HOLLOW WEENIES

Lettering here has to be the worst part.
Everything too rushed.
Was going to have a joke where I say something like 'Halloween is for kids - what grown-up do you see dressing funny and begging for freebies?', followed by a pic of JohnK holding a 'swag' bag labelled paypal. But even the rich deserves free money, if there's someone willing to give. So the joke wouldn't be funny. I would have egg on my face, so to speak. And please don't say 'and a pork sword in your pants crsP', as that would be rather crass.

HEATHCLIFF ENVY

After 7 days of consecutive posts, I decided to have 7 days of no posts. I thought I would get some response on my wacom post. Considering I brought the news before many sites, such as Cold Hard Flash [my quick news delivery explicitly implies I have the best website on the internet]. Plus all my hard work and research for the tips. *whimper*

One of my favourite shows growing up was Heathcliff. Yes, an 80's cartoon. Now I will be shunned by the cartoon elitists. Oh boo-hoo, stick it up your collective bumholes. Heathcliff was funny. Heathcliff was an arrogant terrorist [evident in the lyrics of the title song] who had the neighbourhood under manners. You're just jealous of the pungent musk from his compact balls.

Apparently there were two versions. First the Ruby-Spears created with 'Dingbat' and 'Marmaduke', then the DiC series with 'the Cats and Company' [led by cat dwarf, and pimp cane sporting 'Riff Raff']. Seeing as I don't remember this Dingbat or Mamaduke, it's safe to assume I've only seen the DiC versions. And please, no jokes about crsP liking the DiC. Especially as I was watching it for the pussy! Ba-boom chii...

Best I leave it there for now. There's much I would want to say about Heathcliff.

NEW CHEAPER WACOM CINTIQ

Wow. Wacom has decided to bring out a new cheaper, smaller tablet. It's about the price of a new computer. And with that, I should caution against buying this immediately. The reason being is that there is a lot of speculation of Apple bringing out a new sub-notebook [i.e. small and compact]. Given the touch screen abilities on both it's recent releases of the iphone and ipod touch, and patenting of pressure sensitive screens, there may be a rival to the cintiq. Hopefully. But the speculation is that new machines will be introduced soon. So best to wait, I would say.

Meanwhile, for the poor, here are the findings of my experimentation to get better results from the lower end cheapos which wacom offer:

• Align the screen of your monitor and wacom surface so that the wacom is at the front of the monitor, and not to either side
• Tilt the wacom so that it's as vertical as you can get it without being uncomfortable to draw with
• Use a more vertical surface for the wacom - if you don't have an easel or something, rest on your lap in a seating position, as in the diagram
• You should also be facing the screen front on
• Make sure your back is supported well and that you're sitting comfortably
• Keep your head at the same height as your monitor
• Leave enough room for your drawing arm to do its gymnastics

And some settings in the wacom panel:

Open the wacom panel in System preferences [on a mac]. Add a new application and choose your drawing app [you'll not want to have these settings for all apps, which will become apparent later]. Choose the pen. What I like is to change the pen buttons so one navigates the canvas [most of the time it's holding down the space bar, but check in your app] and the other as 'undo' [Command plus Z]. I do this so I don't have to go to the keyboard as much. Now click the 'mapping' panel, as seen above. I use the 'Full' screen and tablet area, as the canvas is normally the whole screen when I draw. Also click the check-box 'Force Proportions' [circled red]. This isn't on by default and it seems to feel easier to draw when it's on. I think this has something to do with scaling down to the smaller tablet size, and having the height and width on the same scale. The down side is that you lose a bit of tablet drawing space [green circle] on a 4:3 aspect monitor [no idea what will happen on a widescreen monitor, but you might have a widescreen tablet].

Before you test these ideas out, you should use your wacom in your normal way to draw some circles. Try my tips and draw some more circles - do you feel a difference? I believe there is. It's not in my mind. I control the voices, they do not control me!!!

7 DAYS BAD LUCK

I noticed I was posting consecutive daily entries, so I decided to go for seven days in a row. Did it, with no encouragement from any of my many, naked, fans in the comment section. Yay me! Don't fear for my health, I'm not making this a daily update site. Although I see it as a good motivation to create something new, even when I don't feel like it. So I won't bind myself officially to being daily, but frequently sounds good to me. It's not up to you, so shut your big face.

Used a reference [not traced] from the show Supernatural for this one. Season 3 with the lucky rabbits foot and the girl with the gun out to collect on a fat paycheque - for those that watch it. This is her. Made up some of the anatomy, like the boObies and her left arm, and torso, plus the hair is loosely based on the real thing. Her gun arm had that funky bend in it, which I didn't think would work, but turned out okay. I did the inks really quick over an even quicker pencil construction, just to see what the result would be. Not too much difference from this previous long-laboured drawing. Then I thought I'd do a more comic style, so I blocked in some heavy shadows. Finally I coloured it poorly. Not intentionally.

