Illustration Exercises

This is for Illustration. We were given blank shapes--a cylinder, a cube, a sphere, and a circle. Then we had to ink something over them while retaining their shape.

More Charcoal!

Right back to the kind of stuff I was doing a year ago. That's okay, though, because I need to get back to charcoals, and doing all these sketches, though sometimes boring and frustrating when my proportions don't come out right (i.e. her thick right arm), is actually a bit cathartic (emotionally, not physically).

I gotta say, though, I've spoiled myself over summer. I've been doing pretty good with the comic, considering I always have other shit on my back burner awaiting my attention. But once school started, I realized I didn't have my "school legs" yet. I had late assignments my first week, and it was an extended week! I'm trying to get myself back into a groove of doing things so I'm not always turning stuff in late.

So far, my classes are pretty interesting. Intermediate Figure Drawing is a lot of the same principles as the other figure drawing classes, just expanded. I miss shading, though, so I'm happy when we're asked to put in shadows & highlights.

Illustration is probably one of my harder classes, mainly because for some reason, it's hard to grasp exactly what I'm supposed to be doing from one assignment to the next. I'm getting more comfortable wth it, though.

Comics is fun. I figured it would be, but right off the bat we get to start doing comics work. Right now it's a lot of stick figures and working on physical expression of character, but down the road, we'll be able to abandon the stick figure comics and begin focusing on the drawing aspect.

I've got the next page of Golden Brown about half inked, so we'll see what kind of progress I make by Friday.

The Value of Hatching an Illustration

This was our first assignment in my Illustration class. The first column is values done in pencil. The second is ink, using hatching and cross hatching. The third is using symbols & characters. Okay, so I fucked up the symbol one and made the values ambiguous, but shut up then.

Scroll down to see the other couple of things.

These are inked drawings that look like each other. The projectile point (an obvious choice for me) and the spade were an easy comparison.

These aren't terribly similar, they're just shadowed the same. The bottom one is a teeny bit from the GF Herald building after the fire in '97. I didn't look at a picture this time, though, so there isn't a whole lot of detail.

Yellowjackets, Motel Racket, and We May Not Be a Good Band, But We Have Fun, Dammit!

