Bobby Flynn (1991)

When I was visiting my folks over Christmas, I took a morning to rummage through some of my old artwork which was stowed away in my bedroom closet. More precisely, my parents asked me to clean out my closet (when was the last time you heard THAT?). I was lucky enough to find this, my first "official" sketchbook, from 1991—making me 11 years old at the time. I know this because I dated practically every page of the book—signature included. As you can see here, I very clearly stated the rules of the sketchbook on the inside cover:


1. NO TRACING!!
2. Sketch lightly the(n) press down hard.
3. No ripping pages out!

Simple rules to live by, I suppose. Oh, also good to note that I was known as "Bobby" until I was a senior in high school.


Here is a page dated 1-1-91, New Year's Day! Making the sketch 18 years old to the dot in just a couple days. Entitled, DYING ROBOT. Wow, I was fascinated with characters in desperation even then!


Here is a character I must've been working on named Turtle Tort.


...including a cast of other characters. I don't remember doing anything with them, though. I believe this was when Tiny Toon Adventures was on TV.


Finally, a drawing in colored pencils of Dimension-X...with Leonardo and the Technodrome in silhouette. I'll be doing another post entirely about my obsession with the Ninja Turtles, soon. This sketchbook is loaded with them.

Fast forward to the end of 2008, with 2009 knocking on our door. It's been a great year...thanks to everyone who's been stopping by the blog. Happy New Year!

We'll show YOU naughty...

(click on image to view larger)

Ahhh...the holidays bring out the best in us, don't they?
Funny, I tormented Santa last year too.

Sweet Nectar

Hopefully my last post didn't throw you too much.
Back to creatures and cartoons!

Favorite Music of 2008

2008 was an interesting year for me, musically speaking. I found myself at the beginning of the year catching up with albums I missed out on from previous years. The likes of which included Justice's Cross, LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, and Jim Noir's Tower of Love. It was also a year where I spent more time scrounging around mp3 blogs, resulting in my iPod filling up with singles and tracks instead of albums. So, I found myself in the past couple of weeks struggling to come up with a solid Top 10 list of albums—specifically having difficulty filling the #10 slot. The two major disappointments of the year for me have been Of Montreal's Skeletal Lamping and Kanye West's 808's and Heartbreaks. The later is growing on me a bit as of late, but I still don't think it deserves a spot in an official Top 10. Even stranger, Los Campesinos!, which you will soon find is easily my favorite act of the year, released a second album only months ago, We Are Beautiful, We are Doomed...which I find nearly as impressive as their debut album. I don't know the official rules of Top 10 lists (venturing into obnoxious territory here), but I'm pretty sure it would be weird to put two albums by the same artist in one list.

ANYWAY, all that rambling is just a big excuse for what I'm calling a Top 9 list of albums. To fill in the gap of the missing #10 slot, I've decided to drop a bunch of songs on you as well. I'm not doing a write-up this year on each album, but consider it safe that I heartily recommend all this music for anyone who is looking for a change of pace.

TOP 9 Album Picks:

1. Los Campesinos!: Hold On Now, Youngster
2. Marnie Stern: This Is It...
3. Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
4. Born Ruffians: Red, Yellow, and Blue
5. The Dodos: Visiter
6. High Places: 03/07 - 09/07
7. Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
8. TV on the Radio: Dear Science
9. Atlas Sound: Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

Top 5 Songs:

1. "Ruler" - Marnie Stern
2. "White Winter Hymnal" - Fleet Foxes
3. "Fools" - The Dodos
4. "Paranoid" - Kanye West
5. "Water Curses" - Animal Collective

and a smattering of other great tracks and singles from the year:

"Single Ladies" - Beyoncé
"No One Does It Like You" - In Ear Park
"Toe Jam (Featuring David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal)" - The BPA
"Knickerbocker" - Fujiya & Miyagi
"Walking On A Dream" - Empire of the Sun
"Cranes And Cranes And Cranes and Cranes" - Johnny Foreigner
"In the New Year" - The Walkmen
"Little Bit" - Lykke Li
"5 Years Time" - Noah and The Whale
"Jitterkadie" - Death Vessel
"Arrows of Eros" - Golden Silvers
"RR vs D" - Au
"Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?" - She & Him
"Bruises" - Chairlift
"With Handclaps" - Y'all is Fantasy Island
"Machine In The Ghost" - The Faint

Feel free to leave comments (ideally, with your own best of lists!)

UPDATE:

(Favorite Albums of 2007)
(Favorite Albums of 2006)

Striking Gold

On the topic of difficulties drawing the opposite sex, it occurred to me that I enjoy drawing bratty girls. But I'm not sure that counts. I don't have a sister, but it must've rubbed off on me from all the cartoons and movies I've digested over the years that older sisters are mean and younger sisters are mischievous and annoying. Which to me equals FUNNY. My favorite girl character I've come up with so far (by far) is Goldisocks. I think she is more nuanced than the typical bratty stereotype—she's downright charming and adorable if you ask me! I caught her in a bad mood today, maybe because of the holidays.

She was just as much fun to draw again now, and she wouldn't have been made possible without the help of Sharon Emerson and an ever so beautiful voice.

I've posted before about Goldi here, but for those of you who missed out, take this short science game/fable for a spin. I hope a bunch of kids learned about the difference between heat and temperature by watching this :)


--> Play Goldisocks

Makes me want some porridge!

UPDATE:

I just dug up a scan of my original concept sketch. Somehow the paper copy got lost. Glad to see the uni-brow was in there from the start.

A Predicament

A little something new...

I prefer to think of style as something that is constantly evolving and not a conscious effort. You fall into habits and typically draw what you know. Lately, I've been thinking about what I'm not good at drawing—for new territory to explore. I've never been particularly happy with my ability to draw girls or women. But I've always admired all these cartoonists and animators that can whip out fun girl characters (both past and contemporary), so I'm studying. Here's an early design, definitely inspired by what I've been looking at...hopefully with a twist of something that is my own. Weird, because I started out saying that style shouldn't be conscious, but sometimes you need to dive in and see where it takes you. That's how you grow as an artist, anyway.