Tom Carroll has joined the Blogosphere!

http://pitchscribblerant.blogspot.com/

He's already made a number of interesting posts... check it out!

Why yes, I do spend all my time in museums!

Some brush pen work from the Louvre, done SAT and MON. Two of my brushes (cheap, prefab things I buy for 3 Euros from a Japanese store called Muji) are getting quite dry, hence the depth of the drybrush effect here. It's beginning to look like Ritmo-style charcoal! Only drag is when brushes beccome this dry, they can't hold a point, and line work suffers. I'm trying to discipline myself to reach for a fresh brush when I need it, but y'know, I get to caught up in the drawing....

I'll stop posting dry copies of dead, "Old Europe" museum pieces soon.

(And yes, we do have passes for the Louvre, but no place else.)

Hell, I can draw better than that, Boy

The laziest post yet

Kids Say The Funniest Things!

Click on the link below and follow the discussion about.....me! (Why are all of my recent post about me?)

What Kids in the UK have to say about Jeff Ranjo...who?

This will be the last "mepost."

Super Tuesday

Over at Storyboredom they have doing some superhero drawings. That looked like fun, so I thought that would be a good Tuesday drawing theme... so here it is.

Gaining Perspetive

I've never been able to execute a convincing perspective study. I've just never been able to do it. Figures in the foreground don't relate correctly to the figures in the background, the converging lines don't converge, etc.

But Friday at Le Louvre I felt inspired, and tackled this room with my ball-point pen; t'aint perfect, but if it is in fact successful, (and I submit it humbly to your collective gaze for appraisal and criticism), it is proof, perhaps, that if you wish hard enough and look at enough examples of people doing it correctly, you will eventually absorb the lessons of perspective--"wishfull osmosis" I'll call it. 37 years is all it takes to bear fruit this way, as opposed to a semester or hard two of study.

(An aside: I woke up singing a garbled version of Erasure's "Oh L'Amour," then turned on my internet radio station with the unreasonable hope that I'd hear this exact song--and thusly was I rewarded! That's reverse osmosis at work, I guess.)

This room at the Louvre, the Salle de Ménage, has the weird problem of the escalator pits; I got a little hasty in the execution of the foreground pit. But I haven't messed with anything in Photoshop, just scanned it in two parts and slapped it together.

We've had visitors and my commenting on this BLOG has suffered. Two weeks are all we have left before returning to the 'States, so I'm gonna' try to pack in as much drawing (and living) as I can!

(To continue the 80's music aside: I'm really hitting the drawing hard in these last two weeks--I don't want to wind up like the last song played, Tears for Fears "GOING FAR AND GETTING NOWHERE".)

p.s. In Europe they spring ahead the Daylight Saving's clock one week before the U.S. Does that make us 10 hours apart? It's 9:30 AM right now. Good night from my good morning.

My final Kaiju!

The Mighty Tor!

Hey! Somebody uploaded my CalArts film to ifilm! I don't know if I should be angry or flattered. Oh well, I guess it's the only way this film will see the light of day.

If you didn't know, the voice of Tor is our own Ron Thompson. Dante Fuget is the Demon and Mary Claire is the Princess that is screaming her head off.

I cringe when I see the it. Yikes! This is considered therapy.

Kaiju due on Sunday

A reminder that the deadline for the Kaiju contest is Sunday. Get your final drawings turned in!

Tuesday Drawing on Thursday

Sorry for not being around lately. Work has been so hectic (i'm actually posting from work and it's 8:50 pm) that I haven't had enough time to scan or post or even internet anything!!! So just started drawing while taking a break and for some reason drew a caricature of myself! Oh the vanity of it all!! What did I miss??

Down D'Orsay Way

My belated Tuesday post--drawn Wednesday at the D'Orsay, a place that still feels more train station than art museum to me.

Came home from an all-crepe dinner to the sight of 40 Gendarmes in riot gear grouped in front of our building, shields up, batons out.

They let us enter our building unmolested.

P.S. What about Tom's "Cosmic Theatre?"

Two Fer Tuesday

Neither one of these were done on a Tuesday. Just sharing art you guys haven't seen. You may have boticed I took down my "bad" art posts. This was done because a guy at work impressed on me what a dumb idea it was to showcase my worst.

El Pacifico!

You guys will love this... you can thank Skribbl for posting this on the StoyBoredom blog so I could find it!

http://el-pacifico.blogspot.com/

Big fella...

Okay, I'm still in Kaiju mode, as you can see.

Kaiju Later, A Doodle for Tues

I'll do a more involved Kaiju study for the DVD contest by this weekend. Here's a doodle I did this morning at work

THE UNKNOWN SHE

SHE has no mouth. No statement intended, just easier to draw that way.

