anyhow, I was in a highly sarcastic (to some people that means annoying ... to me, that means hysterically witty and funny) mood. And I kept up a nice running commentary throughout the modern wing. Now, once we got into the stuff that actually takes some modicum of freaking SKILL to create, I was enjoying the purty pitchers and stuff.

Then we walked into the very cool Egyptian room. Nifty stuff abounding. And as we walked out of the "tomb," we see this HUGE ... TALL ... MONGO wooden statue of a woman sitting in a chair. Yanno what they say about Texas women? The higher the hair, the closer to God? Well, this woman had them all beat. And, without missing a beat myself, I said, perhaps a mite too loudly, "LOOK! IT'S MARGE SIMPSON!"

Every child in the museum turned and laughed in total agreement.

The security guards, for some convoluted reason, took exception to this. Maybe it was because there were about ten different school groups there.

Anyhow, that's all backstory. What I really wanted to talk about is THIS.

To me, and I realize this is a subjective field, to ME, this is paint slop. This is not art. I can get Cubism, although I don't like it personally. But it's art. I can see Impressionism as art. Surrealism. I can see a lot of the Isms as art.

To me, this painting simply looks like the work of a four year old. That's it. Paint smeared around. Random, for the most part. Playing with paint (and there's nothing wrong with that!).

But, museum-worthy, great sums of money worthy, art ... it ain't. It's paint and canvas and no great shakes.

However, the art of the four year old Marla Olmstead of New York is being touted as the work of a child prodigy. They are comparing her work to Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky.

In my opinion, that's crap. She's sold 25 paintings, or rather her crafty parents have, and they've made $40,000. That's an average of $1600 a painting.

OMFG ... there are people honing their craft out there making nothing. This kid is playing with paint and raking it in.

I will never understand the New York "high art" world. Never.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go watch I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and enjoy the visual one liners.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:55 AM | Comments (5) | Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity | Sketches | Stumble

August 25, 2007

Bid on Wooden Iguana

AUCTION ENDS AUGUST 27 ... CURRENT BID IS ONLY $25 ... COME ON FOLKS ...
let's raise some money for a good cause!!

Want your very own copy of the first issue of Wooden Iguana? How about the Sketchbook used to create it?

I have donated the original sketchbook (much as losing it pains me) and a laser-print copy of this issue (a nice, colour laser print ... for those "in the know" about graphics, it's a 300 dpi version ... not just a printout of the webpages) ... anyhow, I've donated the sketchbook and a nice print copy of issue one to iSurvive.org to help them raise some funds. iSurvive is a wonderful resource for people struggling to cope with abuse issues. There are people there from all over the world ... they've got resources for review, various categories in their forum for people to post and discuss their issues and even a chat feature. They're a non-profit organization who has recently changed their software ... and believe me, they help a lot of people. They have to pay for the software, for bandwidth ... a technician to help keep everything running ... and I don't know what all else. I do know that they serve a very valuable function to a lot of people.

And I'd like to do a little bit to help them continue.

So ... while letting that sketchbook go is a really hard thing for me ... that's got some pieces that I'm extraordinarily proud of in it ... it's all going to an excellent, excellent cause.

If you're interested ... you can see some photos of the sketchbook here ... and you can address any questions to me: red DASH monkey AT coyotethunder DOT com.

If you want to bid, you can send your bid to: isurvive_org AT yahoo DOT com . Please, please, put Auction Bid in the subject and please, please please don't spam them. They're a good organization, good people.

Auction ends August 27, 2007.

You can check the current status of bids in the Open Forum section of the iSurvive site ... or you can email me for an update.

Good luck!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:58 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

August 22, 2007

Playing with Copics

I'm still debating the baby's head. It looks better in the larger version (click to see it "full size"). Or maybe it looks better in the small size and not the large. ARGH!

I swear, if I ever learn to do the shading of people well, it might just be a miracle.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:40 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

August 17, 2007

Li'l Muerto Cast

Here's the basic cast ...

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:19 PM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Stumble

August 15, 2007

Mama Calaveras

Li'l Muerto's madre:

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:52 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

August 14, 2007

Li'l Muerto Revisited

I've been working a bit more on the Li'l Muerto concept ... re-worked some drawings, added new characters. Here's the base cast:

And then tonight's beginning foray into Li'l Muerto's family brings us his little cousin, Miguel Calaveras.

