Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Geeky

Four things:

First, about the title. It just didn't inspire me. It was the 'y' that did it. If it was 'geek' it would have opened up the field of ideas to at least include a certain type of circus performers. However, nobody ever refers to the guy who pounds nails into his head as 'geeky'. 'Geeky' just seemed, well, lame.

This dislike of titles seems to happen often to me. I must be less about the titles than what I want to get out of IF. I want titles that are rigid enough to provide direction, but open enough to allow depth. I'm not talking Hemmingway, but I need a title that whispers a story. What a title like 'geeky' feels like is just an exercise. Like, I should practice drawing a geeky person because a client might need a geeky person. That doesn't work for me.

Second, about the work. I didn't put a great deal of effort into this as you can see. I did a quite nice small sketch. However, when I transfered it and began inking, I found that the vellum I'm using, while good for penciling is terrible for inking. At least with a crow quill.

Thirdly the subject. This is a portrait, from memory, of a girl I saw in the grocery store a few weeks ago. She was about 5' 4" and had a small smile on her face that I completely failed to capture. I also failed to notice what was in her cart because I was *ahem* reading her t-shirt...

Here you go:



Four. This is selfish of me, but, if you've read down to here, you'd find that par for the course. I was really disappointed that only one person left comments on my work last week. It's got lots of problems that I would want to rectify, but I was hoping to get some comments on whether I'd succeeded in translating a story in a single comic page.

Ah well.

Listening to while I post: "Clubland" by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. (is it me or would the young Mr. Costello punch the old Mr. Costello in the face for being in ads for credit cards and luxury automobiles?)

8 comments:

ElizT said...

Well, here's one comment; I agree about the topics.
And the image is interesting and amusing.

Janice Ykema said...

Hey there Arkonby:
I find that If you look at the word its 'easy' to get stumped. Get outside the box and in tune with your creative energy.. Find ways you can use to help you. Look up the meanings, Look up synonyms. Enter geeky in google and see what you come up with. Dream of it. Ask people around what geeky means to them... (in this particular instance). Maybe you wont get the exact interpretation.. but i do believe you will have a lot more fun, and something more to work with...

I liked your figure... its a bit lonely on the page but then maybe the nerd sign on her tshirt spoke for itself.... :)

cheers.. Janice

Anonymous said...

My parrot just recited the meaning from a dictionary and ignored the 'y'. I liked your image and your explanation made me laugh :)

demosthenes said...

dude, sorry i completely missed seeing your entry from last week. i'll comment on it when i have time to do it properly.

this character is great though. i too had a problem with the Y so i just left it off.

Unknown said...

He would definitely punch older Costello in the face.

Unknown said...

Love that memory portrait, too. The specificity of her look really sells it. Rather than being some generic "cool" person, she looks like someone you'd actually want to talk to and learn about.

Swinebread said...

For some reason I got this “where’s Waldo” kinda thing going on. I’m imagining you could stick her as she is into all kinds of strange environments. The drawing reminds me of the zines we have here in Portland.

neilornstein said...

Where in the holy books is it written that you have to use the IF theme as anything other than a jumping off point. Trash that y! Replace it with an ish, an oid, an oidishly or with nada.