I had to post this; it's just a funny page I did today, inspired in no small part by the COMIC tone pervading much of the TAG'ing I've been enjoying on this site. Working on anatomy again (I put up a couple pages on EUROCHINO), trying to keep the straight-ahead spontenaeity of ink, hoping it forces better intuitive anatomy/proportions. I like the doorbell ringing, wanted to show her holding a sack of groceries, but angle didn't cooperate. That's a jigsaw puzzle she's working on: I know, my "puzzle-pieces-in-perspective" skills need improvement.

SPEAKING OF COMICS: Tom Moon, what of Cosmic Theatre? And your vacation?

Also, DOK: what size tennis shoe does Anne wear?

Putting Some Midgets To Work

Certainly he needs a better name, something more memorable and menacing; and also the long-arm concept owes a mighty debt to Ellis's Kaiju; but the idea of sticking as many "Monster Technicians" as possible into the suit motivated me. In addition to the piggy-backed pair of monster actors working in the greater thorax region of Molluskzilla (it's embarrassing even to type that name), each slug mitt would be operated from inside by a little person; their independence of movement would be limited only by the rubber tether that kept them attached to the larger, lumbering body. And just imagine the hilarious mayhem that would result if, during combat, one arm were severed completely from the body proper, only to rejoin the fray as an autonomous actor, a free-lancing fist that would continue to fight--all the while dragging its bloody stump of a rubber arm?

(Those who detect a Gallic influence on my design are not wrong, though I don't eat snails myself.)

Who wouldn't pay to see this matchup?
The apparently caricatured ethnicity of the monster operators would be shameful if it were intentional, which it is not--I tried to make a grimace on the hunched over guy's face, and damn if it didn't come out looking like a bad propaganda poster from WWII! My apologies to everyone, everywhere, esp. the hard working people at Toho Studios.

The Temple of the Seven Golden Camels

I have a friend from Disney who just started his own blog called "The Temple of the Seven Golden Camels." (check his first post to see why he named it this). It's an instructional blog that leans toward storyboarding/drawing. I know you all know how to draw but it's good sometimes to refresh the old noodle.

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels

Lobster Gorilla

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4785482.stm

I think this could be the Kaiju winner right here!

Ha ha ha! Thanks Dok! From now on I'm posting only in Orange!

So here are my Kaiju sketches so far... very rough, and I'm not happy with the robot at all. He's neither high tech nor retro, he's just boring. The guy on the left has some potential, though. You can still see the human stickman sketch inside these guys, so I'm concentrating making these guys true "suitmation" creatures.

Anyone seen Godzilla: Final Wars yet? Too much Matrix style action and not enough Kaiju action, but still a fun romp. They have just about every Toho monster in the thing, and even the American Godzilla, who Japanese Godzilla promptly mops the floor with.

SNIPEZILLA

Just thank God when they took you Snipe hunting that you didn't find one.

Kaiju Contest Sketches

So here's my first sketchy ideas on my Kaiju entry. Just playing with the concept of a lobster/crayfish monster. I saw a shrimp at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and I guess it subconsciously jumped on the page. A lot of the newer kaiju seem to be more outrageous and I prefer the simper "man in suit" concept. It seems truer to the genre. After all it's going to be wrestling with Godzilla after all right?? On a side note, I've seen Krayonzillas massive vinyl kaiju collection and it's cool how they sculpt the folds and seams into the figure itself! Awesome detail!!

http://www.drawergeeks.com/

http://www.drawergeeks.com/

Has some one already posted this group's URL? I think they have an interesting idea we might explore. They have the artists for the group all reacting to one iconic comic book idea. The image I posted is from the group reation to Bizarro. Check it out. Some funny stuff.

Negadon Attacks and Bonus Kaiju Contest!!!

Negadon Attacks!

Here's the contest info:

Kaiju A Go Go Contest!

I'm going to enter. I know Rickart will be up for this (and Krayonzilla if he ever posts something :-P). Hey Let's do it as a group and enter in memory of Rick Johnson! Whaddya say???

Euro-Skribbl?

Is it me, or does the main fellow in this drawing look a little like a certain Monsieur Skribbl?

JUDGE FOR YOURSELF
These are French folks spied while sittin' in a café drinkin' hot chocolate. Any resemblance to persons living and drawing is pure coinky-dink. Images were rearranged on page to protect the innocent—and make Skribbl more prominent.

Belated Tuesday Drawing

Sometimes ya just gotta render something. I think I was inspired by Tom's posts!! (and also Rick's graphic behind the character trick)