Day #221 - Absolut New Year

Happy New Year to everyone!

fireworks done, kids asleep and all I have left is a bottle of Vodka and my drawing, well, that's done now so all I have is my Absolut, well half of it, I'm a bit stonkered.

thank you to all the people that have offered kind words about my crappy little drawings, it's not always easy to get motivated for them and every little 'like' or comment makes it worthwhile.

I hope that you all have a wonderful new year and that the new year brings prosperity and happiness.

If you ever feel like commenting please do, at least then I'll know somebody is reading my tripe.

Love always,

Glen

Day #220 - Dr Gru and the moon

I watched Despicable Me with the kids this afternoon.

It was a pretty funny little film, easy to watch and kept the attention of the kids so there wasn't too much depth to it.

The 'minions' were definitely the best part, always up to pranks and very odd looking, they had me and the kids cackling all the way through.

I sat down about half way through and doodled this.

I have the night off now with my doodle out of the way! YAY!!

Day #219 - the Emperor?

Hawk asked me to draw the Emperor, so I decided to draw it in red, that's about the only good thing that happened with this picture.

at least he likes it.

It doesn't look too bad in thumbnail view.

Day #218 - Lando Cowrissian

Hawk said a few things today that cracked me up, he was talking to his sister about biscuits and was asking what her favourite was, he asked her if she liked Fish Finger Biscuits (he meant Scotch Finger) then he asked if she liked Chocolate Jontys, of course with the cricket on I instantly thought of a little Jonty Rhodes shaped chocolate biscuit.

but the one that stuck in my head was Lando Cow-rissian, our little guy has a few problems saying certain words and sometimes they come out a bit sideways.

I drew this around midnight after watching Tron with Les and Ed, it was a super cool movie which would only make sense to people that liked the original as the two tied together and there were a lot of references to the 80s, Jeff Bridges in a few scenes was definitely channelling 'the dude' and the CG work on Tron and Clu was very very cool.

Day #217 - Droideka

Hawk got a 'You can draw Star Wars" book from Santa and as a treat for him tonight I said, "you pick whatever you like out of it and I'll draw it", the only condition was that it couldn't be Yoda.

So as I was putting the bins out he was busy deciding on what he'd like me to draw, he came running out to me with the book in hand saying "this one, this one", a bloody Droideka, for those that don't know what this is it's basically a robot with no real humanoid style that rolls up into a wheel and rolls into place, once there it becomes a gun turret type of thing that generates its own force field. Don't get me started on that one, i.e. how come the force field deflects laser fire but allows the Droideka's own laser fire to penetrate it?

Anyway, it was always going to be difficult getting the level of detail required onto a little A5 page, so I compromised.

Going by last night's doodle and the response from Lester I added in the 'comic relief' droid as a sort of roadside assistance robot, he runs around and gives broken down robots a jump.

I hope Hawkie likes it okay? I'm sure he'll tell me that just like the Australian cricket team there doesn't seem to be enough depth.

Day #216 - the Gonk issue

As anyone whom knows me knows me, I love Star Wars, so I'm able to overlook blaring errors and holes that some say exist in the saga but looking back at them as an adult I see a few things that really stand out.

It seems that Lucas wanted a large variety of robots for his films so in each movie appears a whole plethora of 'droids' but what stands out now for me is their purpose beyond filler?

case in point, the Gonk droid, it has two human-like legs and looks like a mobile cigarette vending machine. What was its purpose? what did it do? I mean C3P0 is obvious, he's a translator and R2D2 is like a futuristic mechanic, auto-electrician and storage device.

But what the hell did the Gonk do? it just seemed to walk around (very slowly) saying "Gonk, Gonk", then there was that little mouse type of droid that got scared by Chewbacca, was that the comic relief droid?

It doesn't really matter though, I'll always love Star Wars.

on a side note, I was listening to "You've come a long way baby" whilst doodling this, it is truly a brilliant album, I think it's one of Norman's best.

