polarized double

I CAN'T TAKE ALL THE CREDIT FOR THIS ONE, as the very effective coloring on this drawing was put together by highly-experienced Rich Skipworth, who has mastered the art and craft of digital color to a high degree.  The first thing I notice here is the sheer restraint of color application compared to my efforts thus far  here, the color has been pared back to more practical and direct effect, with only minimal highlighting and shading, and the design certainly stands out a lot more forcefully, with better impact. I reckon I've overdoing the shading and gradient tones especially in my own stuff, I just need to hold back a bit on this score:   the elements stand out a lot more easier on the eye using the more restrained methods that Rich has done here. Elaborate details can still be added though: that bevelled, 'carved-out-of-metal' 'TIME MACHINE' writing is an excellent touch which helps to inject some realism into the absurdist larkings. I will have to rethink my...

ANOTHER ' BUMPED-UP-INTO-FULL-COLOR' ENTRY, with hopefully lush-n-lavish production values injected into this fairly recent black-and-white entry. I've slowly but surely amassed a fair few techniques into the color spectrum, but there's still a fair few more adjustments and refinements---and even fundamentals-------for me to 'master' as yet. The main new departure here is the introduction of colored outlines, which if used sparingly, give a less harsh, 'softer' look, more akin to a 40s animated cartoon, which is the sort of approach I am looking for. The fact I can now convert black-ink-lines to any color means I can open up a new range of subjects, from polar-bears, ghosts, or jelly babies! The use of digital color is the biggest advance I have aded to my cartoon 'arsenal' this year. Much thanx to Rich Skipworth of CCGB for assisting me greatly with the 'color-lines conversion' technique.

HERE WE SEE another 'loving close-up' of one of the supporting characters, the seemingly 'alive' Statue of Liberty, in a 'direct-to-camera' gaze shot. I must be getting more refined and sedate in my old age, as all close-ups of this type I used to do were so over-the-top and extreme, but this one and the recent KOONG KING job are very 'smiley' affairs, with radiant smiles.  Keeping characters appealing-looking is always a good thing; it's so easy to 'tip over the edge' and be tempted into drawing all-out gross facial features with bulging eyes/tongue hanging out and salvatatng, etc.... This sort of temptation is probably best resisted, though I will be doing   some grotesque characterizations on here at some point......the four key main characters will likely be a bit tougher to pull off in this sort of extreme close-up, but I'm sure I can come up with something. Patience is definitely a virtue in this game........ These facial closeups w...

HERE'S A CARTOON directly inspired by a dream I had early last week: sometimes I'm lucky enough to actually realize that I am actually dreaming : once you have the ability to do this, the next stage is to take control of the events within the dream: you can lunge off a skyscraper, for example, safe in the knowledge that you can't get hurt! Better still, you can even take to the skies like Superman, and savour the surges and sights from a bird's-eye-view. Sometimes these dreams are so exhilerating, they don't last long [maybe just a few minutes], but what a few minutes! Some people are lucky enough to dream like this every single night, but I'm lucky if I can get a proper dream like this once a year....I've joined a site for 'lucid dreamers' [the term for those who can control the events in their dreams] so here's hoping I can attain this 'power' more frequently. Today's cartoon is a depiction of events in the lucid dream I had early l...

TIME for a brand-new theme within the blog, mereckons, and what better for a nice change than a series of drawings of each character in [extreme] loving close-up..... Most comic strip artists will more than likely tell you that one of their favorite assignments is invariably a zoom-in on facial features, and this approach is certainly amongst my most enjoyable cartoon endeavors. Here we see cool ape character KOONG KING enjoying a bit of attention courtesy of sizzling cat-babe Veronica.  Yet another example of the never-ending potential served up within the cityscape backdrop:  more drawings utilizing this theme have already been started, and they will scattered thru-out the upcoming cartoon examples. A joy to work on, and hopefully this shows in the finished results....

An added extra chucked in today: last week I joined a forum detailing the delights of that 'jolly jape' known as World War 2, and I decided I needed a unique avatar related to that theme. I whipped up this one-off inking as a result, and it's been accepted, which strikes me as a bit unusual, as the rules and regulations on the forum itself are extremely tough and inflexible...don't get me wrong, it's a brilliant site with absolutely marvelous detail and data, but my first topic was dismissed rather huffily by the learned Administrators: What if Hitler had Atomic Bombs?! I thought it was a valid, sound poser of a question, but the topic was 'locked' the same day. My heartfelt belief that Auschwitz should have been bombed was also scorned upon, so I have cut back on my postings after only a week. Loads of people have been banned from this site, so how long I will last there, I don't know. Here's the cartoon I done anyway:   Back to Baby Boomer hopefull...

The never-ending supply of useless, un-needed products foisted onto the General Public has never failed to amuse me: it all started in the USA in the 50s of course [at least in a BIG way] and the seemingly unlimited barrage of stuff we don't really need is constantly evolving, into ever more uneccessary, throw-away 'junk' that still manages to hypnotize the vast majority of the public........ myself included! I am just as bad as the next guy when it comes to cramming the house with useless knicknacks and paraphanalia: I'm slowly improving though, and this year has thankfully seen my most modest-ever excursions into buying needless goods, and I definitely feel a whole lot better for it.  Buying the latest 'must-have' goods and accessories  doesn't actually 'buy' happiness: the feeling of contentment is hollow, and short-lived, until the next 'fix' the following week. Still, it's this mentality that manages to keep society going, with peopl...