Scum

Todays Twitters, just in case I continue to slack off from LJ and forget to post!

• 07:30 if I can just make it through today--alive--I'll be doing good. #
• 07:47 Dear Pandora, it's still too early for Gogol Bordello. #
• 10:34 I WANT TO GO TO HERE: 700sqft barn renovation on $3600 budget. I promise this is the best thing on the internet today! bit.ly/1ZuBq0 #
• 10:53 RT @amyatlas: so sad, what is happening w/ all of these shootings? rt@PerezHilton Mass shooting in Orlando today bit.ly/DF17M #
• 11:22 Make An Emergency Fire Starter from a T-Shirt: bit.ly/2ZklkB #
• 11:23 A Pretty, pretty coin and keys catch all: bit.ly/gZeTL #
• 11:23 Did you know Land of Nod puts knock knock jokes on each product page? bit.ly/xyqfg #
• 11:25 The comments are still rolling in on where to keep your pet's food and water: bit.ly/cFWst #TheKitchn #
• 11:30 Stevie Wonder to Bad Religion = Pandora Fail #
• 11:38 Make 90 Second Cookies in Your Waffle Iron: bit.ly/1MTwRY #lifehacker via #thekitchn #
• 11:44 This hospital is lucky I wasn't this kid's parents: bit.ly/4utbfG #uberUNcool #
• 11:45 Harry Potter and Star Trek to release for $10? That's some flippin cheap Flipindo yo: bit.ly/3A0ran #
• 13:53 MT keeps signing me out every other click. I'm gonna stab it in it's internet eye if it doesn't cut it out! #

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Over the last couple years I’ve gotten a lot of email from art students. Some of them just ask for advice on breaking into the illustration business, some of them ask if they can interview me for artist research assignments they’re doing in class. I myself have only actually been done with school for a few years now. I’m not super famous and I haven’t published any big books or anything (yet), so I’m always surprised when students want to do presentations on my work or think I might know all the secrets to success in the illustration world. I’m still struggling.

On the other hand, I remember writing to a lot of illustrators who were just a few years older than me for advice (I still do that), and I definitely remember having to do research and interview projects on working artists. If you dig far enough into my email inbox, you’ll probably find an interview with Kazu Kibuishi, who was nice enough to answer a bunch of questions and send me some books and posters to show off in class back when I was still a student. Talking to people who have been at it for a couple years longer than myself has been enormously beneficial to my career. The internet makes it really easy to communicate with and learn from other illustrators and cartoonists. It’s something I’ll always be thankful for! So I’m always happy to talk to students or illustrators who are just starting out, even if I still feel like I’m only half a step ahead of them.

Anyways, I was recently interviewed by an illustration student at SCAD, Liz Hallock, for a class assignment. She gave me permission to share the interview here. I hope others will find it interesting or helpful!

Originally published at Inkstuds. You can comment here or there.

Mike Myhre posted a really nice image. Thanks Mike!

http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/9620/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9620

“One morning Nayah is playing hide and seek with her big brother Baidi, when suddenly the room is destroyed and Nayah has disappeared. Baidi sets off on a wild quest in a fantasy world.”

Teaser for the animated series created by Charles Lefebvre / Thierry River / Slimane Aniss

baidir.fr

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Posted by Leif Peng on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | One comment
Tags: baidir

More to come, later

i know some of you were poo-pooing it all when SDCC sold out of preview night badges last month or so, but lo: YIKES. hahahahaha. O_O'

more Chrono Cross shit, can't get it out of my head!!! >>:(

i don't get why they had to make the storyline so complicated and overload the game with all the undeveloped freebie characters, everything they chose to do with the game was confusing. maybe that was the idea, i don't know. the story was so meta and convoluted that the ONLY way it could have been delivered was through exposition, there's no way you could ever even scratch the surface on your own or interpret it to make sense, i don't know why they thought that would be fun. and it's not like when you DO know the story that it's very interesting, it's just a bunch of mystical science blather and people merging with otherworldly entities and typical overly-complicated metaphysical anime kind of tropes.