Day #215 - quick Mix

After a very long Xmas day full of frivolities I was pretty exhausted so at about 11:30pm I just whipped out this fun little doodle of my little girl, she never goes anywhere without 'Woofy" whom still sort of resembles a dog and her portable dummy attached to her left hand.

Vic and I joked that on her ultrasound it looked like she was sucking her thumb, she was and has done ever since! saved a lot of time and effort with pacifiers.

Not sure how we'll get her to stop though?

Day #214 - Merry Christmas (eve)

took the time today whilst the kids were sleeping to get my drawing out of the way, decided to settle on an easy Santa and his sleigh.

it ended up taking about an hour to 90 minutes to complete as I was interrupted by Mika as she wanted me to draw her a puppy dog.

I love how my Santa turned out though.

Merry Christmas everybody! I hope Santa brings you lots of pressies!

Day #213 - Happy Birthday Wifey

I am soooooooo dead for drawing this one!

LOL!

um, looks like Xmas better be damn special to make up for it.

Day #212 - Timebomb

The other night whilst I was stumbling through some random blog sites I came upon a trailer for British comedy series called "No Heroics" it's a show based in a city where there are numerous superheroes each with differing powers, the show itself is centred in a bar (the Fortress), a superhero bar but in this bar you cannot use your powers and you must be wearing plain clothes. In fact on the door it says;

NO MASKS

NO POWERS

NO HEROICS

The 4 main characters are;

"the Hotness" he can harness the power of heat

"Electroclash" with her voice she can communicate with and control machines

"She-Force" she has superhuman strength and is the 3rd strongest woman in the world

and

"Timebomb" he can see 60 seconds into the future and is a master of torture, although he is retired so he only takes a few jobs on to keep money rolling, he's an alcoholic, an ex-drug addict, a gay spaniard whom has sex with strangers in the bathroom when he is bored and easily the best character in the entire show. His outfit has no cape and is pretty much just a black leather body armour with a black leather cap.

only 6 episodes and then the US have remade their own version starring Freddy Prinze Jnr, what a shame.

We are truly blessed to have British comedy as a welcome break to that mindless drivel that comes out of the states (i.e. 2 and a half men) and is drilled into us nightly, thank god for the internet!

I highly recommend this show to anyone, along with the IT Crowd, the Mighty Boosh, Little Britain, Peep Show and that Mitchell and Webb look. oh and Snuff Box. US shows that I'd recommend in this genre.......Better off Ted, Party Down and Bored to death.

Outsourced is okay and I have a soft spot for Chuck.

Day #211 - the Bones Brigade

we were out for lunch today for Wayne's farewell and our Dell account manager mentioned that Dell will be running on skeleton staff for the christmas/new year period.

I turned to Pete and said, Imagine if they actually did run on skeleton staff.

this is the sort of thing I was thinking.

Then we started saying the insults that they'd receive from customers.

Like "You bonehead, aren't you listening?" "You brainless idiot" "gutless bastard"

there were more but I can't remember them.

Day #210 - the Grinch

I again found myself sitting here with a blank piece of paper and no idea about what to draw.

I thought about Xmas and what I could draw, I came up with the Grinch.

I've never read the book nor seen the movie but I do remember the Chuck Jones cartoon.

This was fun and easy to draw but I keep forgetting that lead pencil smudges so easily.

Day #209 - Fatboy & littleman

for some reason today I was wondering what to draw, maybe I was just procrastinating or maybe I was waiting for the vodka to take affect? I've been thinking about superheroes a lot lately and it was only when I found a link to the preview for a show called "No Heroics" and watched said link it got me thinking about an old idea.

Along the lines of the Tick these two are an extremely dynamic duo.

Fatboy, harnesses the powers of sloth and can eat twice his weight in one sitting.

littleman has extreme powers of influence.

They are both masters of procrastination.

Once together there is nothing that they couldn't achieve, they just couldn't be arsed!

Day #208 - Yolanda

by request from Jenny Bloomfield's daughter, the question was "what would a female Yoda look like?"

well I've done some investigation and apparently although the origin of Yoda is a mystery there was another of his species and she too was a Jedi master, her name was Yaddle.

