Camoflage

Well, I rushed this one a bit and I'm still down to the wire. I'd hate to get lapped by IF.

I was out of town on Friday. Headed down to Mass. to visit my folks and to CT to go to a friend's delayed family wedding reception. It was a good trip. I 'discovered' a bunch of fabulous, purpose-built mountain bike singletrack off of a trail I've been riding for years (For reason of my own, I choose to call the "Queen Latifah Trail"). And, at the reception, I got to see my friend's 53 year-old-mom, my friend's wife and HIS best friend's lesbian partner do synchronized hip-hop dancing (it was his mom's idea). That and I listened to 10 hours of very compelling vintage sci-fi radio drama on the drive. Fabulous.

The drawing was done for IF, but it also wasn't. I had no ideas, so I hit my old sketchbook looking for something to get me going. I found the little robot guy you see. He started as an umpire-bot, but turned into a battlefield medic-bot. I built a little story-snipped around him and this piece is subtitled "Old Number 15". I think it'd be a great seed for a Wierd War Tale.

The inking was fun to do, but I blew off the shading and rushed the color to get this in under the deadline.

Rejection

Woo Hoo! This is my earliest IF post ever.

I win.

Anyway. I did rush this a bit to get the early (for me) post. Thanks to all of those who gave me such great feedback last week; the shadows aren't my best, but they are there. I used this definition for 'Rejection':

"an immune response in which foreign tissue (as of a skin graft or transplanted organ) is attacked by immune system components of the recipient organism".

So, here's rejection:



A no-prize to whomever can name the movie this references (though, remember, you'll be showing your age and/or geekiness by answering correctly). Speaking of no-prizes. The answer to last week's no-prize question was "Sebastian Stark" as played by James Woods in the TV show 'Shark'. The key to the answer was the fact that I said 'attempting to portray" and not "what he looks like".

What I'm listening to while posting: "Man, It's So Loud In Here" by They Might Be Giants off of 'Mink Car'. ( I like this song and like TMBG, but I didn't buy this album because it came with a giant sticker that read '
"featuring 'yeah, yeah, yeah!' from the Chrysler commercial!" and a Chrysler logo)

Suit

Hey, I'm back.

I managed to fit three references to this week's topic into my piece! It isn't bad. I really have to work on my inking style; my pencils look good, but when I ink, it loses something. Of course, part of me worries that I'll never get a style. The other part worries that I do have a style and it isn't good. Heh.

I took reference photos of myself for this. I was wearing a pretty nice, immaculate, vintage, single-breasted, two-button gray pinstripe suit that I got at a local used clothing shop for $15. The jacket fits great, but the trousers are about 6" too long.

Anyway, here's the ink:


and here's the pencil:



And a no-prize to whoever can identify what television lawyer I was attempting to portray.

non-IF work

So, this is what I was working on instead of 'your paradise'. This is from an idea I've been kicking around for a comic. Sort of a Blackhawks/ Sky Captain alternate past deal, only with a female protagonist. Cheesy? Sort of. I picture her character as a trailblazer (a woman flying actual combat rather than just a ferry pilot or trainer). A lot could be done with her relationships with the male pilots. However, I'm not a great writer and can barely write from my own perspective, let alone a woman's. If anyone else feels like writing...

This worked pretty well. I've been very hesitant to use black lately. So, I went heavy on the black here. This almost works, but something isn't right. Not with the color work, but with the linework. I think I'm going to try again. and again.

your paradise

I'm sorry to disappoint anyone looking for an illustration for this subject, but I'm abstaining from this topic due to it's crappiness.

It's the 'your' that does it. Just 'paradise' would have left enough open (Bosch's 'garden of earthly delights' but with robots!), but the 'your' makes it personal. My first reaction was to the cheesiness of it. The second was how simplistic it was. It ticked me off! How many of us really have only one vision of our paradise? And if we have more than one, can any one be the most important to warrant a drawing?

Me? I've got dozens; more recently since I'm trying to be more Taoist in my life. I have mini-paradises all through my life. I'd enjoy revisiting them all and all of them are too important to trap ineptly in a drawing. So, instead of a drawing, you get lots of words:

Gerry Dyer's lake house in the early 80's. Kids, canoes, swimming, playing jellyroll hopscotch in the dirt road and going to sleep on the screened in porch sunburned and happy.

Standing in the driving mist on the sea cliffs on the peninsula on the Coast Guard base on Kodiak Island, Alaska. The smell of the ocean and the sound of gulls in the fog and nobody else around.

Sitting in the door of a USCG HH-3f Pelican helicopter as a flight mechanic. Watching the Alaskan landscape speed by, swelled with the pride of knowledge and experience, ready for anything.

Pulling an all-nighter in the printmaking department at the Maine College of Art. Watching the sun come up over Casco Bay while using a lever press from the 19th century.

Every inch of The Flow mountain bike trail on that rare day when I'm completely dialed-in. Each turn melding to the next as though I'm on rails; smooth as silk, brave as a lion.

My fiance and I shoveling the driveway of our new rural house at midnight during the Valentine's Day Blizzard. Seeing her little ruddy face smiling from inside her parka as snow hisses on my hood.

My fiance's 6 year old cousin latching onto me at a family get-together and 'forcing' me to play strange, rule-less 6 year old games. The joy is in going with the flow and not trying to impose order.

Waking up at 6am on a Saturday, doing my warm-ups outside amid our trees and flowers, then crawling back into bed with my fiance. She stirs at my touch and rolls over to smile at me...

So. That's only a sampling of my 'paradises'. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, once said that there was one thing that people don't say enough: "If this isn't good, I don't know what is!". I try to say it as often as I can.

Drawing soon, I promise. If not an IF, then something else I've been working on.

peace.