the basic ideas of going between the 2 parallel dimensions, hero finding an alternate dimension where s/he's been dead for 10 years, Kid being a rebellious asexually-birthed clone, two parallel hero/villain duos, are all great, that's all they had to do. dump all the other Chronopolis and Dragon Gods shit that didn't have anything to do with the story and just made things more impenetrable. then the fact that it's possible to never get Kid in your party, i don't get that; it's a fine idea, having different characters come and go, but then why make her the other main character? why put her on the box cover or have her in all the FMVs or write such a big backstory for her and tie her inextricably with the protagonist if she's so unimportant to the game that you can play and complete it without her?? it would be like if in Final Fantasy 7 if it was possible to avoid getting Aeris despite the fact that the story revolves around her.

i also hated how they kept doing apparent nods to Chrono Trigger but then either not following through, or it being clear there was no relation at all. like the knight character Glenn, at first you're like "omg he's related to Frog or he IS Frog!" but then nope, he's just an unrelated knight guy who also happens to be named Glenn. WHY??? and then Leah, the cavegirl in the jungle, she's super cool despite being completely superfluous, but you're like "is she related to Ayla?!" nope, not related, just another caveperson in the jungle who happens to look similar for no reason, haha. ARRRGGH. i could buy it if Cross wasn't meant to be tied to Trigger at all except in spirit or whatever, but the games ARE connected, you could never hope to understand (as much is possible, anyway, heh) Cross without playing Trigger, so it's like the developers were just being assholes. XD

anyway. heh.

For Sale on Etsy

Also! Visioluxus/Elisa Lazo de Valdez is having a print sale, including a bunch of the photos I've posed for!

Trust me, as beautiful as her pictures are online, they are even more vibrant and lush in real life. I have a small collection of her work and it is just breath-taking.

http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/tintin-sketchbook/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9617

Check out Leigh Walton’s Tintin sketchbook Flickr set. Lots of great Tintins. And Haddocks. And Snowys.

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Posted by Matt Forsythe on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags:

Here's a character sketch I did as a warm up pic yesterday and coloured it as today's warm up. He's one of the characters from the comic TUK TUK that I'll be doing for Irregular Magazine.

Anyway the bad news. It looks like Birdsong (naniiebim and I's anthology) might not be out in time for Thought Bubble in a couple of weeks. It's pretty much because I've been so slow finishing my pages and we don't want to make mistakes. Anyway I'm now finishing off my end this weekend (locked away from the world and everything). So to say sorry to everyone who's been waiting for it I'm going to produce a sketch comic (one my birdsong work is done) and I'll bee handing it out for free, there'll only be 100 copies so it will be first come first serve.

Also since this comic will be for you guys I thought I'd let you pick the story.

1. Monster murder mayhem set in paris.
2. SciFi Zombie Apocalypse in tokyo.
3. King Conan in Fantasy Epic.
4. A modern version of Journey to the West.
5. If you have something you really want to see then let me know....

Just let me know in the comments!

Also I will sort out a launch party down in merry old London for anyone and everyone (I'm not sure how to organize it but I'll figure it out...or beg for help).

http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/jen-stark/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9614

If you haven’t heard of Jen Stark yet, you’re missing out. Well, not anymore: she has a new website that is stuffed with her amazing brightly-colored creations. I’ve mostly seen her cut-paper sculptures like the one above, but she makes similarly bright drawings in two dimensions as well.

Here’s a beautiful cut-paper animation she made as well:

“Streaming Gradient” by Jen Stark from Jen Stark on Vimeo.

(via @friendswithyou)

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Posted by David Huyck on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Animation, cut paper, Drawing, Jen Stark, sculpture

http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/new-popular-edition-of-charley-harper-an-illustrated-life/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9608

One of my most prized books is the beautiful, and massive Charley Harper: An Illustrated Life. It’s a book filled with Harper’s brilliant modernist nature illustrations, and one that I think belongs in every illustrator’s collection. Two factors otherwise prohibit more people from adopting the book into their libraries: the book’s physical size (it’s so big, mine hides away in a drawer because no bookshelf can handle it, and it’s big enough to be its own coffee table) and its hefty $200 pricetag ($135 on Amazon).

