Campin’ with my dog

So, my girlie has a personal blog.

I’ll let you guess which one it is in my list of links on the lower right.

Anyway, we went camping for a few days last week and got to see the dog experience all manner of things for

the first time. Which prompted her to suggest I post about some of the funny stuff he does.

I then proceeded to tell her… well, you see I have what we call an “art blog”.

I make funny pictures and talk about how they came about. I don’t review movies or books I’ve read or talk about my weekend or anything like that.

It’s about me- but about how the art I make relates to my life as opposed to just my life itself.

But then I thought, hmm, I can blog about my camping trip if I make  funny pictures of it!

So here’s a few:

That top drawing is of some of the awesome RV’s in the campground- I think a few were bigger than our condo! And a couple I saw had little welcome signs and windsocks

and stuff  around them. A few even had Dish TV’s planted outside them- these folks were in for the long haul!

And yes, I did see one with a cow skull on the front, using a 2 mpg RV to tow an 8 mpg SUV with a few bikes on top like in the drawing. Nothing like dragging your house around the country with

you!

Go Green!

That middle drawing is a pretty accurate picture of my dog Thunder after 2 days in the wild. The flies around him aren’t to show that he’s stinky (although he sort of was) but to show that well, there was

a ton of bugs out there. He was rolling around in all kinds of leaves and other filth laying down at our camp.

He gets this thing when we’re camping where he’s having so much fun running all over and doing new things that he won’t stop when he’s tired.

So he’ll play and jump around and stuff until he’s just so happy and soooo exhausted that’s he’s just sitting on the ground, panting and excited and fighting really hard to keep his eyes open.

The little chipmunk is there because there was a TON of them in that park- and he could never get one! And boy, did he want to. They, unfortunately, were watching him much more closely than he was watching them. He’d see one and get all alert, then lose focus or lay his head down or see some other critter and while he was distracted- a chipmunk would sneak right past him!

So it was a fun but frustrating weekend for him. One literally walked right around behind him that he never saw.

And then, there’s the raccoons. Thunder-well, he’s never seen one. And I’m pretty sure he would have liked to get a better view of the one that rather nonchalantly strolled through the next campsite at 7 pm the first night we were there.

So there you are- dog adventures in a nutshell!

Doggie collections (part 6)

I showed a few of the pups going places back in this post…

Now, on to a few more!

Here’s the happy (and dashing!) young pup flying about in his little aeroplane! Zoom!

I actually made a painting of this some time back, but I made a dog with little sharp teeth, and my licensing consultant suggested

to “cute him up a bit” and lose the fangs. Smart lady.

That and this is a digital painting.

Same dog as the one riding the bike and the train, as you can see. I’m just swapping out the hats and scarves and stuff.

I like that he looks a bit like when people take pet portraits of their doggies dressed as military leaders or tank drivers

or something- like somebody just plopped this little guy down in a toy airplane with a few accessories  and snapped the photo!

Next, we have a dog in a race car!

Hey, that dog looks familiar!

Hmmm… like I just grabbed him out of his aeroplane from that first picture and stuck him in a race car with a different hat!

Oh yeah, because that’s what I actually did.

This was also a painting- but the pup driving had some sharp teeth so he got the boot!

Here’s the original paintings (cut out of their backgrounds):

Okay, so I changed the racing dog from a bulldog-ish guy to the more hound-like one I have now.

I thought the fangs were kinda cute, but I guess they need to be more cuddly for little kids.

Whaddya think?

Doggie collections (part 5)

So, a while back I showed you some doodles I did for a little “Dogs on Wheels”

collection I’m working on…

Well, I did a bit more on them!

If you’ll recall from the original squiggles, I said to myself- hey! I can take some of the parts I’ve done for collections already and

just put a dog on it and change a few things and it’s perfect!

Which I did with, mmm, this motorcycle from the Police and Fire Rescue Force collection!

How about that, eh? Just re-colored a few parts on the bike, lost the siren and added a dog and voila! New collection piece!

Okay, so I did have to re-draw the handlebars… they just didn’t reach the little doggie’s paws too well on the original. Betcha didn’t even notice, huh?

I like this dog because I think he captures that face that every single dog has when he’s happy. You know the one I mean.

That and dogs always hold their paws kinda funny like how he’s holding the handlebar. My dog always sleeps with his paws in all these

funny positions that never look very comfortable, but apparently he’s good with them.

I also think the way he’s sitting on the bike is very “dog-like” too.