Next up, the rest of the family ... the home ... the school.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:10 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

August 12, 2007

AUCTION-Y GOODNESS!!

Want your very own copy of the first issue of Wooden Iguana? How about the Sketchbook used to create it?

I have donated the original sketchbook (much as losing it pains me) and a laser-print copy of this issue (a nice, colour laser print ... for those "in the know" about graphics, it's a 300 dpi version ... not just a printout of the webpages) ... anyhow, I've donated the sketchbook and a nice print copy of issue one to iSurvive.org to help them raise some funds. iSurvive is a wonderful resource for people struggling to cope with abuse issues. There are people there from all over the world ... they've got resources for review, various categories in their forum for people to post and discuss their issues and even a chat feature. They're a non-profit organization who has recently changed their software ... and believe me, they help a lot of people. They have to pay for the software, for bandwidth ... a technician to help keep everything running ... and I don't know what all else. I do know that they serve a very valuable function to a lot of people.

And I'd like to do a little bit to help them continue.

So ... while letting that sketchbook go is a really hard thing for me ... that's got some pieces that I'm extraordinarily proud of in it ... it's all going to an excellent, excellent cause.

If you're interested ... you can see some photos of the sketchbook here ... and you can address any questions to me: red DASH monkey AT coyotethunder DOT com.

If you want to bid, you can send your bid to: isurvive_org AT yahoo DOT com . Please, please, put Auction Bid in the subject and please, please please don't spam them. They're a good organization, good people.

Auction ends August 27, 2007.

You can check the current status of bids in the Open Forum section of the iSurvive site ... or you can email me for an update.

Good luck!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:24 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

July 27, 2007

Back to Cartooning

Well, now that I'm on an extended "vacation" until March, I've been hard at work trying to get the house picked up and re-organized. I've got a list of projects a mile long (as usual). But last night, I was a bit at loose ends since the first issue of Wooden Iguana is over and I needed a new "down-time" project. Yeah, yeah, I know. It's not some protestant work ethic, trust me. I was raised Catholic. (But don't talk to me about Pope Rat ... that man ... grrrrr ) It's that whole ADHD thing, yanno. If I'm not working on about three or four projects at once, I'm bored out of my gourd. Seriously. My partner cringes every time I finish a project, whether it's a book or a bit of sculpture or finish getting a room organized. Literally the instant I'm done ... "I'm boreded." It just flies out of my mouth. Ooozes from my pores.

What? Oh yeah. So last night, I just was not quite ready for bed. The Night Squirrels were doing laps in my brain and I finally got up so as not to drive my poor partner batty. I mean any battier than I already drive her. So ... I got up, finished re-reading the last Harry Potter book. (What? I had mental indigestion from swallowing that tome in about five hours or so ... I needed to go back and actually carefully read the thing.) Anyhow ... I decided to do a little inking of Li'l Muerto. Which kinda morphed into some character sketching as well.

Not exactly sure where I'm going with Paprika's hair. I'm starting to think colour instead of b/w. I'm torn tho, because I was really enjoying the idea of the b/w strip. But ... it's the web ... colour doesn't cost. Maybe I'll leave Li'l Muerto himself solid b/w and colour the others. Hmmm.

And I'm sure Scott's head is going to go thru some more changes. I'm not keen on the top or the bottom just yet.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:23 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

July 19, 2007

Wooden Iguana

At last ... the last pages are up at Wooden Iguana. If you click the preview image below, you'll be taken to page 30 and you can navigate to page 31 from there. To help keep people from seeing things out of order, the final page will publish on Friday, July 20 (about 3 p.m. or so Eastern time).

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

If you really really can't wait to see the final page ... find the easter egg in this entry and click there for a view of the jpg.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

July 11, 2007

Zuda Is Coming

This October ...

Zuda ....

Coming to a space near you ....

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:40 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

July 10, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:05 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

July 6, 2007

Preview

UPDATE:
Just posted both new pages this evening. Check it out!

Yep, running behind again, obviously. The page I'm working on, I actually finished 2/3 of several days ago ... and then decided I hated the whole stupid thing. It's taken me this long to get those 2/3 re-done. Soon as I get the last panel finished, there'll be two pages going live. Just a little bonus. Meanwhile, enjoy this preview:

Clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:18 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

July 2, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:19 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 26, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:32 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 23, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:09 PM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 19, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:26 PM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 18, 2007

Shadowland

I have been plugging away dutifully on a project for a friend. I volunteered to make her a music video for one of her songs, "Shadowland." It's a song about her beloved Honda Shadow motorcycle, and I had just seen MonkeeHub's JCB video and thought I could, eventually, put something somewhat similar together for her.

