So how's everyone been?

I've been extremely busy lately. But now I'm finally just really busy again, so I can post infrequently on my blog.

Not "often" or "occasionally", mind you, but "infrequently". Which is more than every two months or so. I'll try to get back onto a weekly schedule.

But in the meantime, please check out the many awesome (and much more frequently updated) blogs on my sidebar at the right. Michael Chang has a swell new post with storyboard images from "Things Change", which is an idea I'm absolutely stealing.

You know what, I almost forgot the copyright stuff. So Beast Boy, Cyborg, Robin, Slade and Starfire are ™ and © DC Comics. The gorilla might be Monsieur Mallah (I can't remember whether I meant it to be or not), and if he is, then he's ™ and © DC Comics. Otherwise, he's ™ and © me. Also, I guess the donuthead guy is ™ and © me, but I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person to draw a guy with a donut for a head.

Pufnsmudge

I know I haven't posted in a while - I've been working on a nice little post that is turning out to be extraordinarily large. In the meantime, here's this -



I drew this during the Bunny Raven recording. Or was it Mother Mae-Eye? No, it was Mother Mae-Eye. Those were probably the two most enjoyable records I sat in on - Bunny Raven because Tom Kenny kept ad-libbing hilarious stuff (some of which we kept - the "You're great, I love you" bit from the Stagehand was ad-libbed) and the Mother Mae-Eye one because of Billie Hayes. Now, I didn't grow up on Sid & Marty Krofft stuff like some people, so for me there wasn't the nostalgic resonance when Ms. Hayes was recording, but when she did the evil Mother Mae-Eye laugh, I got chills up my spine. Seriously.

Anyways, this was drawn with a black Sharpie, then coloured with highlighter pens (yellow, orange, pink and green). I really like the way the highlighter pens smudged the Sharpie, making the costume look old and filthy. I don't really care for the drawing on the back of the page bleeding through, but what can you do.

I don't remember why I drew Derrick Wyatt in the costume, or why he is so unhappy. HR Pufnstuf is probably ™ and © Sid & Marty Krofft. Derrick Wyatt of East Gotham City ™ and © DC Comics.

In search of a gag

Some time ago I promised to post an example of an idiot-style drawing that had a practical application. Of course, I also promised a moratorium on the Super-D - but I'll still keep the first promise. Here's a page of idiotic scribbles in search of a gag for "X".



Sometimes it helps to feel your way through a scene like this before you storyboard it. Most of this was in the script (probably not the multiple SD Starfires), but I can't find a copy of the script around, so take my word for it for now. I still wonder if the gag would have played better with a full-sized Starfire standing on Robin's head. Also, it looks like I forgot to include the drawing of Robin with an X in place of his eyes. Oh well. Another X gag lost to the pressures of deadlines. Remember kids, haste makes waste. I think we hid enough Xs in the show as it is. In any case, that becomes this -
















And then we make this (this is my only character design for Titans)-



Then Derrick takes a pass to make it actually look like the rest of the show, Chris Hooten colours it, and we get this-



And then Tom McLaughlin adds the timing, and it gets sent overseas, where Lotto subjects it to their mysterious and wonderful processes. Then they send this back to us-



Then Joe Gall plugs that into his avid and turns it into this (I don't know why this is the only version I have in widescreen)-



The next step is very mysterious to me, since I'm not involved in any way. Someone writes some music, someone else adds some sound effects, Scott redubs a line or two of dialogue, and they all get mixed together to make this -



I guess I kind of lost track of the point in there somewhere.

Say hello to a guest Idiot

And I mean that in the best way possible - Ladies and Gentlemen, Derrick Wyatt!

Here's a stupid collaborative effort that dates all the way back to our days on ¡Mucha Lucha! For reasons I won't get into, I scribbled an ugly mess of a drawing of Jean-Luc Picard in a fat orange marker on a post-it, and left it at Derrick's desk. Soon after, he gave it back to me, with a layer of black ink added by him - thus creating a brand new style of drawing that I intend to use some day to illustrate my gangster comic. Some day! So the true value of the Idiot Style is revealed - it may not create beautiful drawings, but it's unbeatable as a means of springboarding fresh ideas that can be incorporated into a finished production (not that I've finished (or even started) my gangster comic). I'll post an example of Idiot Style drawing that led to something useful next post.

