Drawing Woe(man)

Technically this would count as an Annoy. It's what happens when I'm trying to draw something to get better acquainted with on a regular basis (in this case, drawing people). Well, they don't speak to me at all, so it all goes downhill from there. The creatures arise out of my sub-consciousness as if in protest.

I guess that's the trick. Draw something long enough to the point that it frustrates you, until something else unexpectedly comes out of it.

Frustration is the fuel, surprise is the payoff. That can be a burden at times.

Sssssssss-nailiens. Part 2.

Snailiens were originally born back when bro and I were discussing potential game ideas of what we would like to do in the future. We sat down, sketched out the ideas for the levels and the enemies as well as the bosses for it. Even had some of the cut scenes in there.

I can hardly remember all of it, as I'm confusing the memories of it with our Mad Cow game and other game experiences. But basically its somewhat a side-scrolling shoot 'em up action game of sorts with Captain Storm as the character you control. It's mostly inspired by all those games we grew up with, but I think Metal Slug was the main source inspiration behind this one, along with Earthworm Jim.

The coloured image of the snailien was one of the "Annoys" that I drew. There wasn't even a drawing for it, as it was painted directly onto Photoshop and refined over time. It took a long time to do and it's still one of my favourite Annoys. I don't think it was intentional at the time to make it into a snailien.

The rah-rah's of the videogame making died down as we moved onto other things. It pretty much went away over time, packing them away into boxes for safekeeping into our subconscious, nearly forgotten. The snailien emerged out of there to ressurect as an Annoy, probably as a gentle reminder to me, or for the V3 crew to get back into doing the things that we love to do.

Perhaps, somewhere out there in the universe, someone or some automaton is making a Captain Storm sequel while some three-eyed tentacled kid in glasses, drooling all over his bib, is playing it. When will Earth get theirs? =o

The many slugs in a police line-up sketch were all heads from the various snailien image scans cloned onto a single body. I was toying around with the design a bit to see how they would all look. If it ever gets back into a game again I think the diversity would be a feature for it because I couldn't decide whose head gets to keep the body so I'm throwing it all in there instead. It would be animated just the same anyways.

They dont seem to look important so none of them are the bosses. Instead they're all Private Procrastinators who make up the bulk of the Snailien forces. They're abled bodied too, which top brass snailiens sneer at, but have to put up with because they do get ALL of the dirty work done. However the top brass snailiens view them as inferior. The less evolved you are, the better. Legs and arms would be the bottom of the barrel in their devolutionary ladder. Yet all snailiens are born with limbs and just culturally conditioned themselves to lose them due to atrophy as the decades go by.

Sssssssss-nailiens. Part 1.

Better put on your tin-foil hats because these slugs are bad news. Sooner or later you'll be bombarded by beams of snailien thoughts of "Uhhhhh. " Harrassed by muzack snoring bots, assailing your senses by passive omni-media , leaving all of your brain to rot. Soon your pours will ooze out, tire you out, make you lazy and laying down for daily 10 hour snoozes.
It's the snailien agenda, they want you to lose. They can't stand all the busy bodies getting busy with their bodies, making a racket with their tennis rackets, training with their strained brains, living fully completely and free.

"Slow down now, lay down, be quiet! Stop!" Uhhh? Zzzz.

Brainstorming now in session.

Lazy on days like these.

I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me? <=O

I think the little fishies are goading him into action too but I have no idea what they're saying. Also, I dunno the story behind the mouse guy either. He's carrying a fishing pole with a bucket of bait, but why is he fishing? He likes cheese!

Scanned in the drawing of the characters and touched them up slightly on Photoshop. The cheesy background was drawn directly on Photoshop.

Annoidal Tendencies.

Ahhh! I've been snooping around my older files and stumbled upon my old "Annoys". I can't believe these were done 5 years ago! Arghhhh. And still no book. /sighhhhhh

Most of these Annoys were also drawn on the back of 3d studio max tutorial papers. The back of the paper's text would show through when I scanned it in. I had to smudge them out on photoshop afterwards. The aftermath created some nice textures I believe. =P

I had issues about drawing on real good quality paper back then. Still kinda do but not so much nowadays. Also had a fear of inking too. But inking on crappy paper helped ease those fears alot.

I also thought I have lost a story for one Annoy in particular but I was wrong. It's here! Probably my first creative writing story attempt ever (in my life).



Story goes as follows:

The Snail was afraid of frogs. He didn't want to be frog food at all. He just wanted to be loved. So one day, while he oozed on his way up a tree, he sees a sleeping monkey napping on a nearby branch. Desperately trying to avoid being the prey of the tree frogs, the snail thought he'd find sanctuary within the monkey's inner temple.