I feel like this motorcyle looks a little weird without anything on the back of it (since I chopped off the siren). Maybe a seat bar on the back or something would

help. Hmmm…

Okay, one more:

Dog train! How do you beat that?

Why yes, um, that is the same train from this collection here… why do you think I left the engine compartment open?

To put cute critters in it!

I’m not sure if this guy’s head is too big or not. I’m going to let it sit for a while and look at it with some new eyes later on. Sometimes, I just have to give it a

little time, and suddenly a drawing works better for me.

Funny, but it works.

I really like his hat and the little dark spot on the pads of his feet. Niice.

Doggie foot pads are always so cute- my dog has hair that grows out in between his!

Next up (hopefully…) for this collection will be the dog in the race-car and one in a plane. And some accessories, too.

Ciao for now!

Work Stuff (and post #100!)

Do I get a cupcake or something for this momentous occasion?

Anyhoo, here’s another progression of the scene from yesterday.

Okay, so I didn’t animate all this just yesterday. I had all the ballerinas done already- a few months back, actually.

I’m a cheater, right? Like when they put the casserole into the oven on those daytime cooking shows and then pull out one they had cooked already…

Not that I’m mister daytime cooking show watcher (ask Marie about my cooking skills- yeesh!)

Back to the animation…

Did I mention how I worked out the posing for all those ballerinas? Yup, that’s right- me jumping around in my studio trying some of these moves out…

Try not to visualize my 260 lb hairy self prancing around in a tutu or anything, okay? You may hurt your brain.

Let me tell you, it’s a good thing I work alone.

I was inspired a lot by the floppy arms and legs of the Muppets- I’m a huge fan! I own the first 2 seasons on DVD.

I’m particularly proud of that dancers in yellow that twirl across the stage the whole time and their hugely fluffy tutus. Looks like a big weird flower or a cream puff or something.

It’s what we animators call “beautifully funny-looking”.

On a side note, one of the musicians in the orchestra is an upright bass player. Oh, and I really like how I colored the sandwich and the grape soda Degas is enjoying at the ballet.

Next up, putting a drawing on his sketch pad and painting a floor (anyone notice it’s just a big orange square right now?)

That’s all for now!

Work Stuff! (More Edgar Degas Drawing)

This scene is a progression of what I showed you last time…

Here, I’ve finalized the animation and colored him up and added a line or two and of course- there’s a whole new guy in the scene!

Like I mentioned last time, the concertmaster comes in a bit concerned that, uh, the ballet is about to start and there’s some guy on stage- with his easel and a table of snacks- and he has no intention of leaving any time soon!

I originally drew Emile (that’s what we’ve named the concertmaster) very dejected as he leaves, but he comes back a few more times later in the video- so they wanted him a bit less upset so he can ‘build’ to being mad later.

We get to watch his slow twisting spiral descent into despair! Yeah!

So I suggested he walks out kinda huffy and offended with more of a ‘…well, I never… grumble grumble’ kind of look to him.

There’s a plethora of ballet dancers being silly behind them in this scene that I’ve animated (but I haven’t put them together with these two characters yet)

Maybe I’ll post them next!

See more of our videos here:

www.gettingtoknow.com

Work Stuff (Edgar Degas Drawing)!

I showed some animation from the “Edgar Degas” video we’re working on here….

Well, here’s a scene we hadn’t done yet.

I have a bit more, but we’re re-doing some of his clothes, so he looks a little odd right now

(his jacket switches out here and there.)

This is some repeated cycles of him drawing at the ballet (which, duh, isn’t in the scene right now- but I have it drawn already!)

Then he stops and hold his thumb up to measure the ballerinas he’s drawing, and then goes back to drawing. There’s a bit of acting after this between him and the ballet concertmaster.

The gag is, well, the ballet is about to start and Degas is still on the stage drawing ballerinas. I’ll post some of that this week, hopefully. I’m still fine-tuning the concertmaster today (and fixing Edgar’s duds).

Do I have a cool job, or what?

Some random cartoony paintings…(part 2)

I showed you the inked versions of these paintings back here…

Well, now 2 of them are done!

In between painting some other big paintings…

I made a slight change to this painting since last time- and you can’t even see it here!

My original idea was to cut off the shark’s body as it goes out of the edge of the canvas (as you see it here).

When I was painting it, though, I decided to just wrap his body around to the side of the canvas.

Looks perty.

Now, for pie:

This one has a secret suprise you can only see in person, too.

I painted two cherries on each side of the canvas edges (since it’s for someone named Cheri, I figured what

the heck).

I like the cherry pie-filling color of the pie… looks incredibly edible, yes? That and I feel the dough color came out nicely.

