we've got spirit, yes we do

this shot looks really familiar. am i incapable of drawing a punch from another angle?


it's funny how the comic book version of the spirit very prominently features a single color, which happens not to make an appearance in the movie version. not that i necessarily think it was a bad call, just interesting. i will say, though, that if the main character was totally blue instead of black, it may have cut back on the sin city comparisons.

it sucks to color a drawing of a character in black - all that work and you can hardly see it. i like the way the blue one turned out.

mrow.

there's an elusive element whenever i try to draw cats, whether it's freehand, from life or photo-referenced. these were all practice in case i ever want to use my cat, shell, in another comic. i think he'd be funny as an oblivious sidekick to me as a less-than-ideal crimefighter, as depicted underneath all the cats.

i also watched "the spirit" again last night. i'm probably the only person i know who thinks that frank miller made a good call choosing to make it so over the top - i thought it really worked.

color debut

after practicing all those costumes yesterday i thought i needed to apply them to an action shot. i doodled this (first in pencil to get it right) before leaving for the day.



then today i scanned it in and spent entirely too long coloring it in photoshop, mostly because i think you can't really tell what's going on in my doodles in black and white - color helps to clarify the boundaries.

incidentally, take a look at the late 90s update of the classic joes cartoon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fuvfg7XaNWI
nothing ingratiates your product to youth culture faster than arbitrarily calling out vaguely youthful terms like "EXTREME!" to punctuate your ideas.

yo joe!

and while we're on the subject of totally great costumes, here comes G.I. joe. my absolute favorite childhood toy and cartoon is being adapted into a feature film, but they are letting all these great costumes (and so many more) go to waste. who ever heard of a military unit with matching uniforms? boring.

these are all referenced from some (french?) guy's insanely vast micro-heroes site at:
http://jerome.galica.free.fr/divers/gijoe/gijoe.htm

take the time to at least watch the intro to the animated movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZdgIA7E1xU

or if you're already familiar, check out the venture bros. parody:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP_EqfZK_zk

sasquatch

all freehand, including the name of the B.P.R.D. monster - which should have been remembered as "wendigo," not "yeti."

bureaucrats

i continued a little venture bros. doodling at the end of last week (and subsequently had to photo-reference bears), but didn't post because there was so little.

then over the weekend i read 2 volumes of B.P.R.D., the hellboy comic spinoff, which is always a lot of fun, even if you forget it in between. i hadn't read any comics in a while, but reading really cool comics always makes you want to read more, so maybe this time next week i'll be doodling something from "powers," "criminal" (not likely - no recurring characters) or "popbot."

all of the B.P.R.D. costume designs are awesome. there was no way i was going to be able to remember or make up the details, so i had to cheat off google's paper a little.

UPDATE: thanks to curtis for recognizing the need to temper my B.P.R.D. ownership withdrawals with a 2 volume loan.

warriors of virtue

the post it on top of this page represents my induction into the toughest gang of "sometime in the future," the warriors. apparently the official dress code for the warriors requires either shirtlessness or a skin-tight muscle shirt (for when it gets cold) beneath your red leather vest. also pictured are my role models among the gang, ajax and rembrandt. somehow i actually managed to DE-emphasize his afro with my charicature.

as i watched this movie for the first time the other night, i kept thinking it was a good candidate for a remake. that's not a thought i have often, but in this case i see an interesting setup with definable characters that happens to suffer from an execution riddled with cliches of its era and unfulfilling, out-of-date effects and fight scenes. i think i could really enjoy a better version.

two things i've been enjoying over the past week are the new venture bros. season 3 DVDs and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, for nintendo DS. i've been enjoying them so much, in fact, that i want to combine them. my epiphany: the perfect approach to a venture brothers video game would be a castlevania parody. enter a room, take out 2 monarch henchmen and a ghost pirate, rescue trianna, check the map and get a talisman from dr. orpheus. totally compatible.

i have a confession to make: i only doodled the venture bros. so i could indulge in my castlevania video game idea in this blog. i've entered self-conscious doodle territory.