When Mojo the Magic Monkey Man woke up, he heard whispering noises in his head, and being a voodoo shaman magic man, he thought Gonzo the Great Gabboon (his patron diety) was speaking to him.. Mojo claps his hands with over-zealous joy!

"Aha! It is you! Oook!" he cries.

But really, it was the snail, who had burrowed himself inside the monkeyman's ear canal.

Mojo rejoices "Ook!, all these years have paid off! Alas! I have been enlightened! Ooook Ooooook!"

The snail was shocked upon hearing that and double-shocked at the fact that he can hear the monkeyman's thoughts! But just then, an evil thought came to his mind. So he whispers to Mojo from within.

"Yasss! 'Tis meeeee, Gonzoooooo..........."

"Okay, bud. Rule number one. Thou shalt not eat snails! Snails are your best friends!"
and upon hearing this, Mojo nodded. "I shall obey! he exclaimed. "Oook! I shall Obey! yes! Oooook!"

Later on that day, Mojo and the Snail travelled extensively. He rescued various snails from within the frog's tongue reach.. Fed the snails leaves and carried some of them to assorted places.
Mojo's puzzled by all these snail-saving deeds and also by the amount of weird commands that he's been given lately. "Avoid salt water, use clean water, do not clean out your ears" etc etc. None of them are anything violent! None of them taught him the rules of gorilla warfare, or how to craft weapons of any kind at all! It's about this snail, or that snail.....and throwing frogs high up in the air.

He couldn't figure out why his patron god isn't acting like the Fabled Fearsome Gabboon Banana Bushman of Death! But rather, he seems timid and fearful of alot of things. Mostly frogs and salt water. Mojo was disappointed. And confused. And puzzled. Surely his diety knows something about snails and frogs that he doesn't know about.... yet.

Then Mojo comes across a pond. A really big pond. And there's this Lilly Pad Party already going on. Witching hour's begun. The place was illuminated by fireflies, and served by barflies and other flies. Strewn Budweiser cans are everywhere. It was loud. Alot of croaking noises. After going through a clearing, he sees all the frogs socialising and dancing........Some are leap frogging, others are playing practical jokes upon the tadpoles. Others are making tadpoles. Being in a drunken stupor, they are really behaving like animals and are totally oblivious to Mojo and his friend snail lurking from behind the foliage.

End. (probably got bored and left it like that)

I dont know where the original coloured version is, but I'm gonna have to use a friend's site to show it in the meantime.

Ahhoy thar annoy!

I don't know what happened to the rest of the story. I guess it'll have to be finished one day when I'm either really really really bored or annoyed like I did them back then.


Going back to my roots, and drawing the Annoys again soon.

"Page o' Crap!" He says.

Getting a little to hesitant to post drawings all of a sudden. I figure crap is still better to look at than nothing at all.

I've always been meaning to clean the lines up, make it look proper and all that, but could never bring myself to do it ... yet. Maybe not now, but eventually I'll get around to it. At the moment I just got to accept things for the way it is and leave it at that. That is how I am, so my art reflects it. Grow from it slowly instead of rushing through it like I have in the past.

A friend of mine says an artist is supposed to be messy. I'll let the messiness do the art for me then. Maybe I ought to start spilling coffee all over the drawings to further enhance this messy effect. Crumple up the paper too, crease it here, or there. Whip it across the room. Step on it. All sorts of mayhem like that. I think that might be fun. Maybe I'll start my own "ism" that way. Messism? Crapism? I dunno. What do you think?

After drawing this, I had to make fun of myself to relieve the tensions. The bird guy at the top left hand corner of the page started the dialogue, then it snowballed from there as it reaches out to other characters. I try to see ho w they would react to what he says, which pretty much condemns the entire page. Some of them take offense to his commentt, others take it in stride, and so on. It's somewhat indicative of my own thoughts manifesting itself to the characters. Yeah, yeah, I suffer for my own art. =P

I take my stuff and myself waaaaay too seriously, so poking a little fun of it is good and keeps me aloof. It feels better afterwards than if I had left it as it is. The dialogue coming from the characters isn't silly enough but if I didn't put them in, it would pretty much remind me the seriousness of the attempts that I've been making at producing art. Its still a long ways yet. I can sort of see where it's going if I keep it up.

That's the purpose of this Blog in the first place. To fight the forces of Laziness and Procrastination always. To learn from it, grow from it, to bear it all for the world to see, to let it shine no matter how ugly or beautiful it is, to share, and to look back on it to see how it all progresses over time. Amen. *sniff*

World of Warcraft /gasp!