As a book, it’s a work of art itself, and it’s truly inspiring to flip through and be fully enveloped by its pages, but I’ve always wished there was a more accessible showcase of his career for the more casual (and thrifty) fan. I suppose AMMO Books agrees; they have just released a popular edition of Charpey Harper: An Illustrated Life — the same book, but considerably smaller (and bookshelf friendly) and at an affordable $49.95 ($32.97 on Amazon).

So if you have been pining for this collection, but could never justify the price, now you have no excuse. And, of course, if money is no object, there’s always the limited editions from AMMO for $400 that are signed by Charley Harper and author Todd Oldham, and come with a fancy slipcase and one of Harper’s silkscreen prints. Yowza.

Previously: Charley Harper 1922-2007

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Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: animals, Books, Charley Harper, Design, Illustration, modernism

• 19:42 I'm not super impressed with things right now. Maybe dinner will lighten my mood. #
• 21:04 @shawnwrites I'm just @ztrover and the images you posted don't seem to be working! #

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http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/fuggy-fuggy-thrift/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9606

Thrift is the latest superfun Fuggy Fuggy short from the Brothers McLeod. Their blog has recently been updated with some Fuggy Fuggy sketches, too.

Fuggy!

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Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Animation, Brothers McLeod, video

rejected!


I finished a festival poster using this illustration and at the very last minute the sponsors nixed the whole drawing since it looked too drug-oriented (?) or something? Anyway, I still like it.

There's loads going on with this month's Comica festival in London, but don't miss Comiket in London, this Sunday's marvellous small press fair at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, 1-6pm. Comiket will feature ellenlindner, tozocomic, and cleanskies among others, click for the full list here.

On October 20, 2009, i went to see Metric play at Massey Hall. I was annoyingly sick when i went, but i was determined. It's taken me a while to edit the pics, as i had to go through the Ottawa Animation Festival pics first, then my laptop croaked.

Uhhh... nice view, thanks Massey Hall. Thankfully, the seat on either side of me was empty (ha ha, i hope the scalpers got screwed when Metric added the second show... or maybe someone was sick). Also, a lot of people went up to the front to dance. Massey Hall is an odd venue for a rock concert.

( Metric pics )

Then on came Metric. Amazing, as always!

( Metric pics )

THE SETLIST:
1. Twilight Galaxy
2. Help I’m Alive
3. Satellite Mind
4. Handshakes
5. Poster of a Girl
6. Gold, Guns, Girls
7. Collect Call
8. Empty
9. Gimme Sympathy
10. Sick Muse
11. Dead Disco
12. Blindness
13. Stadium Love
ENCORE:
14. Monster Hospital
15. Combat Baby (Acoustic)

( Metric pics )

Originally published at Inkstuds. You can comment here or there.

Back for more 4 years later, after being my first guest ever, Seth and I seem to start right where our previous conversation left off. I am a really big admirer of Seth’s work, and this interview was very enlightening in new ways that I was not familiar with him before. Be sure to check out George Sprott, it’s pretty great.

Hello,

I'm back from seeing the world. SF to savannah to Seattle and back to Canada.
I brought back a garbage bag full of comics.
I'll have to write about it all more as I process it all.

Here's some of the drawing me and Marian did in SF sitting at the Neon Monster table
and that's Moritat with a fox.
fennec fox. I carry that picture in my wallet now.

and my road sketchbook-

Isotope comics in SF let me draw on a toilet seat to hang on their wall.

toilet seats are slippery and hard to draw on.
you can see the other seats here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/isotope/sets/789737/

Also In SF me and my pal Joe Keating got these fucking galactus sized pizza slices and watched the Spirit movie. I enjoyed the shit out of that film--the ass photocopying scene alone should get an Oscar eisner and tony baloney award.

