d
Aug 30, 2009
Starting Up Mechagodzilla
Working a new image for my buddy Andy's book, Man Made Monsters. Not sure if I'll be able to use this particular image, since it's a copyrighted character. If so, I'll make something else. Here's my thumbnail and my pencils for it. Still lots of decisions to make with it and I'm not sure when I'm going to have a good block of time to work on it. Busy week coming up.
d
d
Aug 25, 2009
D-9 Update II
This might be done. Spent some more time on it tonight. Happy with how the shantytown came out. It's important to make sure that detailed bits of background look right so they don't wreck the whole piece.
As I was finishing up, Nick told me that Ted Kennedy had died, around midnight tonight. I know his last effort was to push through a proper universal health care system so that we could join the rest of the modern, shoe-wearing world. It's despicable that so many went to so much trouble to destroy a dying man's efforts, and hurt the rest of us in the process, just in the name of greed. Many of those people will be on the TV tomorrow, weeping and reciting fake sentiment.
Rest in peace, you will be missed.
As I was finishing up, Nick told me that Ted Kennedy had died, around midnight tonight. I know his last effort was to push through a proper universal health care system so that we could join the rest of the modern, shoe-wearing world. It's despicable that so many went to so much trouble to destroy a dying man's efforts, and hurt the rest of us in the process, just in the name of greed. Many of those people will be on the TV tomorrow, weeping and reciting fake sentiment.
Rest in peace, you will be missed.
Ancient stuff
Digging through the backroom pile of crap that qualifies as my 'archive,' I came across some ancient history. From probably 1995 or so. I was prepping to graduate college and find a new job so I had put together some demo sheets of my skills.
Batman and the Maxx, who was for whatever reason, the biggest thing in comics at the time. That character is pretty much lost to history at this point. Note the versions of Illustrator. These were all pre-transparency and I had yet to discover the wonders of creating my own brushes.
Batman and the Maxx, who was for whatever reason, the biggest thing in comics at the time. That character is pretty much lost to history at this point. Note the versions of Illustrator. These were all pre-transparency and I had yet to discover the wonders of creating my own brushes.
Aug 21, 2009
Aug 20, 2009
Final Roller Derby Poster
My oh my, so many nice new things up here...here's the final version of this.
Thoughts about District-9
There are District-9 spoilers in this post. But seriously, go see this movie. These comments won't make much sense till you do.
So the film is about racism, tribalism, ghettoism, and the Other. Racism among humans seems to have dissipated once the prawn were known to exist. But that's how human tribes are. If the prawn left for good, humans would go back to segregating and killing one another (the word 'prawn' should be capitalized if it's used for a race, but I'll explain later why I don't think that's necessary).
I thought the film was overly intense, but no one else seemed to. Maybe they did and they didn't want to be called a sissy, but whatever, I'm more interested in figuring out what affected me. What I've come up with is that I'm really bothered by the idea of being pulled out of a shitty house, and put on your knees by people with guns. Whether you're a human, a prawn or Donald frigging Duck, it bothers me. Then shooting them in the head while they're on their knees? Yeah, that's too much.
It's not a video game movie, nor is it a sci-fi action flick, even D-9's most kickass fight scenes are too awkward for that. Even to the point that the commando bad guy who harasses Wikus, isn't killed by Wikus, but by a horde of prawn defending Wikus. Rather than a kickass moment, it's almost melancholy, a realization that he's past the tipping point, more prawn than human.
So here's the real braintease, as I see it. There are a load of unanswered questions (and talk of a sequel), but among that series of questions there are clues hiding.
D-9 left me wondering if the prawn species originally looked like the prawn form, or if it were a manifestation of the fluid. As if they were actually some third humanoid form, who had been exposed to the juice. What other purpose would there be for that fluid to exist?
Why would that prawn-fluid exist? Why would we humans create a fluid that turned another species, let's say dogs, into humans? To create an easily controlled sub-human, slave species, either warrior-slaves, or miner-slaves. That would explain why the tools and weapons are only activated by the species, or why other, larger equipment would run on the same prawn-fluid-fuel. The fluid is a DNA or virus and also a fuel, not a security measure, as we (or MNU) would perceive it to be. And the more fluid, the bigger equipment it can power, like the small ship. These different stages of the same fluid is addressed by CJ's 'chemistry set'.
Also, if they were slaves on a mining job, that would explain why they went to Africa. I think this is an obvious subtext, no need to get into it.
Bottom line, I think Christopher Johnson doesn't really look like that. I think he was exposed to the fluid, got sick with prawnism, and wasn't able to feed and care for his slaves. There are two levels of prawn: the workers, with no sense of direction, no ideas, no brains; and there are the three that we know of that have their minds intact, Christopher Johnson, CJ's child, and Wikus. Wikus was intelligent enough to build things, sneak out of D-10 and back in, all while remaining anonymous. This seems to point to the idea that prawn-form is an unnatural state. If a smart human becomes a prawn, he still thinks like a smart human (albeit a smart human trying to figure out how to survive in this form), but if a dog becomes a prawn, it behaves like a dog.
Which made me wonder why the slaves wouldn't rise up with the weapons, revolt against the owners? I don't think the slave-level prawn would revolt in their normal situation, they would just fill their purpose, in the same fashion as worker ants/bees/etc.