Well, normally I do not draw fan-art for some reason. Its nothing against fan-art in general.
I do not know remember why or how I got into drawing WoW in the first place. But I took alot of screenshots in the past with the intention of using them for later, whether that will be for posting WoW art for Blizzard later on (probably never) or painting backgrounds (to tackle my fear of painting backgrounds haha).
I started to reference from them to draw on-model for characters as part of the warming up process. It helps alot. I know, it was probably pretty obvious to everyone else allll along, but not to me, of course. I keep rediscovering things over and over again. Mild-amnesia FTL. Hopefully with this blog I can work some of those deep seated personal and artistic issues out.

While doodling them, I realise that this is probably going to be the only way to teach me how to draw armours and weapons (maybe a bit of perspective too) as practise. Maybe that's practise with a purpose, or just an excuse to draw WoW as a coping mechanism for not playing the game in months? =P

Ah well, baby steps!

Here's Pecking at You.

Just like the monkeys-on-your-backs, these things are much smaller and hover behind your field of view. Unlike monkeys-on-your-backs, they annoy you into doing something when you're not doing anything productive at all. When you're not paying attention they come closer to bore you a hole at the back of your skull. Your attempts to swat them away doesn't discourage them one bit. They'll keep boring you till you find something else better to do.

At least Annoypeckers are better than Snailiens who lull you into atrophy.

Undersea Misadventures.

What can I say? Been spelunking too much into the subconscious (which is fine by me). Weird things happen down there. The weirder, the better it is. I'm still trying to figure it out how it all works so that I can dive straight into it without having to spend hours and hours decompressing. By then the whole day's already gone and I'm way too tired to draw anything anymore. I can hear my brain static and the ears would be ringing afterwards. Then "it" shows up at my door and whispers "Let's play." and I'm like "Where have you been? I'm just about to go to bed." giving it the guilt trips that wives would give to their men when they come home drunk late at night. But man, I'm the one usually feeling guilty afterwards because I really miss out on what it had to offer. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
I'm not sure if anyone noticed, but I see a George (dressed as a pirate) and a Kramer (the mermaid with shark on her head) from Seinfeld. Probably because I watch way too much Seinfeld.
Poseidon there is trying to lure a fish with his tongue that looks like a fish.
The pen running out of ink made frequent appearances in older sketchbooks. Probably will have to dig up more of that stuff later, with the pen doomsday prophets and all.
Annoy pecker on bottom right is sort of my personal stamp of approval. Not sure what is required to merit this sort of stamping either. It's a crazy bird. Don't let it get on your paper!

More annoypecker to come soon.

You see what you want to see.

I've stumbled across an old discovery once again. This time it is not from looking at clouds, or from staring at the repetitious pattern of flowers on my shower curtains, it's from a cover of an art book tucked away at the corner of the room, in the dark, with a little light shining on it. (Cover of art book shown on left.)
The technique to this form of art is what I call Scrying. I think the name is appropriate because it works in the same way, just with a different medium instead of smoke, crystal balls, or pools of water. I think this technique relies on a focused object to be blurred out enough to appear abstracted, so that your mind does not recognise what it is that it's seeing, that way, the imaginations fill in the void to create new images out of it.
To scrye from an image, all you need to do is be in a dark room with little lighting, squint your eyes to blur the image (not always necessary) and view it from far away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrying

The visions that scryers say they see may come from variations in the medium. If the medium is water ((hydromancy), then the visions may come from the colour, ebb and flow, or ripples produced by pebbles dropped in a pool. If the medium is a crystal ball, the visions may come from the tiny inclusions, web-like faults, or the cloudy glow within the ball under the low light (e.g. candlelight).

One method of scrying is using a crystal ball involves a self-induced trance. Initially, the medium serves as a focus for the attention, removing unwanted thoughts from the mind in the same way as a mantra. Once this stage is achieved, the scryer begins a free association with the perceived images suggested. The technique of deliberately looking for and declaring these initial images aloud, however trivial or irrelevant they may seem to the conscious mind, is done with the intent of deepening the trance state, wherein the scryer bears their own disassociated voice affirming what is seen within the concentrated state in a kind of feedback loop. This process culminates in the achievement of a final and desired end stage in which rich visual images and dramatic stories seem to be projected within the medium itself, or directly within the mind's eye of the scryer, like an inner movie. This overall process reputedly allows the scryer to "see" relevant events or images within the chosen medium.

Me draw ogrrrrs. Many many ogrrrs.

Bad dog make terrible noise! Me scared. Bad dog, not nise. Dog bites, make me mad. Smash dog, lose arm! me no fight. Bad dog eat arm. Bad dog run away now. Me sad. Dog not nise.

Chip Chip, Hurray!

