Viggo

I'm off to see Eastern Promises tonight. It's been getting good-to-incredible reviews ever since it opened during the Toronto International Film Festival a few weeks ago. Pictures of Viggo started popping up everywhere -- I saw a photo of him in a free daily commuter paper with this odd 'stache and overgrown soul-patch with a goofy smile on his face !

Viggo smiling like that? What the hell did Cronenberg do to him in this film?

Had to draw it.

Dr. Sketchy's

Monday Night I went to The Cameron House on Queen West for Dr. Sketchy's Anti Art School Toronto.

I warmed up with a drawing of this huge pink teddy bear. . .

After a few weeks teaching back in the (correctly) structured environment of Beginning Life Drawing 1 at Max the Mutt, it was fun to draw with a beer in reach, an eclectic range of music pumping out of the overhead speakers (Blondie and Corey Hart were a pleasant surprise for this dinosaur amongst the pierced) and a model, Lena Love, in better shape than any other I've ever drawn.

I swear, I think she could have broken every man in the room with ease -- not that a gathering of artists in Downtown TO would be likely to attract the kind of guys that'd give her a challenge, but I meander. . .

You really don't wanna know what she did to the teddy bear --I ended up giving her that drawing, so you're out of luck if you do want to know.

The blacklight drawing was interesting. . . .

I'm certainly hoping to attend the next one in about two weeks.

~Richard

Not the Bees

Dunno -- drew this thing in my sketchbook.

Kilowog, ya Poozers!

Always liked this character -- I think I first saw him during the Englehart/Staton run on Green Lantern/The Green Lantern Corps back in the mid 80s.

As much as I'd like to draw Hal Jordan (the GL I first encountered) for being the most archetypical science fiction hero in comics, or Guy Gardner for being a nifty tough-guy jerk, I think Kilowog would be an absolute blast to draw for a solo adventure or mini series.*

I do have some affection for the weird Popeye style arms he used to have, but I do like to draw massive arms, so the current Ethan Van Sciver designed iteration is more to my drawing tastes.

Decided to take a few moments to get the hand on Kilowog's weird hippo-face:


Like the Pitt sketches I posted earlier -- you can see the awkwardness in the first doodle, I'm getting a feel for how I wanna see this going in the second, but it's still gawdawful, the alst twoo are okay --I think I have a feel for how I want his face-stumps to work and how his head is shaped.


The next page, I think I'm on the right track. The open-mouth shot doesn't do it for me -- EVS did a cool shot into Kilowog's mouth in an early GL issue (latest series), I might dig it out since I seem to recall it being really hippo-ish.

Kilowog's Popeye arms could be (sorta) brought back by just making his three-fingered hands and forearms slightly disproportionately larger and more powerful looking.
~Richard

*Yeah - if Garth Ennis, or similarly twisted writer, were to write a zombie Ch'p story, I'd draw that, too.

Pitts!

Started doodling a character I hadn't drawn in far too long: Dale Keown's Pitt:

Gah! Ugh -- you can see the rust in that drawing. . . .

So I quickly did a few more doodles to warm up to the character again:

. . .a little bit better. I think my hands were starting to get the feel of the character again. Pitt was always fun to draw - -I'll see if I can find some time to do something more finished before too long.

Dale's still working on Darkness/Pitt, so you're gonna have to wait on that, but the Pitt action figure came out this past August . It's some sort of incentive item where you buy one toy and you get a piece of the Pitt toy -- it sure as hell looks worth it!

~Richard

Back to school!

School started at Max the Mutt last week with orientation week. Looks like a fine bunch of art students coming into the program's first year and I'm quite happy with the group returning for Illustration and Sequential Art.

I took my "comics gang" to Union Station on Friday to draw. They did some wonderful work and look to be warming up for a really good year.

I managed to get a little sketching in while keeping an eye on what the group was up to. . .