I've created her dog, Kirby. And I've finished her motorcycle. Now, I'm just stuck figuring out how to capture her likeness.

At any rate ... here is the motorcycle ...

Click for the whole cycle.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:13 PM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Stumble

June 14, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:23 PM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 12, 2007

Wooden Iguana

The Cleavers, eating dinner.

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:38 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 10, 2007

More Craig

As I said yesterday, I discovered an absolutely delightful book. Blankets by Craig Thompson. A 592 page novel ... graphic novel. The black and white drawings are just wonderful and the story kept turning in ways I didn't expect - all in all, a wonderful experience.

So, today's drawing is based on page 121 of Blankets. A bit of much-needed practice on inking.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:40 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

June 9, 2007

Craig

So, I discovered an absolutely delightful book. Blankets by Craig Thompson. A 592 page novel ... graphic novel. The black and white drawings are just wonderful and the story kept turning in ways I didn't expect - all in all, a wonderful experience.

So, today's drawing is based on page 53 of Blankets. A bit of much-needed practice on inking.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:52 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

June 7, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Discovering yet more.

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:40 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

June 5, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Discoveries and confirmations.

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:04 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 31, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Dream weaver ....

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:42 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 29, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Well, this is what happens when you read books ... ya starting thinking and things. (Or imagining things as the case may be.)

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Posted by Red Monkey at 1:48 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 27, 2007

The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo

Check out this work on ComicSpace and then run over to your local comic book shop ... or to Diamond online ... and pre-order this book ... you'll love it.

I just adore the artwork to pieces.

From the writer:

But here's what this solicit doesn't tell you:
1. The graphic novel features "The 8 Lost Pages of Poo." These pages will appear exclusively in the book and will not be available on the webcomic site.
2. "96 Pages" means 96 pages of story. No fillers here, my friends. From the moment you open the front cover, till you contentedly close the rear cover--you will encounter nothing by story!
3. The Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo will be a beautiful, over-sized book. The dimensions of this must-have graphic novel will measure in at 10.7 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches--the same format as Image's acclaimed "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Graphic Novel" graphic novel!
Other books may give you a five page preview of the book, but not us. Oh, no! We are offering a FREE 19 PAGE PREVIEW in the form of a webcomic. So bookmark the page and read it at your own leisure. And be sure to check back every Saturday when a brand new page is posted.
READ THE FREE 19-PAGE PREVIEW HERE
To find the nearest comic shop, you can use the SHOP LOCATOR.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:34 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 25, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Well, well, well. I didn't think I'd get Thursday's page done ... and yet ... there it is. Was surprisingly done before 8:30 p.m. last night, which is good. I felt like utter crap all day Wednesday and Thursday and I'm really hoping I'm done with this stomach crap I seem to have gotten ... yet AGAIN.

Clicking the preview will take you to the current page. On the other hand, clicking this link will take you to the main page where you can start from the beginning should you need to do that.

Oh, and ComicSpace is supposed to be back up today. WOOHOO

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:51 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 24, 2007

Introducing ....

... the debut of http://www.mud-walker.com/

Followers of the Wooden Iguana have noticed (all three of you) that ComicSpace has been down for the last week. Not knowing exactly when they'd be back, and after some thinking about where I want the comic book to go (especially after chatting with Augie, I decided that in addition to publishing at ComicSpace, I really wanted my own site for the comic as well.

So ... there's no new page up today. I spent too much time dinking around with getting the site set up. It's still not exactly as I would like it, but those folks who wanted to leave comments over at ComicSpace but who weren't registered users over there, now have their chance to comment.

The Tuesday/Thursday publication schedule should resume next week ... however, my other half is going in Tuesday for surgery, so I don't guarantee that I'll stick tightly to that schedule just yet.

Oh, and ComicSpace? They should be back up in another day or so. Happily, they chose to use the host I use, Dreamhost. As Josh says about the delay ... hey, you try moving some "17,000 user folders and 90,000 comic pages"!!!

