Skribble Lennon

This might be interesting for some of you. A few weeks ago I submitted a drawing to Deviantart's Skribble contest. The goal was to make a drawing using only this:

Tall order, huh? Back in high school, my art teacher used to give us scribbles and ask us to create finished drawings using the scribble as a base. Because of that I actually had some experience, so I thought the contest might be fun.

For whatever reason, when I saw the scribble, I saw this:

  

I've always been a fan of simplicity in drawing, and I thought the skribble would be a great jumping off place to create a caricature of John Lennon. So after drawing the caricature and inking it on paper, I scanned it into the computer, and it looked like this:

The missing lens and hair would be replaced by the scribble. One thing I noticed was that the drawing was skewed a bit to the left. After doing the flip test (where the drawing is flipped horizontally) I realized that the drawing was definitely flawed. For some reason I had never been concerned about skew in my artwork previously, but noticing it here really concerned me. I mean, I'm entering a contest, the drawing should look good.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to go back and redraw Lennon (I was about to leave for vacation), so I used Photoshop to unskew the drawing as best I could. As handy as that feature is, it's a bit like cheating, and I'd rather correct errors like that beforehand. I mean, Michelangelo didn't have Photoshop, did he?

Okay, so it looks pretty good. I've fixed the skew, erased some lines, and used the skribble to create both sides of Lennon's head. From here I simply colored the lines based on the colors used on the Imagine album.

I had to tweak the colors here and there, but all things considered I think it looks pretty good!

Alas, I didn't win the DeviantArt contest, but I'm glad I entered. I'm not sure I would have created this without a little nudge.

Oh, and I'd like to thank Brian Brittigan. He introduced me to the flip test awhile ago, and I've been kicking myself for not employing it earlier.

Updates!

Hey, folks. I'm still around and kicking. In case you haven't seen it yet, I have a new blog dedicated to my monster art, and you can find it at Many, Many, Monsters (there's a tumblr too). I'm having a lot of fun coming up with crazy creature designs, and I think you guys might enjoy it as well.

I've been having a great time writing for Suite101.com, and I have a bunch of new articles that I think you'll like. There's an article on Joe Johnston's adaptation of the Dave Stevens' comic, The Rocketeer, an article about Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant's hilarious new screenwriting book, Writing Movies For Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can Too!, and a review of the 80s teen classic, Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

I've also got a bunch of secret projects in the works, so stay tuned, there's a lot more fun on the way.

Fedora

This fedora is for a new shot I'm working on for my demo reel. I'm not much of a modeler, but I'm pretty happy with this.

Village of the Giants

I've got a new article up, this time a review of the Bert I. Gordon classic, Village of the Giants, starring Tommy Kirk, Beau Bridges, and Ron Howard.

Village of the Giants has long been a guilty pleasure of mine, and my review is an attempt to explain what's so appealing about it. That's an impossible task as the film is so damn strange, but I feel it's a worthy effort.

I also have a review of Savage Steve Holland's One Crazy Summer up. One Crazy Summer is one of my favorite movies, and I try to watch it every year around the beginning of summer.

I hope you like them!

Meanwhile, Back on Monster Island

Hey, it's been awhile. Here, have a cartoon.


For some reason, I decided to get a DeviantART account. Hopefully I won't be bitten by the Anime Virus and draw nothing but Naruto fan art from now on. We'll see!

Bye Bye Birdie

Hey, I've got a new article up on Suite101.com. It's a review of the Ann-Margret classic, Bye Bye Birdie.

Bye Bye Birdie is a weird, weird movie, and it's dated as hell. But there is something oddly appealing about the film, and as my review notes, Ann-Margret is easily the highlight of the film. Seriously, the minute the film turns away from her character's story, the film just grinds to a halt.

Writing

Hey, I've got a new gig writing for Suite101.com. My profile is here, and my first article about the Brian De Palma film, Obsession, can be seen here.