And then on to Georgia:

Visiting SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) blew my mind.
I actually didn't think a place like that existed.
It felt like Hicksville, the Dylan Horrocks book about the fictinal town where everyone
reads comics if it was set in Wet moon.(I think it's where Ross based his book off of--so cool to see)

The whole place just moved different than I'm used to.
I went out walking along the cobblestone waterfront with a jazz horn playing in the
distance.I was wondering how anyone could even get into a fight in a town that mellow
and then the dude playing jazz switched to star wars music--mutherfucker.



Here's a talk that I was in my first night there--im on the right.

You can hear it here:
http://seqalab.com/?p=553

I really liked the teachers students and the other guests.
I'm not used to getting along with comic people that much.

So much good comics coming out of there.
Here's some art by one of the dudes I hung out with, Jeremy Sorese

more of his stuff here:
http://derbyartist.livejournal.com/

There's that Saul Williams line "not until you've heard Rakim on a rocky mountain top
have you heard hip hop" that is how I felt about looking at Derek Kirk Kim origonals
in the airport on the way out of town.

siiggghhhh. if comics will break your heart then I'm still deep in the honeymoon phase.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's some ish I've been reading since I got back-


I do like the Sienkiewicz cover but man this just reinforced all my worst
fears about how there's like 2 dudes that can write decent Conan.

So Conan falls in a magic time well and ends up in NYC--right. cool.
But why the fuck do they think that a dude who wore nothing but furs and metal
would sudenly start rolling as swass as this--

I don't like--well, pimps.
Crom...

and the fucking cat? Was that part of his blending in to modern civilization.
Like "normally I don't have a pet leopard but this is NYC soooooo."

Conan doesn't even wear a shirt why would he have a leopard?
It should really have just been called "What if Conan was retarded?"

Eventually it just degrades into some warriors bullshit.

and if that wasn't shitty enough Captain America shows up.
Is he still dead?

shit, he's not....


I stopped by my dear sweet mothers place and grabbed some of my old comics--

that high water mark of Shirow in the 80's

And I really like these flashback fantasy shots from Cyber 7


And along with that What if Conan --Justin passed on a copy of Shonen Jump from 88.
Nerd gold.

Jump with City Hunter is about as good as it gets.


I thought this was funny how in the middle of a chapter of Bastard with the
dude carying around this girl like so much sholder porn--they just thought it was cool to put in a Margaret ad with an infantchild sholdered the same way.


And I liked this one page rabbit thing.


Another thing from my moms place--GRUNTS!
A mirage (TMNT) Studios anthropomorphic war anthology,


There's a rad Peter Laird story in it with a Triceraton sargent talking about how
he lost his horn fighting space bears (Ursids!)
After breaking his horn off in one of their chests he goes back and
has it made into a knife. Badassery.


And here's some early THB, I really like the old Pope stuff when it was all
furs and coffee. plus it's nice to see a good photo cover.


Meanwhile back in vanoovverr james and Marley were making some impressive comics:

Stokoe's forthcoming ORC STAIN




And some Marley stuff for FORGETLESS, a 5 issue mini-series coming from Image in December.


I hadn't though about it before now but I like the contrast in how male and female J and M's stuff is. mmmmm

Also I don't type enough about Justin's stuff on here, one of my favorate dudes on the planet.
He's kind of the godfather of my group of dudes and he draws damned good too.


Here's a King city painting he did-

Here's his Deviantart-
http://moritat.deviantart.com/
and here too
http://diemoritat.blogspot.com/

And now I'm back in my place catching up on the million things I'm almost late on.
I think the neweset issue of Wizard magazine has a thing on King city. so weird.

Here's an Appleseed thing I drew my last night in Seattle.
All or nothing, this is love.

http://drawn.ca/2009/11/06/flora-chang/

http://drawn.ca/?p=9594

Taiwan-born artist Flora Chang studied graphic design in San Francisco before moving to Kansas City to begin work as a greeting card artist for Hallmark. A lot of famous doodlers got their start designing greeting cards (Robert Crumb and Tom Wilson come to mind), and I’ll bet my wooden teeth that Flora Chang is also destined for similar stardom!