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:59 AM | Comments (1) | Blog | Sketches | Stumble

May 22, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Since ComicSpace is temporarily down ... and since I intend to spin off a whole series of comics, I bought a new domain. It's a wee bit of a mess right now, but it is navigatable ... so click the pic to go to Mud-Walker.com and see today's page of the Wooden Iguana ... there's navigation in the upper right corner of that site to go back to previous pages ... and a Previous button at the bottom of the page ... whatever version of the nav that floats your boat.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:44 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 20, 2007

Inking Practice

I have yet to figure out exactly how I want to do that damn head with just black ink, but I like how I've set up the rest of it. And the head isn't bad ... it's just not where I want it to be yet. Most of all, I'm learning and having fun both.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:38 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

May 19, 2007

Comic Space

Comic Space is temporarily down. So if you're looking to catch up on The Wooden Iguana, it'll be a couple of days before Comic Space is back ... and if it's not, I'll post the comic book here.

Posted by Red Monkey at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

May 17, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:17 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 15, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:20 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 13, 2007

Timeless

I first posted Timeless back in January ...

I went back to Potato Creek last week ... and here's the summer time update:

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:55 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

May 10, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

In today's page the mysteries deepen and ... there's even a full-colour panel with my beautiful Copic markers. (Can you really be in love with markers? Well, I guess if you're me, you can. Copic markers are DA BOMB ... so smooth ... it's like painting with them instead of colouring. Did you hear that Mr. Happily Anonymous? COPIC MARKERS ARE NOT CRAYONS!!!! These are serious artist's tools, yanno. Hmph.)

Oh yeah ... please ... go read ... enjoy ... comment, fer crying out loud. Comment there ... comment here ... just say something.

Sheesh.

(Yeah, I stayed up too damn late tonight so I could get this page done and uploaded. )

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:05 PM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 8, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:42 AM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 3, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

I'm working on another post now, really ... I'm just so mad, I hardly know what to write.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:28 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

May 1, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:01 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 26, 2007

Hullo Muddah, Hullo Faddah

Well, the next page of Wooden Iguana is postponed until Tuesday ... just couldn't get caught up after being sick last week. But, here's a new character who'll debut then.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:08 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 24, 2007

7 Yr Old Asks: May I Go to the Principal's Office

Some kids just can't stay outa trouble ... and then there's Devon ...

Click the image to check out today's page of The Wooden Iguana.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:48 PM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 20, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 2:03 AM | Comments (1) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 17, 2007

Wooden Iguana

As always, click the pic to go to the full page at ComicSpace ... and there's additional navigation there if you're a new reader or just need to catch up.

Posted by Red Monkey at 6:53 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 12, 2007

Wooden Iguana

The plot thicks ....

Okay, okay, that's The Tick, not The Wooden Iguana, but you get the idea. In today's page, you'll meet the Wooden Iguana itself. Here's the preview:

As always, click the preview to check out the whole page.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:04 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 10, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Here's a preview of the next page of The Wooden Iguana comic book.

As always, click the preview to go to ComicSpace for the full page (and if you're a new reader ... there's navigation there to start at the beginning).

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 9, 2007

Li'l Muerto Concept

So I posted Li'l Muerto a while back ... I'm working up a cartoon concept around him.

I get a comment in my email over the weekend:

just surfing, but...THAT is the least origanal idea ever...there are so many"mini reaper"s it's not even funny

Posted by: duthie at April 8, 2007 01:11 PM

Well, see, here's the deal. Ain't no idea that's the "least original." And certainly it's impossible to tell from one character sketch if the cartoon concept is an original one or not. In fact, I've purposely left the bulk of the concept off of the blog until I have it more fully developed.

What is more interesting to me is why people have the need to offer an opinion without any constructive criticism. I don't mind someone telling me the coloured versions just don't seem to pop off the screen. I would understand if someone would say they didn't like the way the hood covered the head.

But why simply tear an idea down just for the sake of tearing it down? Are people really so thoughtless?

And I don't mean thoughtless about someone's feelings ... but that they just announce an opinion and not think about why they have that opinion?

This set of questions actually is far less about the Li'l Muerto concept ... I'm rather confident that the whole of the idea is just fine ... but about the general thoughtlessness that so many people proudly display at the drop of a hat ... or a pencil ... or whatever. What is it which causes so many people to not just proclaim their own opinion but then act like anyone who disagrees is stupid or simply wrong?

At Mary Lee's funeral this weekend ... one thing that really stuck with me was when our minister said that Mary Lee always taught her kids "there are two sides to every story" and for every time they came home and complained about something at school and how mean their teacher was ... or every time they talked about a friend who did them wrong ... Mary Lee asked them to look at the other person's story.