Oh, if you just got here from Titansgo.net, the Super-D's are just below. Scroll on down, and check out some of the other blogs in the sidebar - lots of Titans staff with amazing stuffs (may I recommend Norm's Mignola-style Raven drawing?).

Also, I guess Jean-Luc Picard is ™ and © someone or other. Probably Paramount.

Okay, enough of that for now

Somehow my Idiot Style blog is becoming the Super-D theatre. Not that I'm knocking Super-D style drawing, which I obviously love doing, but it wasn't really my original intent for this blog. I'll transition slowly, though - first, here's some more Super-D:


And now here's some more drawings of the same character, not in Super-D.

I think these were at least partly inspired by Juan Bobillo, who's drawing She-Hulk for Marvel right now. He draws a strangely fluid Spider-Man, probably more in tune with the original Ditko version than any other Spider-Man artist that comes to mind. Speaking of Marvel, Spider-Man is ™ and © Marvel Comics.

Unlimited!

More Justice League stuff from the same batch, rounding out the original seven. Still not scanning too well (especially poor Hawkgirl), but it'll have to do until I get a new scanner.



All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

Justice League!

Just got back from the Bruce Timm retrospective thing at the Egyptian, which was fun and awesome. Hooray to Jon Gibson for putting it on, and Hooray to Bruce for making so many amazing cartoons. If you're too young to remember how crappy superhero cartoons were before Bruce got his hands on Batman, consider yourself lucky. In honour of Bruce, here are some Justice League Unlimited (+ Firestorm) doodles I did in San Diego last summer.

I'm not sure why it scanned so terribly. All characters ™ and © DC Comics.

"No, Wobin, I won't stop."

Not now, not evew. I am the evow that haunts evewy dawk cowa-nah of yowa mind. I wiww nevah west - and neither wiww you.

Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

Boo Hoo Hoo

Hey, look, Cyborg's sad about something.



Is it because of all of the messed-up Cyborg heads in last Sunday's post? No, it's because he just found out that he's my girlfriend's least favourite Titan. At least, that's what she told me a year or so ago, so I drew this. It didn't do anything to change her mind. Better luck next time, Cy. For the record, you're not my least favourite Titan (that would be Jericho). Here's Cyborg in colour.


Coloured by Glen Murakami, but I'm sure the colours are all messed up, what with being copied, scanned and adjusted. Oh well. As always, Cyborg © and ™ DC Comics.

So much for Plan A

I was planning to update this weekly at first, and then gradually drop off to semi-annual posts, but I forgot that Brianne Drouhard's magic internet ninja skills would alert her to my blog the instant I made it (her blog is linked in my sidebar). I also neglected to anticipate that she would then set up a link, drawing people here when all there is to see is one page of messed-up Cyborg heads. So here's another post, and I'll post, say, every other day for a while, dropping to twice a week, then weekly, and eventually forgetting my password and drifting away, as originally planned.

This one is a drawing I did with a red Sharpie during the recording of Haunted.


As you can see, it totally encapsulates the somber atmosphere of the episode. Here's another version of the same idea, this time going over the rough red layer with a black Sharpie, while still failing utterly to achieve a finished look.


Robin and Slade ™ and © DC Comics.

New blog, first post

I'll admit to totally hopping the bandwagon here - everyone at work is starting up a blog, so I am too. To give mine something a little different, I'm going to use it primarily to post "idiot style" drawings. That is to say, unpolished drawings, crude but amusing, that are more about exploring some weird idea than being a good finished drawing. Sketches and scribbles and so forth. I do a lot of these, mostly because I am lazy and easily amused.

Most of the drawings I'll be posting were done during meetings or recordings or generally any time I should be paying attention to something else. As an example, my first post is a page of messed-up Cyborg heads I drew during the story break meeting for Wavelength. Teen Titans being the show it is, a surprising number of these actually turn out to be useful.


This was drawn with a fine black Sharpie on animation paper. Cyborg is ™ and © DC Comics.

I'll try to post something new every week.