But, I thought instead I would draw Yoda's mum Yolanda on her way to church.

I had this all finished in blue but Mika and Hawk insisted that I colour her in green, the only other colour I have is red so she became a fiery red head. (with matching purse)

Day #207 - the Panther

Blake Edwards died today.

whenever I think of Edwards I instantly think of the Pink Panther movies. I remember when I first saw one, I think I was about 8 and I was with my dad, it was about to start on TV and I was very excited because I loved cartoons so much. I sat there with this eager anticipation waiting to watch this movie with Pink animated panther in it. I couldn't believe Dad was excited to watch it as he really didn't like cartoons (apart from "wait til your father gets home"). To my dismay there was only this annoying bumbling French policeman and David Niven, at 8 years old I didn't appreciate the humour as I thought all policemen were very serious I couldn't get my head around this fool, I remember thinking he was like Maxwell Smart but or some weird reason I accepted Maxwell Smart?

So after about 30 minutes I asked my Dad when we were going to see the Panther and Dad told me that his glove is all we would see? But the Pink Panther didn't wear gloves?

So when I think of Blake Edwards I get a little disappointed, not at how desperately I wanted to see the panther but actually at how ignorant I was, funnily though, I've never seen the movie in full.

I absolutely loved the Simpson's tribute to him though and how Grandpa Simpson figured out whom it was because he wore sneakers, for sneaking! LOL!

Day #206 - Walter Lantz

Last night I spoke of Walter Lantz, whilst he was a great animator and a marvellous producer he was a thief.

Oswald Rabbit is one of the most famous cartoon characters of the silent age, whilst credited to Lantz it's actually a creation of Walt Disney and when you look at him you can easily see the likeness of Mickey in him.

anyway, his other most famous character was Woody Woodpecker, he concocted a story about how he got the idea for Woody whilst on his honeymoon, there was a noisy woodpecker outside their lodge and he and his new bride couldn't sleep because of it, how could people not figure this one out, the last thing you want to do on your honeymoon was sleep.

As it turned out, Woody Woodpecker debuted 1 year before Lantz's honeymoon and was actually the work of someone else and Lantz nicked it!

Day #205 - the day the art died

44 years ago today one of the fathers of animation died and with him the creative beauty of his company died, what remained and remains to this day is a capitalistic greed driven juggernaut.

It is truly a shame.

I still can't believe that Walt got his head cryogenically frozen? I don't understand why he only got his head frozen.

I think that's where Futurama got their inspiration from for their hall of heads.

World War II killed the Fleischers and when Walt there was only Walter Lantz and Otto Messmer left. Pat Sullivan had passed in 1933.

Most of you would not have heard of all of these guys, the Fleischers were on par with Walt, producing cartoons like Koko the clown, Betty Boop & Popeye to name a few, they invented the rotoscope camera which is still in use to this day, Walt I don't need to describe, Walter Lantz animated the very popular Oswald the Rabbit and later Woody Woodpecker and Otto Messmer and Pat Sullivan produced Felix the Cat, this is an interesting one and quite a contentious issue around whom created Felix but I believe it was Pat, too much evidence supporting it and unknown to most is that Pat Sullivan, my mother told me that I'm related to him in some way which is quite cool.

Pat Sullivan a Sydney boy created one of the most popular cartoon characters of the silent era.

all I remember about Felix is that he had a bag of tricks and if he reached into it you'd laugh so much your sides would ache and your heart would go pitter-pat watching Felix, the wonderful cat.

oh, I'm really happy with how Donald turned out but the rest are dodgy. :(

Day #204 - I gotta stop asking Hawk what to draw

Tonight I asked Hawk if he'd like me to draw him something (in hindsight it would have been easier to draw the Wright Flyer to commemorate it's maiden flight on this day) but no, I had to ask Hawk didn't I.

He said, "I want you to draw Obi Wan Kenobi fighting General Grievous"

In his defence he isn't aware that I've slipped back to the little books but man it was difficult to draw these two on one page, I don't think it looks too bad although I'm clearly aware that the face looks nothing like Obi Wan's.