Why don't more of us learn that?

Because ultimately that's what political correctness was actually about ... thinking before speaking. It was never about the exact word you picked ... but about the effort to see the other side of the story. To see the other person and their culture ... their world.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:56 PM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Stumble

April 5, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Here's a preview of the next page.

As always, click the preview to go to ComicSpace (and if you're a new reader ... there's navigation there to start at the beginning).

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:53 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

April 3, 2007

Wooden Iguana

A preview of today's page of The Wooden Iguana. Click the picture to go see the whole page for today.

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | Sketches | Stumble

March 30, 2007

Wooden Iguana

Well, it's been a little quiet around here because I've been drawing so very much lately. Here's the cover to the comic book I've been so diligently working on ... new pages will be posted over in my ComicSpace pages.

Ahhh, back to the days of elementary school and that HUGE rocketship slide and jungle gym thing we used to have ....

Anyhow, the rocketship playground equipment was sketched in pencil first, scanned and then I used Photoshop to colour over the top. The rest was done in Illustrator. Was a very fun project ... but I'm really glad that I'm not using that particular process for the rest of the comic book. It just takes too dang long to do. The rest of the comic will be black and white (a splash of colour now and again). If you're curious, head on over to the ComicSpace pages and read the prologue. It's short and explains the general direction of the comic.

I've got a page and 2/3rds inked already and I should be posting at least once a week a full new page.

Fun times!

Posted by Red Monkey at 10:14 AM | Comments (4) | Sketches | Stumble

March 27, 2007

ToonCasting

So, I've decided to "ToonCast" some of my favourite stuff from ComicSpace.com ... I'll be adding a link, probably up in the top nav in the next few days. (Hey, I gotta lotta templates to add the damn thing too. I really gotta PHP this blog.)

For now, I've decided to ToonCast Eekeemoo, a really stunning little "sketchbook comic" which tells the story sans words. Catch up on the previous 13 chapters (or more if you're reading this after March 27, 2007) here. It's clever, it's really well drawn and the plot and characters will suck you in quickly.

Posted by Red Monkey at 5:45 AM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Stumble

March 22, 2007

Welcome Home

My first attempt at ink and marker. I learned a lot by doing this and I can't say I'm exactly thrilled with all of the results ... but I do see nice segments of it that I'm quite proud of. A good exercise, anyway.

Posted by Red Monkey at 8:25 AM | Comments (6) | Sketches | Stumble

March 18, 2007

The Absence of Me

So, I posted the Goth House/Haunted House sketch the other day ... Jodi from Looking Beyond the Cracked Window was working on putting together another poetry book and as we were chatting, she said something about looking for a Goth House to put on the cover. On a whim, I decided to see if I could sketch one up. I showed it to Jodi, not really expecting it to be what she wanted for the cover of her book ... but apparently I tapped into the inner goth well and she really liked it.

So ... now I give you the finished book cover (click to visit Lulu.com and see her book):

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:14 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | Storytelling: She was, of course, supposed to be sleeping. | Stumble

March 7, 2007

Home Sweet Home

Pencil sketch with some extra shading and shadowing in Photoshop.

Posted by Red Monkey at 7:31 PM | Comments (4) | Sketches | Stumble

February 27, 2007

Fast Sketch

Here's a relatively fast sketch for use in a promotion at work. The main promotions guy will take a segment of the character for a promotion he's designing ... the hands will be holding the product ... hence the rather stiff look there as a good section of that will be covered up with product and a bit of glow (cuz, ya know, it's gonna be a great product).

Posted by Red Monkey at 9:09 AM | Comments (2) | Sketches | Stumble

February 17, 2007

Li'l Muerto

Well, the damn DeadEx delivery was finally made Friday ... about 10 minutes before I got home, so sadly, I didn't get to give the dude a piece of my mind. But ... just for putting up with all the ranting, I'll show you what I've been working on since I got home Friday. A new cartoon character I'm calling Li'l Muerto at the moment. He's a young Grim Reaper trying to pass through "regular" school.

Interesting, but I like the plain sketch better than any of the colourings so far. I'll have to keep playing ... maybe switch from colour pencils to Sharpies and see where that takes me.

At any rate, the lightbox has gotten some very heavy use already and I'm so glad that stupid delivery FINALLY got here a week after it made it to town!

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:11 PM | Comments (8) | Sketches | Stumble

January 13, 2007

THERE it is!