SOMETHING FOR THE LADIES

Couldn't neglect all you horny females who clamour to this site for some mental massage. This was another thing from a few months ago that I decided to 'complete'. A lot of it is rushed, as you can tell.

SUN DRIED TOMATO

Thought I'd limit to using just a single-sized paint roller and eraser. Also decided against a last minute beach ball - that would clutter up the composition. The sun didn't come out as I wanted, and now I realise it's on the wrong side. But it works if you imagine the right arm twisted in a completely unatural way. hmm, more planning next time for the background. But it works if you imagine a good painting just in-front of this one.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS

Many people now claim to be 'scared' of clowns. It's all the rage these days. If someone on a site such as deviantart post one of these horror type clown pictures, you're sure to get someone commenting that clowns have always terrified them. Personally, I don't buy it. I weren't hearing any such phobias voiced prior to Stephen King's 'IT'. Now you have that popular movie [and book] and a slew of entertainment programs on television and in film portraying the evil clown archetype. Even in comics, as I gathered from the Spawn film [which was an adaptation of the comic]. Clowns for me are not scary. They are idiots, and can be seen as quite pathetic sometimes, but not scary. Much like a 'happy' drunk, as opposed to a wife beating bastard alcoholic.

I saw a clown in a 'proper' circus once, when I was in my early teens. He was doing his skit, and I did laugh. He did the bit where he pulled a tablecloth from under a well arranged tea set. After the timely audience applause, he then picked up the table and walked away, revealing the tea set to be attached by string to the table. Not original, but well done. But that was a professional. Most clowns are just dumb guys wearing a clown suit trying to make some change from children's parties.That's the harsh reality of clowns. Gone are the Chaplin wannabes.

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO, MONKEY SMOKE A BANANA

You may or may not have noticed the smooth ease into an upcoming Superman post I was planning from the previous post. That is, until I was outmanoeuvred by Eddie Fitzgerald, who quickly sneaked in a Superman post of his own, obviously to pre-empt me [are you telling me that it's a coincidence that after I did a post of my Gerald Scarfe shirt, he does one on a JohnK shirt?]. He's, quite blatantly, doing it so as to laugh at me. And Point. What with all this pointing and laughing, I thought it best to lay low and stick with the apes. Monkeys wont stab you in the back. Unless they had some sort of stabbing implement at hand.

LADIES, DO YOU LIKE IT ROUGH?

I likes monkey. Used to watch the T.V. show when I was younger. Love the Chinese animated cartoon. Read the original book [translated into English]. Was foolish enough at one point to think of making a cartoon of it. Then Jaime Hulett does that before me.

I like his designs, but he doesn't seem to be keeping to the description in the book - more like taking the idea of the character and the world around him, and making them conform to his vision.

This was just a sketch really. Not the animated character I had in mind at all. I've drawn him in different ways [I think this started as a pirate, who knows]. But I had this saved for a while now and I don't want to bother with painting up a really bad sketch. So neer.

Monkey, like Superman, is a very strange character when you think about it. They're both almost completely indestructible. And even if they could be beaten in a fist fight, they have other absurd powers. Superman has the inexplicable laser eyes and super cold breath. Monkey can make multiple versions of himself from strands of his fur, which he can then put back onto his body - essentially giving him a traveling army of monkeys just like him. I bet the pubes are the toughest though.

Where Monkey and Superman differ, however, is in their use of their powers. Monkey has no issues with showing off and using his abilities to make life easier. He wanted to use them to collect the scriptures from the west but the Budhavista was having none of that. Party pooper. But Superman and his self-righteous attitude will instead pretend to be a nerdy journalist all day when he could be saving lives or building orphanages. What kind of logic is that? Don't say kryptonian logic. That would be dumb.

USE YOUR BRAIN

One thing which seems to be popular with people doing life drawings is the caricatured life model. This is just wrong, and if any instructor is allowing this to go on, then they are IDIOTS. Life drawing is about observation and re-creation of what you see on the page. I think people who do caricatured life drawings are doing a disservice to themselves as they are not making the advancements that life drawing provides under proper application. Sure, there'll be some funny looking, and in a broad viewing, 'good' drawings. But more likely than not, these will be presented without the original model as reference to the viewer, so they're easily fooled. The rubes. It's a lot easier to accidentally unknowingly mess up proportions when you're caricaturing, but because you are engaging in the act, you let all these mistakes slip in. You lose the ability to correctly analyse what you have created against reality. Caricature can be done AFTER 'real' study. No one is stopping you from adding big noses, when the time comes. It's just a suggestion based on logic, you don't have to follow what I say. I wont shed a tear for you. I refuse to baby!

DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO BEING AN ANIMATOR!

Ever had the need to fake being an animator convincingly, so as to impress a lady you had just met at a party? Not had the time to learn how to animate? Never fear, crsP is here to turn you into a genuine bona-fide animator, in less than one day! Shall we begin? Let's!

There are two things that make an animator. Let us investigate. If you look around, you will find many drawings made by animators, which are curiously drawn in blue. Animator types will have you believe that the reason for this would be that the blue colour was not visible during the copying procedure so clean up could be done directly over the rough blue pencils. But the truth is that in the days of Renaissance painting, the most opulent colour to use was blue, as the pigment used to mix the paint for that colour was more difficult to get and thus more expensive. Animators like to use the tradition of the regal blue as a warning signal to artists of other media of their superior might. Note that they present most of their blue 'animated drawings' on normal paper with no peg holes. So firstly you will need a blue pencil.

The other thing that defines an animator is Life Drawing. The animator, typically sexually deprived, will take as much opportunity to gaze upon naked flesh as they can get. To avoid the chances of being put in prison for their obvious deviant behaviour, the animator will make drawings of the naked and call them 'studies', which could later be used in court as evidence in their case. Note that there are more cartoons about animals than there are of women with unshaven areas.
So the solution is simple. You just need to make a drawing of a nude, in blue pencil and leave it lying about casually where you live.

As you can see, you don't even need to have drawn from life, as in the above picture which I produced some months ago. Obviously the proportions and pose are a bit off [understatement] in this drawing. But it's just enough to fool the casual observer.

CURIOUS GEORGE

He's probably heard his name mentioned by his wife on the phone. How dare you suggest that he's keeping a quick lookout whilst MASTURBATING!!! I'm appalled by you. That's a newspaper he's holding, not a semen catching sock!

Was extra careful with the inks this time, but the 'wobble' is still there. Now I can blame the wacom. Finally.

SCARFE

This is a photo of a t-shirt I got from the Annecy Animation Festival, the first, and only animation event I have been to. I think it came with those stains, and the label advices against ironing...look, it's an old shirt and I couldn't find a large enough surface to lay it on flat. Plus I couldn't be bothered ironing it for the internet. Stop judging me.

Great design by Gerald Scarfe, which unfortunately, Disney deviated from drastically when they made their animated version. Why pay him any money to design your cartoon, when you have no intention of using his designs? Madness. Would have been a much better looking film. One thing I remember is that the goat guy had no butt crack. It was just too much for the folks at Disney. I think they should have taken it in the opposite direction. I've seen sheep with white\cream wool, but look around and they have the dirtiest arses out there. Disney should have had that character with a few dingleberries for realism.

That's all I got from annecy. Plus I got to see the Beavis and Butthead movie, James and the Giant Peach, and other such things I could have stayed at home and wait for to turn up on television...

Wasn't a worthwhile trip, I must admit. The area is quite scenic, and if it was just a holiday then it would be a good place to go. But I didn't meet any interesting animators. I'm not sure, but I don't think I met any animators at all. A few 'representatives' from this and that company. With nothing interesting to say for themselves.

I suspect I'm not a festival go-er. What is there to do? Walk around, and talk to someone's lawyer? Wow, fun. Please stop this crazy roller-coaster.

INTENTIONAL PLAGIARISM

This was done some time last year [2006]. Was checking out the trial version of Painter. That ended after 60 days, but I had only saved it in Painter's native 'riff' format. Finally got to a computer with Painter on it so I exported as a photoshop psd, which I knew to work with Artrage. I was thinking of putting a backdrop in there, but I decided to leave it as-is. I did have to erase some spillage that occurred in the conversion to psd. I think it might have been a mask that doesn't get imported\exported correctly between formats.

It's good to see some old work, at least it shows I'm making some progress with my painting techniques [albeit not much progress]. Strangely the inking seems to be better than what I do these days. Not sure. I think I was using pastels for colouring. Possibly oil pastels. Used to do some pastel and oil pastel stuff with 'real' materials. Thought I was quite the hotshot, till one fateful day I saw the work of some girl on the course I was doing, which completely blew away anything I had done with pastels. So naturally I resented them after that point. hehee! Can't remember how I did those tears, but I sure do like! The whole thing is a bit pixelated though

Oh yeah, this frog is from a Ren and Stimpy cartoon. Phew, narrowly avoided litigation there. Oh, I didn't take credit for the character, that means it's no longer plagiarism, and that makes this whole post a SHAM!