Blue Pencil Push-ups

Tonight I was sketching out an establishing shot. These old movie theaters have a lot of squiggles on them. 

Another day in the sausage factory

Here's another exterior scene taking shape. 

In the first image I've made all the progress I'm going to make in pencil and I've jumped into inking. 

I based this shot on Tartine Bakery here in San Francisco. I could have gone over there and taken my own reference photos, but Google has done a great job already. Street view is a pretty good tool for this. Helpful and creepy in the way most Google aps are these days (Hi, NSA!). 

And here's the "final" version (final for now):

The tv screen will have a news ticker and lots of text. That will happen in Photoshop. This is also a night scene so it'll look very different with shading (good old Photoshop). I'll also fix the more egregious scale issues.  That guy in the doorway--either he's giant or that's a hobbit café. 

Ok, back to it...

How the sausage gets made

Dear internet,

Here's a little process update. Sometimes it's fun to see how the sausage gets made. 

Starting the inking process:

Real artists do a clean penciling pass before diving into inking. I, however, just jump in there. It takes a long time to refine details in ink, and you make lots of mistakes. I would recommend doing it the right way. But somehow this is what I end up doing. 

Here's a more refined path. You'll notice some dumb mistakes (metal grid pattern) that I'll fix in Photoshop. 

And here's the "final" version. I'll probably come back and noodle on it later. 

And there you have it. 

Spider Man (and his amazing arms)

Dear Internet,

Ok, now we are getting somewhere.  This is a comic creator's blog, after all.  Let's see what Kid Me thought of Spiderman.

Ok, one thing:  he thought long and hard about Spiderman's arms.  Man, look at those things.

 

I loved Spiderman.  He was my Favorite Superhero after my Batman phase (I'll refrain from going into the details of my Batman phase).  

He had a lot going for him, that guy.  He was strong.  He was acrobatic.  Unlike Batman, he had actual super powers (I know a lot of people love that about Batman, but for me it seemed cooler to be objectively superhuman).  Most importantly, he was a smart alec.  I dreamed of having the presence of mind to actually say something witty in high pressure situations.  In real life, I think I mostly stared.  Maybe sometimes I got in a good gape. 

The Sound of One Ghost Knocking

Dear Internet,

Well, what is there to say about this one? 

I can talk about what I like.  I like that the Trick-Or-Treater is knocking on a Cubist house's Cubist door.  I like that you're not entirely sure in which direction said door will open.  Or is it open already?  I like that this kid is all alone and there's no sense of frivolity.  There are no other kids.  There's barely a house.  No one is having fun.  There are no decorations. 

Is this a kid trick or treating or is it a ghost haunting the front stoop?

Deep.  This one is deep.

 

Bert-Colored Ernie

Dear Internet,
 Let's go a little light on the sci-fi this week.  Here's our old childhood friend Ernie.  And he is decidedly Bert-colored.  I don't know the significance of this...just that it feels somehow significant.

Here's a creepy thing about Ernie.  I only see this now as Adult Me, though the Kid Me captured it pretty well.  While Ernie seems like a happy go-lucky fellow -- he has that rubber ducky he sings about, he's always pulling Bert's leg, he's got that infectious laugh, he's a fun guy -- the whole time he's laughing, he has sad, sad eyes.  

Hypnotized Space Demon

Dear Internet,

I know.  You're thinking to yourself, "What?  He was serious?  He's really posting again like he said he would."

Yes.  Yes, I am.  It's weird for me too.

Here's another exhibit from the childhood art gallery.  Of course I have no memory of this drawing, or what it was really supposed to be.  Looking at in now, I can only guess it was some kind of hypnotized space demon.  I remember my childhood mostly trauma-free, so I can't explain how this creepy dude came out of my kid brain.  Alien visitation?  Ghosts?  Space ghosts?

Childhood Art Gallery: Exhibit 1 -- Robot Dad and Son

Dear Internet,

Well here we are.  2014.  How did this happen?

Egg 4 remains a torpid, uncooperative caterpillar refusing to leave its cocoon.  Someday, after much negotiation, it will of course emerge a shivering, shiny butterfly.

But the show must go on.  In the meantime, I give you Art.

Back home for the holidays, I discovered a trove of my childhood drawings (I use the word "trove," though I hesitate to use the word "treasure."  And yet....can you have a trove of anything but treasure?  Judge for yourself, I guess).

It's odd to discover art drawn by your childhood self because there's no memory of making it.  It might as well have been created by someone else.  And there's something almost thrilling about drawings that are less about "correctness" and more about "awesomeness!"

 

This image is very much inspired by the show The Space Giants (I had to look this up...I'd forgotten the title) I used to watch back on Superstation WTBS.  I remember the show being pretty thrilling.  It featured a giant metal robot Dad with Heavy Metal hair, a normal sized robotic Mom who was conspicuously nonmetallic, along with her normal-sized and also nonmetallic robotic son, Gam.  Oh and the Dad turned into a rocket sometimes.  Also, they all had antennae, like these guys.  Anyway, I was pretty young (this might be from kindergarten or first grade). 

This felt like a good place to start, because A) this drawing is awesome, and B) because Egg owes a lot of its essence to that wide-eyed child's brain absorbing Space Giants, Ultraman, and other old Japanese monster shows.

I'll try to put up a new kid drawing every week, until there are more Egg updates.