Last week, we started getting yellowjackets in our house. We've had the occasional one before, being summer and all, but last week, we started seeing them every day. We talked to our landlady about it before heading off to Devils Lake for the weekend. Coming back, we found a note that she was coming over Sunday evening to spray.
Why not Friday or Saturday evening, I don't know. We usually don't have any problems with our landlady, but if she says she'll get back to you on something, you won't hear from her for weeks. But she isn't intrusive or demanding about the way we run our house (some private landlords can be).
Anyway, she did come over and spray, and the next morning we still had them coming in. The big problem now, though, is that we can't figure out how the hell they got in in the first place. And once they get in, they get pissy about being swung at with a newspaper (I'm serious--I have a killing paper and my aim and snap is getting good), though they're angry little buggers to begin with. Not like bees. Bees will fly around you, bug you a little, but at least will generally wait until you make the first swing before buzzing "self defense!!" and pointing their little butts at you. No, these are wasps--Dolichovespula--these things don't die after first sting--they can sting you several times before it becomes embedded. Karissa was stung last week (just once), and it was still alive when she realized what it was, crawling on the couch.
And they're like ninjas. You don't hear them. They sneak up behind your head, and you don't know it until your girlfriend's eyes get big as saucer plates and she deftly leaps off the couch and says calmly (aware of the irony there), "There's a wasp behind your head."
My reaction, though manly, was quick. Following a blasphemous exclamation, I grabbed my killing paper and did the deed every man must do for his family.
So moving on, we still couldn't pinpoint their position of entry. I closed the vents, barracaded the floor moulding, and sprayed anyplace else I thought they might be using. This morning, I stuck a bug bomb in our attic, then Karissa, Aiden and I (Isabella was already at Headstart) went to Kevin and April's house.
We dropped Isabella off at Daycare that afternoon, then went home to see how(if) it worked. We found 3 wasps on the window shade, 2 on the couch, and 7 on the floor, all writhing in various states of dying agony and unable to fly. Just about all of them were still alive. The bittersweet news is that it's working, but unfortunately we don't know how many more of these little fuckers we have to find in our house before we can say we got them all. Also, those still alive and not poisoned have got to be REALLY pissed that we just committed vespicide on their whole community. If we don't hear from our landlady by tomorrow, I'm thinking of getting some Delta dust for a last ditch effort before w call in a pro.
Changing the subject, this weekend was fun. It was nice to see my mom again, we hadn't seen her since Easter, and hadn't talked much since then either. Summer seems like a better time for her anyway. Her spirits are usually higher and she seems more interested in seeing Isabella. We didn't have a big party or anything for Isabella--by the third party, it's really just giving her a few presents and watching her open them--but she had fun. She got a new green Carebear from Tab and Derek, which she now prefers to her old blue one for now. My sister got her a little yellow duffel bag whic works better for toys than her canvas bag did. My mom got her a little outfit and surprised us all by choosing a really cute one that wasn't dated.
When we were up in July, I wanted to jam really bad, but no one was really into the idea, so this time around I kind of forced it on Derek & Kevin. Kevin wasn't really into the idea at first, but once we were loading the amps in, he got into the spirit more. How fitting is it, that for all our connections to the hospitality industry, we would be practicing in a shut-down wing of a motel Derek's wife manages? It was very run-down and dingy, and it was awesome. Kind of like when we practiced in Amadon's basement, except without Amadon being a little bitch and his wife being a little Amadon.
We sucked. But that's okay, we knew we would. I just had to get into a place where I could get fucking loud and play the hell out of my Dean. Guitars need to be hotrodded on every now and then, that's how they feel appreciated. The good ones like it rough.
We also worked on some original stuff. It was funny, because when I show Kevin some riffs I had in mind a while back, he thought they sounded silly. But when I played them in a full song, he warmed up to them a lot more and saw how well a foundation I had started with.
I'm making Kevin sound a bit prickish, so I'm going to go ahead and say that he needs convincing. I have to sell him on ideas I have, and I appreciate that he's not blindly receptive. Don't want to play tonight? Just humor me long nough to get behind your drumset. Don't like that riff I'm playing very much? Just listen to it within a song. That's the way I can find out if I've got something workable. If he hears it and still doesn't like it, well I'll probably tell him he's wrong but I just feel better if I can get him enthused. And to be fair, he usually has to sell me an idea the same way. That's probably why we've been able to get along musically while having such different tastes.
Derek, on the other hand has forgotten much of what he learned on bass. He'll admit it himself. It's been a while since we practiced on a schedule (which I reinforced every Wednesday night in high school for almost a whol year), and he's busy carving out a metalworking niche for himself. in fact, I'll post his myspace address shortly so those of you who havn't seen some of his work can check it out.
But Derek shares many of my musical tastes, and what he listens to, he loves.
Kevin's got a history of musical education backing him, as well as a natural aptitude for learning. That makes him highly adaptable musically. Derek's got drive and passion. That makes him worth my time to work with. What do I got? Well, duh, I'm Doug. That's what I got.
Speaking of my awesomeness (I havn't nough yet), a new page of Golden Brown will not be seen this week, so I may bring you a short comic I did as a beginning assignment for my comics class. It won't be inked, just penciled, and is slightly unfinished. Our assignment was to grab a couple sheets of paper and bang out a story in 20 minutes. You'll see it Friday. Golden Brown will resume the following week, but Iwarn you right now that this may happen frequently.
One last thing. I have a digital recorder that I use to record riffs and songs with my acoustic. I bought a cheap MP3 player at Gordman's that just happens to have a recording function, and it records my acoustic way better than my digital recorder ever did. Isn't that fucked up?

Clown Shock, Greedy Peacocks, and...SPIDERS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!!

The weekend was okay. Karissa triumphed over her coulrophobia and went to Halloween, which she loved. On Sunday, we took Isabella to Chuck E. Cheese in Fargo for her birthday party with her grandma. She was a little nervous about the animatronic band, but after a couple Huey Lewis songs, she loosened up a little. She liked all the games, as did we, apparently. Photographic evidence will show up on Karissa's blog, I'm sure.
After Chuck E Cheese, we took her to the Fargo Zoo. No lions or polar bears, but there was a statue of a "tigalo", a buffalo painted like a tiger. I know you're thinking 'handsome Doug, where can I get one?' Believe me, they only come in one size, and wouldn't fit you.
The zoo was pretty fun, though. She got to see some tarantulas. It's funny to see a kid who gets freaked out by flies buzzing around her liking tarantulas and other spiders. We got her some dippin' dots while we were there, and while she was eating them, a peacock wandered up and stole some! She thought it was funny, because he'd just peck really fast and get a few. I tapped him on the beak with our plastic spoon, causing him to recoil back quickly, and Isabella thought it was hilarious. I did it one more time, then sh wanted to try it. Eventually, the peacock got tired of being beak-tapped and laughed at by a little girl, so he wandered away. But the whole time, he would pause and turn his head towards us, just waiting for us to put the dots down again. Finally he said 'Fuck it' (or would have if peacocks could talk, which would have scared the shit out of me if they did because they would all sound like Bobby Trendy and at one point they'd all flick their wings flamboyantly and holler 'yoohooooooo, do you like my plumage?') and left.
I bought her a sticky tarantula toy at the gift shop that climbs down walls--you know, like those weird octopus things we got out of cereal boxes?--, but she got more out of chasing mommy with it and throwing it at me than watching it roll creepily down a wall. Jerk.
I got a new page of Golden Brown ready and rarin' to go, so check it out--Friday. After that, I'm taking a week break. Why? Because I got a two page comic I'm putting up in it's stead. It's my first assignment from my comics class, and I have yet to post it there. But you guys will see it soon enough.