It’s sort of a yellow ochre lightened with a touch of red  (put that in your ‘fake pie’ recipe book if you’d like).

That and I really like the light red background with the light green plate. Feels relaxing and home-y, if you know what I mean.

Reminds me a bit of the color scheme on these here lady bug items I designed, too.

Must be into the red and green thing these days.

I’m hoping to deliver this one sometime this week…
Ciao for now!

Some random cartoony paintings…(part 1)

So, here’s some paintings I started while I was working on another, much bigger painting.

Made these while I was sitting waiting for the paint to dry on something else, basically.

Because we all know the saying about watching paint dry…

This is the tiniest of them- just about an inch and a half  square.

That big gray blob is a paint stain- I used this little teeny canvas to hold up the bottom

of this huge painting while I painted the edges.

Even my paintings  multi-task, right?

Every time I’ve painted fish, they look sort of like this. I see fish as always just slightly above neutral, disposition-wise. But never very bright.

They always look like they’re having fun, though.

On to bigger fishes:

This guy’s about 3 x 3 inches. Doesn’t he look like fun?

I bet he’ll play some games with you before he eats you…

If you look close at the pencil lines on this shark painting, you’ll see I sketched out a drawing (which I scrapped) for this next painting:

That previous sketch had the perspective a little weird for me. But, of course, I’m not going to waste a canvas over that.

I like this one much better. Might lose the ’steam lines’- they look too much like ’stink lines’! And who wants stinky dessert, really?

This one, a friend (another friend’s boss’s girlfriend) named Cheri asked me to make this for her kitchen. Cherry, Cheri- get it?

Any way, you’ll see these painted soon. Promise.

Flight collection!

Actually, I think I did this one before the spacemen collection I just posted…

and right after the dogs on wheels.

Seems I was designing things (wait for it…) from the ground up!

Nyuk nyuk.

No, really. I was doing dogs in cars and trains and then I said, hmm, I should put him in a plane.

Then, from planes I thought, hey why not a whole collection of just flying stuff?

So then I made that and then I moved up to outer space stuff.

But let’s get back to the planes and stuff, eh?

Whaddya think? The little plane I painted already and the helicopter is part of the Police and Fire Rescue Force I showed a while back. But the rest is new.

I’m debating if I should make the little plane a bi-plane (you can see where I’m trying some extra wings on it.) Not sure if I like it or not. The little doodle bottom

right with the ‘bat-wing’ style wings isn’t bad, but I’ll have to play a little more with that.

The fighter plane is nice. Good and stumpy and cute.

I’m debating if the hot air balloon is too ‘olde tyme’ for the the kids.

I did draw it a bit “Around the world in 80 days-ish” with the flag on top and the woven basket and the very round ballon.

I might just leave it in there for all the history dorks that I know are reading this blog.

I was thinking the accessories can be a flight patch or two, maybe some clouds?

Still kicking this one around, but I really like it.

What do you think?

Oh, and here’s a bonus tiny little doodle that is too small to give a post of its own.

I have a huge painting of a big pink dump truck that inspired this cute little, um, tank?

I’m thinking maybe I’ll make a huge pink painting of this tank with it shooting hearts out of its turret.

How’s that, eh?

Spacemen collection!

Continuing some new collection ideas…

The inspiration fairy came and smacked me really hard upside the head the other day.

And I was seeing stars!

Stars in outer space, that is!

I said, hmm… I really liked me some outer space as a kid. My whole room was covered with  moon landing photos and pictures of Mars and stuff.

Maybe I should do some space stuff.

So we started with an astronaut. Okay, his left foot’s a little strange. I got the right one down well- but I figured I could get back to the left.  I like him, though.

I really liked the space shuttle as a kid, too. That and I figured kiddies today wouldn’t recognize the moon lander.

I might do the “Space Lab” style satellite as a separate piece from the shuttle, even though I show it being held by an arm here.

Anyone remember Space Lab? Fell outta the sky 30 years ago? I know, I’m an old geezer, right…

I like the little stumpy rocket- like one of those kiddie rides in front of the supermarket. I tried doing the moon (you can see it to the right of the rocket) but it looks kinda weird.

Might need to do a little finessing to that idea…

The falling star didn’t work too well for me, either. Just looks like it’s on fire or something weird. Hm.

Saturn looks nice- easy to read and recognizable. Oh, and I sorta like the ‘goofy’ falling star to the left of Saturn (but I don’t think I’ll use it).

And of course, the star is good too.

That’s all for now- more next time!