From the moment I first discovered her Happy Doodle Land flickr stream, I became immediately enamored with the entire collection of cute and colorful characters, her adorable alphabet animals and her picturesque painted people. Deceptively simple and intricately innocent, it takes a deft hand to create such seemingly childish art. Flora makes it all look so effortless and carefree; which combined with her kaleidoscopic color palette and delightfully charming subjects, makes for a pretty joyful combination. I’d like to live in this Happy Doodle Land one day, but for now it’s quite a nice place to visit.

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Posted by Stephan Britt on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Flora Chang, greeting cards, Happy Doodle Land, Taiwan

Todays Twitters, just in case I continue to slack off from LJ and forget to post!

• 01:15 2 posts before sleep. Taking the car into the shop (again) tomorrow bright and squirrelly--must write quick its after 2! #
• 02:50 3:50am = Gnight Moon. #
• 17:19 Car back from the shop. Pocketbook lighter. Dog back from vet once again, long, long day. Dinner, cleaning and a nap are in order. #
• 17:34 After a day of not reading my RSS feed, there's 800+ items to be read *barf* #

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couple of pics of Kid from the video game Chrono Cross:



Chrono Cross is a pretty crappy game, a mess of impenetrable, stupidly convoluted storylines delivered in lame expository pseudo-sci-fi mumbo jumbo coupled with the usual RPG staples of destiny and chosen ones (get a load of this "condensed" plot synopsis). the game has a whopping 40+ characters (!) you can recruit, many of which have pretty cool designs but most of which aren't very interesting or have anything to do with the story or are developed at all (how could they be with that many?), except for Kid here who's the only worthwhile one. every other character has a tiny part in the story, joins your party, then just becomes a meaningless cog in your growing army. the main hero, Serge, is just as much of a non-entity with a cool character design and nothing else, a "silent protagonist" who never talks and thus never displays any personality and makes for really awkward cut scenes since he can't respond to the other character, but which are played like he is. Cross's predecessor Chrono Trigger used the same silent hero thing, but for some reason it's much less grating in that game. indicative of how dumb and confusing the game is, is that even though Kid is the heroine, she's the second main character who has more to do with the story than the faceless guy hero, there's actually a story path in the game where she NEVER joins your party. who thought that was a good idea?! shows how little the characters themselves have to do with the plot, too.

anyway, even though the game blows, i was really affected by it when i played it back in the day. maybe mostly because of the awesome music score by Yasunori Mitsuda and the tropical setting which i'd never seen before and the few great ideas the game does have, and Kid who's also great. the music by Mitsuda, even when it's peppy, seems really sad to me, and Kid has a sad history/background, made even sadder by how she's treated in the game (always getting stabbed, poisoned, going into comas, etc.), so for whatever reason she and all the melancholy around the character really stuck with me (second only to Tifa! XD). it's too bad the game is such a clusterfuck. sweet music, though.

God dammit i hate illustrator. Any tips guys? the program really isnt intuitive at all.
This is my first attempt, so be gentle! i'm gonna try and produce a new illustrator image every day so that i hopefully become efficient this time next month.

DAMMIT I HATE YOU ILLUSTRATOR WHY ARE YOU AN INDUSTRY STANDARD?!</p>

Originally published at Inkstuds. You can comment here or there.

Inkstuds regular Jeet Heer and UBC English Professor Paul Stanwood, joined me for a discussion of Robert Crumb’s adaptation of the Book of Genesis. Each of the guests bring a unique expertise to the table that really adds to an understanding of the work. Here are some more comments from Jeet in regards to the work here and here.

What a week! Strep throat, broken website, a commission that took like eighty days (in one week!) to complete, jeepers.

Well it can only mean one thing.


It's quick comics time again, and done by request as is custom (it's about the only time I formally take requests anymore and only on livejournal, you are my special little guys!), so ante up all yous

edit!

Whoa I should mention, I think some people have the idea that I will do all the requests! There are always way too many, that is impossible, I just do some. But I read them all, and some of them will be turned into bigger comics, you never know.