Friday 14 November 2008

One More Thing Before I Say, "Adieu."...


Oh, yeah! Liz's prize-winning self gets this! Yay!!!



PS Check out the newest V Magazine. There's a spread with the incredible, unfortunately-inedible Justin Bond and M Lamar aka Reginald! A bunch of other awesome people are in it... but I won't spoil it. Just go take a peek!

Hi Haters... er, I mean Hiatus!

OK, so I'm tryin' to get this darn comic finished, so I won't be posting here until December 15. Whatevs!

Just to tide you over while you're pigging out... Here's a cornucopia!
Thanksgiving is THE BEST holiday. Let's all be thankful for what we've got. Oh, and be jealous of what I've got: Pumpkin Risotto! Don't you want to come over and be thankful that I'm heaping it on your plate? Call me up, yo! Thanksgiving in Bushwick, son! I might make cranberry couscous and a Tofurkey. Say what!

Monday 10 November 2008

Linking Skunks Stink Last (Say 5 Times Fast!)

I would like to share two INCREDIBLE INEDIBLE resources for all you budding cartoonists and comics artists just itching to get your nibs wet! Everybody loves links, and not just the Zelda kinds, either!


The first is SKETCH THEATRE where you can see some of your favorite artists, well, sketch! It's really awesome and they put it to music so it doesn't even feel like you're learning. I heard about this through the grapevine that is: Kali's Website; Old Men with Kazoos and Beating Drums... she just had a birthday, so drop her a Hooray and then drool at all the incredible cards she received.

Second, but not secondly... THE COMIC TOOLS BLOG! Don't be a comic tool and check out some really awesome tips, tricks, pointers and you can even act like a macho jerk 'cuz your talkin' 'bout tools, not 90-lb weakling funny pages, right? Seriously, this is what got me addicted to those damned japanese nibs that were like an urban legend until I stroked my first stroke and never looked back. I just learned about an amazing tool to discover what needs fixing in my art... AND IT'S 99 CENTS!!! Seriously! It's so easy to invest in your future when it's this cheap!

This link comes via the amazing Liz Baillie, who I am putting the finishing touches on her WINNING THING from that contest oh so many moons ago. Let's hang out and I'll give it to you! Not that way, perv!...

Check this shit out! You will not regret it like that youtube porn loop you got stuck in where you never even saw a nipple. A nipple! I digress...

Saturday 8 November 2008

Explicit Explicative


Snakes alive! Inking sure is fun! I think it's my favorite part of making comics... especially since I've been practicing with my brushes.

The "shit" is for how many more pages I have to go!

Friday 7 November 2008

Picasso's Bluest of the Blue


This is a quick study of "The Blind Man's Meal," Picasso's bluest of the blue period from 1903.

Art&War: Dazzle Ships

During WW1, the British came up with the idea of painting optical patterns onto their war ships. This practice spread to many of the allies. These were called "Dazzle Ships" (or "Razzle Dazzle ships" in the US) and were almost an anti-camouflage. The patterns made it difficult to figure out how large the ships were or how fast they were moving.

Why go to all this trouble? Because torpedos were fired according to where the ship would be when it hit. If it looked like the ship had 3 hulls or all you saw in the periscope was wavy lines, it made the ships harder to fire on.

Edward Wadsworth was a prominent figure in Wyndham Lewis' Vorticism art movement, a short lived futurist off-shoot in England that splintered rather quickly due to WW1 nabbing pretty much everyone involved. Edward Wadsworth was no exception. Although his job was to design these wacky patterns on the ships.

This is the french cruiser Gloire:

Unfortunately, there are no color photographs of these vessels. But... there are plans:



At first artists were commissioned to design individual ships. As the war continued and costs had to be cut, the best designs were repeated.

And in an art imitating life imitating art turnaround, Edward Wadsworth painted paintings of these ships that he designed the paintings on! The most famous is this:

Link

Captain John Konrad has a really short and sweet breakdown of Razzle Ships.
Link
Jeff Koons just designed a "Razzle Yacht." It's named "Guilty," and if that's guilty of being ugly... I'd have to agree! I'm not a huge Jeff Koons fan, btw. Although it looks perfect for lounging on and blasting some Christopher Cross. Sweet.

Here's another awesome futuristic/cubistesque/abstractish painting by Edward Wadsworth:


A bunch of his prints are up in The Met's "Rhythms of Modern Live: British Prints 1914-1939." It's really awesome, and if you're into printing, you'll go nuts because most are hand-made. Definitely check it out if you can, it's going to be gone in December.

After WW1, his ideals (and much of the futurists and/or vorticists) about machines and industrial society were tainted by the death of friends and the brutality of war. He became a more realistic painter, then migrated toward the surreal and the symbolic.

Nautical themes haunted his paintings until he died.







Oh, and I can't forget OMD. Yes, Orchestral Manooovres in the Dark had a total bomb with their album "Dazzle Ships" in 1983. I guess the cover couldn't dodge the torpedo of critics headed its way.

How about we get their sweet pop sensibilities to ease us out of this broadcast and into a world less fraught with torpedos and war.


from: Dazzle Ships

Saturday 1 November 2008

Jeff Smith (a.k.a. GOD) Inks a Panel (a.k.a. Creates an Animal on the Sixth Day)

And on the SIXTH day, God created the animals, which verily and abundantly plentified the land to beget and begat much offspring.

Now watch the hand of God create an alligator. And it is good.

Lap it up while you can. Tomorrow he rests.

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