So THERE is where I left my brain!!! Great good gods, I've been looking for that thing since the beginning of the year.

Too damn bad it's been outside so long. Wonder if it still works.

To answer Peety, yes, this is one of my sketches ... it's my first attempt at using colour. I've used watercolour pencils here. Most of the background was smudge sticked first. In addition, I used a barely damp kleenex on the sky and the upper portion of the grass as well to blend those areas just a touch more. I used a dry kleenex on the road and the bottom area of the foreground to blend those areas.

I'm still a bit irritated with the perspective on the road being all screwed up, but ah well. Such is life.

Posted by Red Monkey at 12:13 PM | Comments (6) | Sketches | TrackBack | Stumble

December 19, 2006

Exit ... Stage Left

I sketched this, this morning after reading that Joseph Barbera died Monday. Co-creator of such time-honoured cartoon classics as Tom and Jerry, Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Scooby Doo, he was absolutely instrumental in bringing the art of animation to television.

He will be missed ... we're grateful that he didn't go into banking, but that he shaped so many of our childhoods instead.

Exit ... stage left.

Posted by Red Monkey at 4:57 AM | Comments (3) | Sketches | TrackBack | Stumble

November 26, 2006

22 Inches of Pure Happiness

It's been a busy four day weekend for me, as it has been for a lot of people in the U.S. Luncheon with the not-in-laws on Thursday ... a nice time of playing trivial pursuit ... a quick bite for dinner ... and then home to watch a video or two. I went to bed early as there was ONE thing I wanted to get during the insane shopping period called Black Friday.

Yeah ... I did.

You see, I adore my laptop beyond belief. It's a bit old now, a 2003 model, but it's a 17" PowerBook G4 and I love it. Since it's my only computer and I do a lot of graphics work, I really prefer to have a big screen so I can see my graphics ... and still have a little bit of room for the tools.

But Best Buy was offering a Westinghouse 22" LCD monitor for $200 on Friday morning. It's a $500 monitor there usually. And, well ... I get tech envy easily. All I could think of was ... ooooooooooooo, think how big I can make the artboard in Illustrator!

I set the alarm for 3:30, but just happened to wake up around 2:45 ... I tried to make myself go back to sleep, but no dice. So, I trucked on down to Best Buy, which was due to open at 5 a.m.

No traffic. This is a good sign. I figured I might have a chance at getting my delightful new monitor. I tried not to get my hopes up too high, and sure enough, when I rounded the final corner, I just about drove back home. I was sure I would never get my monitor. Here it was, 3:50 in the morning ... and there was already a line past Best Buy, and past the next TEN freaking strip mall stores. With a heavy heart, I joined the futility of the line anyway.

Long story short ... I got the last of the 22" monitors and I am just beside myself with joy. Now, when I need to run Illustrator, I take the laptop to my home office, plug it in ... suddenly i have a dual screen. 22" of pure happiness on the left side ... 17" of pure laptop happiness on the right side.

And, in honour of the happy new monitor, I finished one character for an animation I'm doing for a friend. Here is Kirby, in all his Westie glory:

Now I just have to finish the motorcycle, the character of my friend and a good background and I can begin actually animating the thing.

Posted by Red Monkey at 3:58 PM | Comments (8) | Sketches | TrackBack | Stumble

October 9, 2006

Getting Closer

Well, finishing out the basics of the face has gone a long way to establishing his character for me, as has selecting if not "the" colour palette, this colour palette should at least be very close.

Of course, there's still the arms/hands and the legs/feet ... and the all-important tail ... to get to next.

Once I get this "flat" image done, the next step will be to decide how much depth I want to give this cartoon and thus, how much highlighting and shadows to create. I'll then create a walk-around model sheet. For those of you who aren't animation geeks, a walk-around and model sheets are usually the animators' bible for a particular show. They give the basics of what each side and the back will look like, often the walk itself, and of course, common poses and facial expressions. For a produced cartoon, this usually means that the extra-creative folks, the senior animators of the project, do the "key frames" of the cartoon ... and the "tweeners" go in and fill out the frames that are necessary to move the characters between key frame to key frame. So, a good bible for a cartoon is essential as you'll have a slew of people working on the animation and while each person has their own personal style, Bugs Bunny looks a particular way, and the tweeners can't just impose their style on top of the existing design.

It's amazing to me how much adding the basic eyes added to my concept of the design. I've got a really solid idea of what I want