The 'unnatural state theory' would also explain why he has a technology to reverse the process. Just in case one of the higher-ups like himself were infected with prawnism.
That's my 2¢. Enjoy this sketch of Wikus van der Merwe.
So the film is about racism, tribalism, ghettoism, and the Other. Racism among humans seems to have dissipated once the prawn were known to exist. But that's how human tribes are. If the prawn left for good, humans would go back to segregating and killing one another (the word 'prawn' should be capitalized if it's used for a race, but I'll explain later why I don't think that's necessary).
I thought the film was overly intense, but no one else seemed to. Maybe they did and they didn't want to be called a sissy, but whatever, I'm more interested in figuring out what affected me. What I've come up with is that I'm really bothered by the idea of being pulled out of a shitty house, and put on your knees by people with guns. Whether you're a human, a prawn or Donald frigging Duck, it bothers me. Then shooting them in the head while they're on their knees? Yeah, that's too much.
It's not a video game movie, nor is it a sci-fi action flick, even D-9's most kickass fight scenes are too awkward for that. Even to the point that the commando bad guy who harasses Wikus, isn't killed by Wikus, but by a horde of prawn defending Wikus. Rather than a kickass moment, it's almost melancholy, a realization that he's past the tipping point, more prawn than human.
So here's the real braintease, as I see it. There are a load of unanswered questions (and talk of a sequel), but among that series of questions there are clues hiding.
D-9 left me wondering if the prawn species originally looked like the prawn form, or if it were a manifestation of the fluid. As if they were actually some third humanoid form, who had been exposed to the juice. What other purpose would there be for that fluid to exist?
Why would that prawn-fluid exist? Why would we humans create a fluid that turned another species, let's say dogs, into humans? To create an easily controlled sub-human, slave species, either warrior-slaves, or miner-slaves. That would explain why the tools and weapons are only activated by the species, or why other, larger equipment would run on the same prawn-fluid-fuel. The fluid is a DNA or virus and also a fuel, not a security measure, as we (or MNU) would perceive it to be. And the more fluid, the bigger equipment it can power, like the small ship. These different stages of the same fluid is addressed by CJ's 'chemistry set'.
Also, if they were slaves on a mining job, that would explain why they went to Africa. I think this is an obvious subtext, no need to get into it.
Bottom line, I think Christopher Johnson doesn't really look like that. I think he was exposed to the fluid, got sick with prawnism, and wasn't able to feed and care for his slaves. There are two levels of prawn: the workers, with no sense of direction, no ideas, no brains; and there are the three that we know of that have their minds intact, Christopher Johnson, CJ's child, and Wikus. Wikus was intelligent enough to build things, sneak out of D-10 and back in, all while remaining anonymous. This seems to point to the idea that prawn-form is an unnatural state. If a smart human becomes a prawn, he still thinks like a smart human (albeit a smart human trying to figure out how to survive in this form), but if a dog becomes a prawn, it behaves like a dog.
Which made me wonder why the slaves wouldn't rise up with the weapons, revolt against the owners? I don't think the slave-level prawn would revolt in their normal situation, they would just fill their purpose, in the same fashion as worker ants/bees/etc.
The 'unnatural state theory' would also explain why he has a technology to reverse the process. Just in case one of the higher-ups like himself were infected with prawnism.
That's my 2¢. Enjoy this sketch of Wikus van der Merwe.
Aug 19, 2009
Inking, Coloring Day 2 Roller Derby.
I have lots more to do on this, but it was a busy morning and this is my pencils-down deadline for today. Needed to get them something presentables for this afternoonses. Enjoys...
And a little bit of context for this afternoon. iTunes Genius is a riot, esp when pushed to the 100 limit. So much funny info in this image:
And a little bit of context for this afternoon. iTunes Genius is a riot, esp when pushed to the 100 limit. So much funny info in this image:
Aug 18, 2009
Aug 17, 2009
What is this?
What is this nice box that has arrived on my porch this morning?
Looks nice.
Smooth borders, no clumsy edges on the art.
Got my trucks ready to screw in. Found these on a busted board down by Vincent's one night.
Thanks, litterpunk!
EDIT: This surface is really beautiful, but the closer you get, you do see that there is some inkjetting at work here, not quite museum/gallery quality, but still pretty awesome. Definitely worth it. Anyone interested in one of their own can click here*.
Or here.
Or here.
Or even here.
You get the idea.
Thanks, everybubby!
*Also, I just saw $5 off for orders over $45, use code SUMMER5OFF45. All boards are usually $59, sans trucks.
Looks nice.
Smooth borders, no clumsy edges on the art.
Got my trucks ready to screw in. Found these on a busted board down by Vincent's one night.
Thanks, litterpunk!
EDIT: This surface is really beautiful, but the closer you get, you do see that there is some inkjetting at work here, not quite museum/gallery quality, but still pretty awesome. Definitely worth it. Anyone interested in one of their own can click here*.
Or here.
Or here.
Or even here.
You get the idea.
Thanks, everybubby!
*Also, I just saw $5 off for orders over $45, use code SUMMER5OFF45. All boards are usually $59, sans trucks.
Aug 15, 2009
Flyer for CMRD
Yeah, you better make some noise for Central Mass Roller Derby.
This here's just my sketch for a new flyer. I'll be finishing it up this week. Final will be full-color.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)