I hope he likes it though, I'll leave it out so that he can see it at breakfast.

The thing that I really liked though is that he picked up his pencils and decided to draw in bed again, he hasn't done that for about 2 months.

Day #203 - Happy Birthday Mr Pink

One of my all time favourite character actors, he's like the modern day Marty Feldman.

I fell in love with him as Mr Pink in Reservoir Dogs and to be honest he has never failed to deliver.

As Donnie in The Big Lebowski he never missed a pin (thanks Kieran) and then he missed one just before he had a heart attack, he was always out of his league according to Walter.

In Mr Deeds has was Crazy Eyes and delivered a beautiful cameo stealing every scene he was in.

He played a psychotic killer in Con Air that just wanted to have tea with a little girl.

He wanted to have the "front row seat to the end of the world" in Armageddon.

He is 53 today and he is Steve Buscemi!

Day #202 - Mr Cranium

I had no idea what to draw tonight so I started scratching out this detective type of guy, I had him partly finished and I realised that I had half a page left, so I put him holding something, then I couldn't decide on what he was to hold, then the oversized comb came to my mind and a joke towards my good friend XXXXXX because I know he'll read this whilst sipping his coffee tomorrow morning....

Sorry XXXXXX, it's late and I thought you wouldn't mind?

Actually, if I hadn't mentioned it nobody would know, so I've now gone back and Xed out your name :) but you know don't you?

Day #201 - the Migration Wizard

My friend Grant wrote these amazing tools for us to use at work when performing large scale (or small) PC migrations, it truly is a lifesaver and has saved us about 100k in labour so far.

But..... It has the worst little logo

Grant called his tool, 'the Migration Wizard' so I thought I'd draw him a wizard to be the MW, I'll scan this in get its line art into Photoshop and put together a proper logo that his tool deserves.

I was going to have him putting a spell on a PC but I didn't have enough paper to do it properly so I'll add it later in PS.

I'm back to the little books for the next 60 days as my terrible self portrait was the last of the A4s.

Day #200 - me

I thought for the 200th I'd try the hardest of all (for me) and that is drawing a real person.

for me this one is even harder because I don't even know if it looks like me, just like you don't believe that you sound the way you do when your voice is recorded I don't know whether or not this is like me or not.

So, I tried a self portrait, I'm not sure whether it's any good or not, but.... I don't really care.

165 to go.

Day #199 - Kirks

I was stuck for what to draw tonight, then I noticed it was Kirk Douglas' birthday.

It got me thinking about John Kricfalusi, you see John's hero is Kirk Douglas, which I find a bit weird, I mean here's a guy that worked for Hanna Barbera and created one of the most memorable cartoons of my generation (Ren and Stimpy) so you'd think his hero would be an artist, a cartoonist etc but no, it's Kirk.

So, I tried to draw Kirk, I know I'm not good at drawing portraits of people so I thought I'd just give it a go, if it went bad I'd do it again, so, it went bad, but then I used what I learned in that drawing and drew a second one, I was very happy with the second one so I tried to take it up another level by doing it a third time but unfortunately made him look more George Bush than Kirk.

So I could have easily have titled this entry "quit whilst you are ahead"

I was too tired to post it on Thursday night so I saved it till Friday.

Not sure what to draw for 200?

Any ideas?

P.S. weird side note, Billy West voiced Stimpson J Cat (Stimpy) in Ren & Stimpy, he is the same guy that voices Fry, the Professor and Dr Zoidberg in Futurama

Day #198 - the puppet that taught me how to draw

Yesterday the guy that created Mr Squiggle passed away.

to this day I still don't understand how they got a marionette to draw so accurately?

I used to habitually watch the Mr Squiggle show, after all, he was the man from the moon.

but he was far from the coolest character, for some weird reason which even now I don't understand the other non-human characters were a talking blackboard called 'Blackboard' (okay, that's not odd) but then there was a talking Steam Shovel, I don't even know what a Steam Shovel is? I mean were there steam powered tractors? yet this was like an excavator? then the strangest of the lot was a snail with a TV set on his back? oh and of course Mr Squiggle's rocket which was somehow alive and not just a rocket?

