Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hey, Has Anyone Seen My Naru Jacket?


"Premeditation" or "Free medication", which one?

Greetings from the Left Coast! Twas a good day, all things considered. Checked some more items off of my "To Do List", which is always a good thing. Of course, I had to put in a killer all-nighter last night to accomplish some of it, but hey, it's necessary at times. I'm actually feeling pretty good, considering the 3 hours of sleep I got... no worries.

I mentioned in last night's partial meltdown post that I had found one of my old sketch books from high school, and that I'd try to scan a few in to share. Figure I should do it tonight, so here are some pencil sketches, circa 1987-88. Mostly skateboard drawings, which was my obsession at the time...



Doing small thumbnails so I can fit more pics. Wasn't very good at faces back then. Plus, I tended to draw the background as strong as the foreground in many cases. I didn't learn the fine art of proper contrast until art school in '89...



Again, I wasn't very confident back in the day, which is why I drew so lightly. Afraid of commitment, I guess (lol). 25 extra points if you know what famous skate video that quadruple invert sketch comes from...



Those were the board graphics from one of my favorite all-time boards - the Jeff Kendall Santa Cruz Graffiti board. Had two of those growing up. One was gray with hot pink grip tape! What was I thinking...

Here's one more...



Top Gun, lol. I made Kelly McGillis look kinda masculine, eh? I think she has a unibrow and an Adam's apple in that sketch. Like I said, I wasn't very good at faces.

I learned a lot in Art School. This one was about a year later:



Infinitely better, I think...much better contrast and composition, and plus I learned what a smudge stick was for, and how to use it!

Anyway, enough narcissistic gallery browsing for today...

I mentioned a few days ago that Laythe had loaned me a Terry Brooks book called First King of Shannara, which I have slated to read when I finish the latest Black Company book. Well, I browsed around Brook's website, and saw how huge the Shannara series is, and checked out his "recommended order for reading the books", since he wrote prequels and sequels and tangents, etc. 20+ books! Sheesh! Anyway, the book Laythe loaned me is suggested to be the 10th book I read (as a newbie), not the first... so I need to decide if I should read it anyway, or take the author's advice. Laythe said since it's a prequel, I should read it first, but Laythe does have shaggy hair, and everyone knows you can't fully trust a guy with shaggy hair...

I see that the new Star Trek movie is getting great reviews. Rotten Tomatoes as of this moment has the film at an amazing 94% positive rating, based on 138 different "official" reviews. Dang. I may have to check it out. For comparison, they have the Wolverine movie at a dismal 36% positive (213 reviews) and that McConaughey flick I recently saw at a further-dismal 27% positive (113 reviews). When I say "reviews", I mean published newspaper, magazine and qualified movie review websites, not just random 12 year olds writing a quick "it sucked!" in their facebook page...

Speaking of movies, I have Eagle Eye and Slumdog Millionaire in my desk drawer from NetFlix waiting for me. I ended up liking Shawshank Redemption more than I remembered. A good idea to wait 15 years between viewings, eh?

Today's Weird Video Clip is a lemur getting tickled.




Weird indeed.

I think I'll call it quits for now. I'll do the daily trivia stuff tomorrow.

Until tomorrow, remember, some mistakes are too much fun to only make once...

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I love Top Gun, srsly. BUT Kelly McGillis was totally miscast, seriously she is not attractive and looked like 20 years older than Maverick, it was weird. These facts are illustrated perfectly in your drawing, for that I salute you.

marky said...

Smudge sticks!?! Bah! We used our thumbs. I always had problems with hands myself. For years I would draw people with closed fists, and then after my first class in analytical, I started getting much better.

Yup, Kelly McG looks a bit like a tranny. She'll be most unhappy!

Your last skateboard picture is brilliant. It a great example of what a difference proper training can make. Bravo!

The Lemur melted my icy heart.

Bob the Borg said...

great drawings dave! wise choice of profession, dare i say :)

and that lemur was just like that crazy lemur from Madagascar :D looool :D

Abbie said...

who has a pet lemur?!?! that seems like it should be illegal...but that was cute/weird indeed! The suggested order is pretty much how I read the shannera books. and its true... laythes is a prequel, but Brooks' reasoning is probably that its cooler to read about ppl and have that character already in your mind, then when you read a prequel you are like, ohhh, thats why they are like they are! :P i guess... whichever way you read them is fine, as long as you read them! the first ones are better than the later ones, as well...

Unknown said...

STAR TREK WAS AWESOME!!!!!