Here’s the last batch of scribbles from my cheesecake job, showing quite a few variations on similar poses. I’ll post the final character when I have inked her.

 

Here is another page of sketches from my super-fun cheesecake logo-character design job.


OK, that’s enough fun for one day, I have to get back to all the OTHER stuff I have to do…

 


Here are some exploratory sketches I did for my short story in the Babes In Space anthology a few years back. These space-faring giantesses were adversaries for Sephilina the Nauti-Girl (AKA: Squid Girl). As I mentioned earlier, I usually spend too much time doing sketches thumbnails, and not enough time actually making finished product and this situation was certainly typical. I have pages and pages of sketches of these gals. I will post the rest later.

 

I was lazy in drawing the hands and feet on these (my bad habit). I’ll tidy them up later.

Mar 192008
 

I once had an idea about a hypochondriac robot and a manic monkey/dog (a genetic-hybrid) who travel the galaxy selling useless products to aliens. Like door to door salesmen. Their space ship is the size of a small country but most of the interior is filled with cargo, so these two live in a cramped little command module. There is a lot of travel time from A to B in outer space so there’s plenty of time for these guys to really drive each other crazy in there.


I’ve always been a sucker for cartoon science fiction stuff, but this idea is really about sharing space with someone… Sharing a bedroom with your little brother or a cubicle with someone at work. It was inspired by staying in an apartment full of guys and the frictions that result from having room-mates; all those little annoying brouhahas over who ate who’s stuff in the fridge and so on. Just put all that button-pushing and passive aggressive shenanigans “IN SPACE” with robots and monkey/dogs and there you go. Sort of a Silent Running GlenGarry GlenRoss Odd Couple Ice Station Zebra type thang… for kids!


Anyway, it still makes me chuckle when I think about it so I guess I’ll blow the dust of this old idea and do a comic story someday….

Mar 142008
 


Right now, I have a few little design jobs all cooking on the stove at the same time. Some of them are tasty, some of them not so tasty. Here are some sketches for one of the fun jobs. The assignment is to design a cheesecake pinup-girl to be the icon character for a potential line of Boudoir clothing and accessories (which is why she is holding a handbag in a few of the sketches). This is the first time that I have designed a female character and had the client ask me to make the boobs and bum even bigger. Good times.

I’ll post some more cheesecake sketches later, once I scan them. My good scanner (a 2nd-hand Epson Perfection 3170) just up and died recently; one day it simply failed to even turn on, after being a great workhorse for about a year… So until I buy a new scanner (model suggestions anyone?) I am stuck with my slow All-In-One (fax/printer/scanner) which has lousy picture quality, though serviceable enough for rough Black and White sketches…

Mar 112008
 

I want to show you two sites that showcase sculptures made from scrap. STEPHANE HALLEUX is a Belgian sculptor who makes incredible things out of bits and pieces of leather and old machine parts. His work is very inspiring and I recommend that you all take a look-see at his site. Click on each of the menus on the left side from “Personnages” (characters) to “Croquis” (sketches) to see a wide selection of his fantastic and whimsical creations, that include people, animals, machines, and vehicles. (Thanks to Tony for telling me about this artist).

The second site has been on my LINKS page for a while now but it seems appropriate to mention it again here in this post, because it too features sculptures made from bits and pieces of old junk. BENNETT ROBOT WORKS, as you’d expect from the title of the site, focuses exclusively on sculptures of ROBOTS in all shapes and sizes. They all have a retro-tech quality and a ton of personality, each being made entirely from a unique configuration of found objects. If you fall in love with one, the good news is that each of them is for sale.

 

When I am doodling away on my self-published comics, I can really disappear up my own creative tail-pipe on the preparations sometimes. I may spend days and days designing a character who only appears in one or two panels, drawing pages and pages of thumbnail sketches, and spending hours and hours thinking up names and back-stories and all that stuff…. none of which shows up in the final book.

Case in point, an airborne adversary for Rocket Rabbit, THRUST MONKEY. He’s a jet-pack powered bad-guy who, by the way, rolls (and flies) with JUMP CHIMP (posted earlier) a rocket-boot sporting fellow flying simian, both of whom are members of the APES OF WRATH, a freelance co-op of hairy marauders, each of whom got way more pencil mileage than was really required.

But on the other hand, playing around with all this stuff is the fun part of doing personal projects. And I get to post the left-overs in my blog.