Introducing the Mind Miner(s)! They live inside my head (and yours too! You just don't know it yet.) My miners current forms are baby penguins with mining tools. The last incarnate-mind miners were Tadpoles with power tools. They all got electrocuted when they plugged their power tools inside the highly volatile brain-storming pools. Due to them constantly getting eloctrocuted, they were soon replaced by the newly evolving Toasters with faulty wiring equipped with termite-infested wooden spoons and rusty forks. They too have died out due to unknown causes. The empty void left by the Toasters have allowed the Pengu mind miners to evolve freely. These days, all newly created thought beings cannot withstand the smiting powers of the superior Pengu! The spawn points are camped all around-the-clock to keep the birthing mind miners at bay.
Currently the Pengu thought super-beings are hard at work chipping away Mount Werd Bloc and its sister Mount Blawg Bloc which is located on the South-Eastern Brainosphere on the upper-right-side of my Brain. Chip chip, hurray.

Top Left of Page: Monkeys-on-your-Back. These guys just love to harrass you 24/7. First, it's one little monkey, then when it's still safe and ripe for the picking, he will call in more monkeys. They jump on your shoulders, poke you on the side of your head, take a dump down your shirt, pull your hair out, flick your ears, screech at you non-stop. They are meant to be annoying. If you don't take care of your little day to day, week to week things or even month to month priorities, then they digi-grow up to become Apes-on-your-Back. They behave exactly like the monkeys, only do it much worse, harder, louder, and are generally more aggravating. If you put up with them and if you're that unfortunate, then, oh damn (May God save your soul)... they digi-evolve into KING-KONG-on-your-back! By this time, you're gauranteed to have a nervous breakdown. Don't let that happen!

Far right of the Page: Shepherd-Centaur making a sport out of the Were-cat who has been ninja'ing his flock (off-screen) Who knows what these cats do to the poor sheep! =O~

Middle Page: Couple of Submariners lurking in the deep. What are they trying to tell you?

Bottom Right: Were-ninja pouncing a Clown Ogre. This is based on a weird dream I had after reading Beowulf the night before. It was a single Were-ninja going up against a tribe of plundering ogres. Lots of blood, flying body parts and wholesale bodies getting tossed around like bowling pins. Never coming to a theatre near you. Not even going to come out on direct-to-video either, sorry.

Bottom: Alien zapping a zombie while waiting for his carpool to arrive. Zombies are the Aliens favourite recreational sport. At least they won't feel guilty so much for zapping humans, although sometimes they do resurrect the dead humans back into zombies, only to zap them again, and again for fun. The shambling undead always keep coming back for some more. That doesn't concern the Alien though as they have other means of disposal at their ends.

Jurassic Park 4. Ahem.

So Jurassic Park 4 is in the works, eh? I had to draw what I think will be on it. Ignore the lobster people. They are trying to hijack the drawing page.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~zain/2007/09/65-million-years-later.html

Its a mad, Mad World.

Mad Cow is an old idea between my bro and I that probably dates back to our Sheridan college daze. Our heroine is a beefed up cow on 'roids who fights back against the evil creators that made her and its abuses from the Mad Fringe groups and/or heavy chain-smoking Aliens. The bad guys unleash other monstrosities done in the same manner, by pumping them full of roids and other alien drugs. That's about all from what I can recall. Maybe bro knows the rest.

Brain Constipation.

Blargh. Writing to free my thoughts out is a pain. I can see them all there huddling at the corners of my imagination, frightened like caged animals. I open the door for them. They don't move. I beckon them with food. Nope, nothing. I entice them with baby making noises. Nope, still huddled away at the corners. I don't get it. The door's open and yet they won't come out! COME OUT YOU FRIGID THOUGHTS!

I suppose what you see on the page pretty much sums up the going-ons inside my brain.

I blame it on Lazy Slugs/snails. Space Snails, Snailiens. Just staring at one of them will compell you into atrophy. It all starts with a yawn, then a little sleepy-eyed, another yawn, etc. One becomes slacked-jaw, hunched-over, brain-dead over time, and overall muscle-relaxant (is that a word?) devolving you into a slug just like themselves. Its exactly the type of desired effect that these envious Snailiens want to inflict upon their busy-bodied, ambitious spine-tingling counterparts as they go about slooooowly conquering the worlds.

They're all part of an old idea based on Captain Storm, who's MIA around here somewhere. You'll see more of these slugs in the near future (here's hoping!) as they're just so much fun to draw.

Its go time.

Argh, finally got this sucker up and running. It has been an age-long uphill battle fighting against the forces of Procrastination and Apathy. It's not easy, still isn't, and always won't be, but alas, a small step forward into the right direction. That was the hard part. Next on the list: Chipping away at the Word and Blog Blocks.

Freedom Ekim shall commence!

FREE AT LAST! Come on my fellow mind miners, come chip away with me!


Chip chip, hurray!