Inktober 2016: Lost (#07 of 31)

Today's word of the day for Inktober 2016: Lost.
This word brings me back to one of my very first cartoons.

During my college years, I was the college newspaper cartoonist doing weekly drawings. One year, I won the national Columbia University Golden Circle Award for Best Cartoon from a Collegiate Newspaper. This inspired me to try going professional. I drew up about 3 dozen cartoons to submit to the New Yorker, Playboy, Reader's Digest and several other popular magazines. All were rejected. With good reason . . .

Rehashing an old cartoon I did while in college.

After all the rejections, I changed my focus and started doing a comic strip called Home of the Brave, which ran monthly in a fanzine for 2.5 years and then was reprinted/rehashed for a Spa/Health magazine for about a year. This old lady became one of the regulars in that strip (years later, she was also used in my first children's book Bobby's Biggest Bubble.)

Original pencil sketch

I'm going to search for the original old cartoon and post it (even though doing so will bother me tremendously -- looking at how I used to draw! Bleh! ) If I find the image, I'll update this post.

Inktober 2016: Hidden (#06 of 31)

Today's 6th Inktober 2016 image is based on the word: HIDDEN.

Not much to explain on this one. Just keeping the jokes gross, dark and uncomfortable . . . (because those are the drawings that are getting the most attention! Go figure.)

Alien Hide N' Seek professional Mr. Glorp playing with the Elf on the Shelf (he's hiding, kinda.)

I will admit I do have a bit of hatred for the Elf on the Shelf. He just seems to be the most obnoxious and shady elf in the world. Glad I put him in his place with this cartoon . . . 

Original pencil sketch of Mr. Glorp (sans the elf . . . )

Inktober 2016: Sad (#05 of 31)

Okay, I'm already going dark in the very first week of Inktober. Nothing wrong with a little dark humor, right? (I have to admit, I found myself giggling a few times while doing this image.)

Here's my Inktober image for Oct 5th. The prompt word for this day was "SAD."
I thought of all the saddest characters out there -- Pooh's friend Eeyore easily made the top of my list.

Oct 5th's Inktober image for the word "Sad", made using a pencil, brush pen, and Copic gray markers

Now I don't ever remember seeing Eeyore happy or smiling. That was the first part of this image, making Eeyore super happy. Once I sketched out what he'd look like . . . I started to think of what could possibly make him so happy. That's when everything turned dark.

I first focused on this key element of the drawing -- I found only one reference image of a happy Eeyore

Recalling my youth watching cartoons of Pooh, I've always disliked Rabbit. Face it, he was a jerk most of the time. A snoop, a bully, a control freak and just too darn excitable. So it was easy to make him be the fall guy for this joke. 

The rest of the image was roughed in around the Eeyore character, with the tragedy emphasized in the foreground

I needed to really make his death be totally abnormal with the environment of the characters. I went all Donny Darko and decided to drop a jet engine on poor old Rabbit. Wanting to not over offend people, I toned down the violence and kept it on a comical cartoony level. (No blood, guts, or gore.  I made sure to hide Rabbit's face to help soften his tragic death.)

Inktober 2016: Hunger (#04/31)

Today's Inktober word on the prompt list: Hunger.
Immediately zombies come to mind. Generally, that's is their entire life . . . eating, walking and looking for more to eat.

There are so many unanswered questions about zombies and eating:
1.) Do zombies ever get "full"?  2.) Do zombies only prefer "fresh" food?  3.) Why don't they eat each other?  4.) Do zombies poop?**

Image #4 "Hunger " for Inktober 2016, made with a mechanical pencil, Kuretake brush pen and Copic gray markers

This drawing touches on one of the things I always wondered as a kid; would a zombie ever eat itself?  If it did, that would be such a great efficient ecological system . . . am I right? I mean, if zombies can do that -- it'd make them have the smallest carbon footprint in the world!

Original pencil sketch of the self-sustaining zombie named Earl

(**Anyone have answers to these questions, let me know!)

Inktober 2016: Collect (#03/31)

Today's Inktober word on the prompt list: Collect.


SpongeBob SquarePants immediately came to mind with his impulsive hobby of jelly-fishing. I remember an episode where a giant jellyfish started to attach SpongeBob, to stop him from collecting little Jellyfish. I thought I'd take from that event and exaggerate the size of the bigger Jellyfish (and add more monstrous features like the teeth.)

Sketched, inked and highlighted this SpongeBob image on Toned Tan paper

I used to draw SpongeBob many times during my former job as a Creative Director in the Amusement business. It's been about 12 years since I drew this character. Back then I would design new outfits and concepts for new plush SpongeBob toys.

No sketch for this image since it was penciled and inked on the same sheet of paper.

Inktober 2016: Noisy (#02)

Today's Inktober word is "noisy", I started thinking of characters that were loud. The first character I thought of was Godzilla, but I already did Godzilla last year. So, thinking Sci-Fi, Chewbacca came to mind with his loud growl. I thought of this little joke where Chewbacca would amplify his voice.

Inktober 2016: Oct 2nd NOISY -- inked with Tombow brush pen and shaded with Copic markers

What actually took me some time was trying to make the megaphone look like something from the Deathstar. I thought, "What would Darth Vader use as a megaphone?". (I know, Vader wouldn't use a megaphone, he'd just used the force with some Jedi mind cast instead.)

Original pencil sketch of Chewbacca with a megaphone

Starting Inktober 2016: Fast (#01)

For the last few years, October has been the month for creating daily inked drawings thanks to Jake Parker's Inktober. Artists from all over the world partake in this creative event by simply drawing and posting their work online with the hashtag #Inktober (or more precisely #Inktober2016.) You can find out more at Jake's site here: http://www.inktober.com/

Last year, I did drawing based on childhood memories and concepts. This year, I'm going to follow Jake's Prompt List, which is a listing of random words for each day of the month. Oct. 1st's word of the day: FAST.

Inktober 2016: Oct 1st FAST -- inked with Tombow brush pen and shaded with Copic markers 

Just like last year, I'm doing dinosaur images right out the gate. I'll admit, dinosaurs are fun to draw and those images seem to get the most attention (along with dog and superhero sketches.) Since it's the Halloween season, I'll be doing many monsters, creatures, and science fiction related images.

The original digital pencil sketch of Oct 1st FAST 

Now technically, it's just supposed to be the inking with no wording . . . but I like adding humorous captions to the images. So this year I'll submit wordless images to my Twitter account and post the captioned images here on the blog and Facebook.

Original pencil rough of the concept.

Not happy with the character sketch, I scanned the image and started to change the character's features, details and positioning in Photoshop.