Beta: Holy Balls!

It's a nice coincidence that the day I start feeling the urge to blog words again is the opening of Blogger Beta. The new system's good to me, it's encouraged me to try and keep this thing regular. Is it possible? Maybe.

See, I was reading posts in my ol' Livejournal, which I haven't touched for nearly a year now, and I got an itch. I saw those chunky blocks of text, the pretentiously descriptive records of my daily events. Hopes. Dreams. Angst. Hey, why can't I do that anymore? Well, I'm more stable these days -- I don't freak out if I get disorganized for a bit. But what if I shot for moderation? I could just take some time to talk about what's going on whenever I felt right to do so. That's what normal bloggers do anyway, right? I'll post my sketches and touch on life...occasionally.

I like having freedom. Being a slave to your website is for crazy numbnuts like my past self. Now I should be satisfy myself with a loose routine. Here's for my fight against unecessary stress. Hotcha!

PS: My Last.fm thang suddenly started working today, too. Checkit:

My Ass is on Fire

Rather distressing, ain't it? I can't say I was in a bad mood when I drew that, I was feelin' pretty swell actually. It's funny how some sinister music can turn the mood of a piece of art around entirely if you get into it. I doubt it would've come out so angry and scary if I had been listening to, let's say, Norah Jones instead of Mr. Bungle.

The likenesses of Clay, Nick, and Jim at the top were rather incidental. Although I did experience some insecurity in their presence recently (I may talk about that later), I feel no hostility toward them. Not one bit. They've only brought good things into my life; so I have no clue why they're so threatening in this particular piece. It must have just happened in the spirit of Mike Patton's insane shouting in "My Ass is on Fire". No personal connotations here, sir.

More Oldies/'04 Revival

Opened up another old sketchbook, this time one a bit more recent. 2004. That was an awkward year for me and everyone I know. My art was more manic then, except when I went through that phase where I did everything in pencil with uber thick lines. The rest of the time, I sketched rapidly with no precision -- pages of the book I was looking in were garbled, overflowing with underdeveloped characters and illegible writing. I redrew what I could make out from the mess and ended up with this:


It's a relief that I've cleaned up my act so much since 2004. One can now tell what's going on in my art to some degree. There's also not so many goddamned robots everywhere, why was I so infatuated with those things? I would undertstand if they were cool robots, but they surely were not. They had super deriative designs: big rectangle heads, simple claw hands, huge circular eyes, and hinged jaws. Ah, I guess they weren't so bad...still, if you saw how many of them there are in my old sketchbooks, you'd get sick of 'em fast.

An Assortment of Oldies

I've discovered that a good artsy exercise for me is to redraw things from my old sketchbooks. Whenever I'm feeling dry in the inspiration department, I'll crack open an ancient annal chock full of crude characters like Jason the Vampire, Lillian Jeffrey, Benjamin, Jeremy, Skii Iei (a Rayman fancharacter), Funsize, Casper Koltan, and many others. I get a real kick out of redesigning the old drawings, it can be quite a learning experience seeing how I constructed things back then compared to now. Such obvious improvement is a relief.

Here's a page of redrawn oldies from a 2003 sketchbook (what a nasty year indeed!):


...And some more from a 2002 sketchbook (you would cough up turds if you saw the originals):


An old dream of mine was to have an art site called "Dead Bunny Studios". No Joke. How did I take myself seriously back then?

Love and Hate

The sketch above was one day late for The Day of Rememberance. It's not so appropriate as a tribute to thousands of hate crime victims, but I was just feeling so full of love I didn't want to focus on the negative. Transphobic violence makes me sick to my ill-prone belly. Rather, I like to think about successful transpeople, especially those who've found love and acceptance.

The situation in my drawing -- two transpeople in a heterosexual relationship -- is very unusual, but I felt it got my point across easily. These two don't represent all trannies, of course. I just wanted to portray a transwoman and a transman both in early stages of their transitions. I admire those who struggle in spite of society's norms to change their lives for the better and make way for others like them. Therefore, I looove trannies.

Now for some hate to balance out all that mooshy lovin':


WEASEL BRAWL!

SPUMCO?

Woah-ho! I bought the Ren & Stimpy Lost Episodes DVD recently, and I gotta say: Those nutty SPUMCO bastards are my heroes. John Kricfalusi can be a real dick, but I can't help but follow his word and love everything he creates. The whole crew were a hoot in the commentary. My hat's off for those fellas and ladehs, making all-out cartoons and loving it. I only wish that one day I too can assemble a creative force o' weirdos.


In the spirit of Naked Beach Frenzy, here's a wide-eyed chicky naked and covered in suds. I drew it in Spanish class, so I had some kids peering over my shoulders, laughing like Beavis & Butthead ("Huh-huh, huh-huh, huh-huh, boobies"). Nobody was disgusted by this drawing except for those who mistook the soap for bukkake emissions. There's something new.

Caroline Says

Last night I was up late listening to Lou Reed's Berlin and staring at a blank sheet of paper. Eventually I came up with a couple of sketches (see below), but the juice just wasn't flowin' that night. I became more interested in the music than what I was drawing. That just happens. What I wish I could do all the time is become absorbed in the art and the music at the same time, letting the sounds push my hand along in a rythmic pace. That's when I do my best stuff (except for when I'm really bored at school, I swear that makes masterpieces).