Norman Hetherington created a show that he expected to run a couple of episodes but instead it ran for 40 years and was at one time the longest running show on Australian television.

Some things the ABC do are just awesome and I thank them and Norman for inspiring me to draw 35 years ago.

Day #197 - the evolution of communication

Whilst walking down the platform to catch the train this morning I got the idea for this one.

Seems like everybody was hunched over their phones oblivious to their surroundings.

I drew this on the train this morning, it's amazing how bumpy the ride is, we need maglevs badly!

Day #196 - the Rancor

I've decided that over the Xmas break I'm going to try my hand at sculpture, first with the wonderful DAS and then (if I can afford it) with some Super Sculptey.

I've planned this for a while but haven't been able to put my finger on what I want to attempt to sculpt, until now.

I've had the monster in my head with a big head and long claw like arms but I couldn't picture it, it was simply the Rancor.

I was worried that if I made a monster that the kids might have nightmares about it but not the Rancor, the coolest monster you could keep under the house!

So of course I need to get familiar with it so between now and the new year I'll be doing a few more sketches and trying to design the wire skeleton etc.

So, here is my first sketch of the Rancor.

Day #195 - Fearless Fly & Hiram

There's a thing going round Facebook about changing your profile picture to that of a cartoon character from you childhood in support of stopping violence against children. Whether it's a ruse or not I think it's quite cool to see all these different cartoon characters instead of photos of people.

So of course I jumped on the bandwagon, and the first thing that popped into my head was Batfink but then I remembered that was Mark's favourite cartoon and mine was the Milton the Monster series which included Flukey Luke, Milton the Monster and Fearless Fly.

Fearless Fly had special spectacles that transformed him from Hiram the timid fly to Fearless Fly whom was as the opening credits stated "Faster than a streaking rocket, speedier than a flash of light, no fly swatter can harm him, no fly paper can hold him, no insecticide can stop him"

I don't know what happened to this series but I loved watching it, I can still remember all the theme songs in my head (exactly what cartoons these days are severely lacking)

Day #194 - Barbie-Q

this one is for Mitch, she Les and Ed came over for a pretty mis-organised BBQ today and thanks to Vic we had some wonderful food.

But most of all it was like old times, it made me think about special friends, they're the type that you don't see for years, you miss like hell and when you are together it's like time stood still between your get togethers and you just take up from where you left off.

I'm very privileged to have my wonderful friends and I love them all dearly.

When they were leaving tonight I asked Mitch what the hell I should draw and she suggested a Barbie on a Barbie. So, for one of my most cherished friends, here it is!

Day #193 - the weapon to win it back!

Today Kookaburra announced their new range of premium bats.

This range will end the dominance of accurate bowling and will promote substandard batting, which is really what we all want.

You'll know, using the 'LUNGER' have the confidence of flailing at a good length ball whether it be the 5th ball of an innings or the 50th with the safety in knowing that it's impossible to get an edge!

Kookaburra's new 'Edgeless' bat technology will allow you to play in the top order all of your poster boys for Advanced Hair studios as well as Vodafone/KFC without the chance of totally embarrassing yourself, your team and your nation.

If you find yourself in a situation where you can't read the pitch and you've won the toss and made the incorrect decision to bat (yet again) then never fear, the 'LUNGER' is the bat for you.

If you're one of those batsmen that early in your innings you like to just hang the bat out there and hop not to edge it then the 'LUNGER' is your new best friend.

the Kookaburra LUNGER, all middle, all the time!

Day #192 - heads

I just felt like drawing some random heads tonight.

I'm feeling pretty sore after basketball and my back is starting to tighten up too much.

I need to sleep now I think, so I'm going to.

I wasn't drawing anybody in particular just random, whatever shapes came out of my head went to paper.

Day #191 - the silly season begins

24 days and counting.

the most powerful weapon in a parents arsenal is released.......

Santa Claws!

it's amazing what your children will do under the influence of the 'Naughty or Nice' clause.