Cuatro-Movie Madness!

Weeeeeelllllll, I got a few minutes to kill at the moment, maybe I should let you guys in on What Doug's Watching. It's like a movie corner, except the television is what's actually in the corner, naked and shivering, crying to me, "No more, no more! For the love of Doug go outside!"
Yeah, that'd be nice.
But anyhow, I'm going over 4 movies in order of how I saw them.
First up is John Waters' Pink Flamingos. Remember Hairspray? He did that one, too. And Divine was in both. But you don't want kids watching Pink Flamingos. You don't want kids or parents anywhere near you while watching this. It's about a viscous killer named Divine (name of the cross-dressing actress as well) who's hiding out in Baltimore while maintaining her title of the Filthiest Person Alive. But there is a couple in town who want to take that title away from her. The movie is just so much chicken fetish/incest/black-market-baby/masturbation/indecent-exposure/licking/murder, and yet, for the most part, you can't stop watching it. Waters himself makes no excuses for the movie. It is what it is.
Next movie I saw was Halloween --the Rob Zombie version, which I went to with Derek, Tab, Kevin and April. This movie seemed some parts remake, some parts prequel. Where the original focused quite a bit on Laurie (his baby sister), the new one takes a better look at Michael Myers himself. It actually brought a more human aspect to Michael, even though he was an amoral psycho. Zombie even kept much of the 70's music in it, and even managed to get in Misfits' Halloween II on a radio. Pretty much anything Rob Zombie lays his hands on turns all black and shrivelly, but that "black and shrivelly" to me is like "gold" to normal, undeified folks. The movie was awesome. And I might watch it again this Saturday with Karissa.
Third on my list is Gory, Gory, Hallelujah. Jeez, this one's kinda hard to describe. A group of hack theater actors all audtion for the part of Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told"--that is, a bitter black guy, a bitter Jew, a bitter woman, and a neohippie moron. None get the part, so they decide to travel to New York to try out for Jesus Christ Superstar. They embark from Seattle, Washington, and on their way to New York somehow end up in the deep South. They get into a fight with an Elvis Impersonator convention and end up killing an Elvis (don't worry, not a real one). So they get out and end up in a little bumfuck town called Jackville. The neohippie, who is bisexual, offers a little nookie to a southern guy peeing in a gas station bathroom and gets busted by the cops. They're all taken in to the church (wtf??) where they're remanded to the custody of various townfolk. The black guy goes to the Preacher (who has devil-horn eyebrows), the girl to a woman soon revealed to be a hardcore neofeminist "witch", the Jewish dude ends up at the local whorehouse (located in a deep marsh), and the neohippie goes to a local old black guy, who's parents had been "accidentally lynched" in the 60's by the townspeople.
A lot of stuff happens, a big rod is found that looks a lot like a penis made from a skinny barber's pole. After that it becomes a zombie flick, as the old guy's ancestors rise up from there graves and start killing people (the "rod" is involved). More stuff happens, the girl is the only one left alive, the zombies are still milling around, grilling body parts, dancing, trying to remember how to play instruments, typically zombie stuff. Then the old black guy, who had died, turns out to be God.
Simple enough. I wouldn't have described so much of it, but who among you was actually planning on watching it? Yeah, fuck you, liar. It was a good movie, though. And funny.
Last on my list, and possibly least, is a movie I found on Netflix called Beer Drinkers In Outer Space. To give you an idea of how popular this movie is, I couldn't even find it in the Internet Movie Database--hence, no hyperlink.
This movie was filmed by some guys in a house in Orlando, Florida, who may have had access to bowling machinery and/or a bowling alley. As they filmed the movie, they got progressivly drunk. Th acting is terrible, most of the movie itself nevr leaves the main pilot's cockpit.
The plot? A ship is carrying beer to Nebuli 7-11 (I know, I know) to people who love people, when they confronted by Probes, an alien race whose descendants acted stupid and drove funny because of beer, so now they want revenge by eliminating all beer from the galaxy. Whew!
A fighter pilot happens upon the confrontation (a horrible actor who looked like he was actually playing atari in a helmet) and helps the ship out a bit. Again, stuff happens, another alien race called the Leshinboons calls the ship and tries to sell them tapes discussing the word of Love. They're funny little green puppet aliens, perhaps the funniest part of the movie. More stuff happens, and at this point the most important thing you need to know is that whenever the crew received bad news, one would call out "Condition Red!" and they would all chug a beer. It's a way of taking bad news better. Damn good advice actually.
So that's it. Those are movies I've seen thus far.
I just started my classes today, but I'm actually gonna wait to tell you guys about it until after the weekend.
By the way new Golden Brown up and running!