Napkin Not For A Lunchbox #20

One more from the 24 hours of dysfunctional parenting series based on a day from February of this year:

This one is for about 10 am, when, having successfully dropped both kids off at school, I waste precious work time running dopey errands on the way home. Stopping at some dismal chain store (we have them now in Williamsburg) to buy something necessary like shampoo, I end up spending far too much time contemplating idiotic purchases like kids' toothbrushes that play music.

P.S. The overpriced, polluting, and completely ridiculous toothbrushes were a huge hit (particularly the one that played the Queen song) and did seem to lessen the amount of nagging necessary to make toothbrushing happen. 

But I'm still ashamed of myself for buying them....those and the remote control tarantula that I bought at the same Duane Reade.

You can see the whole series so far at this link.

Napkin Not For A Lunchbox #19

From the 24 hour series: this image is for about 11 pm at our house. 

Often we have at least one holdout who is still obstinately awake until 10 pm, no matter what time he was put to bed.  Being shut in a dark room with a sleeping sibling for an hour or more is not sufficient  to induced sleep at a reasonable time.  

But by 11, both kids have been out long enough to have completely rearranged themselves on the bed, and are so deeply asleep that I can turn on the light (sometimes necessary to avoid major LEGO foot injuries) and come in to check on them/ appreciate the hilarious sleeping arrangement in which they have composed themselves.

This is another image from the 24 hour series that will probably make my kids unhappy- if not now, then at some future point in time.  I was careful not to reveal their underpants in this one, but that is not going to preserve their dignity as far as they are concerned.

You can see the whole series so far at this link.

Crusha and Fangbone From "The Birthday Party of Dread"

Michael Rex's "Fangbone! Third Grade Barbarian" series is a big hit with the kids, particularly Ansel.  He is very disappointed  that there are only three books.

Crusha is sent to our world to destroy Fangbone and retrieve the big toe of Drool, but I imagined a more friendly lunchtime interaction between the two characters...although Crusha looks understandably suspicious of that large piece of broccoli.

This one is for the coming school year.

Napkin Not For A Lunchbox #18

Another napkin in the 24 hours of dysfunctional parenting series:  This one is for 7:05 am, when I try and take as brief a shower as possible, and invariably, something goes awry in the following five minutes.

As the kids were not in camp this week, I've been trying to chip away at this series...I only started it back in February of course.

A new school year is bearing down on us, and I might be hoping that our schedule might be more reasonable this year and/or  that I will do a better job at managing it...

Or, I might be more realistic about my prospects.

(You can see the whole series so far at this link.)

Napkin Not For A Lunchbox #17

From the 24 hours of dysfunctional parenting series:

This is 8:40 pm, around the time that any reasonable child would already be sleeping, or at least in bed pretending to sleep.  Unfortunately we are just getting around to reading a book...a nice quiet, relaxing, restful book...like Axe Cop.  

As this napkin series was originally based on a day in February, I have to truthfully report that we were not reading "Bad Guy Earth" on that particular day... I think we might have been reading age inappropriate Batman titles.  But this is what we have been reading lately, and quite frankly, it had the cover that explained the bedtime reading as incitement to play violence scenario the best.

So...does the funny word balloon help to make up for my awkward drawing of my kids?

(You can see the whole series so far at this link. )

Napkins Not For A Lunchbox #15 & #16

From the  24  hour series: 

These are two possibilities for 6:45pm- we might arrive home to find, much to the kids' delight, that Dad has prepared a healthy meal of something like mackerel, garbanzo beans and kale in a nice brown curry sauce....

Or not.

(You can see the whole series so far at this link. )

Napkin Not For A Lunchbox #14

From the 24 hour series: this is 4:45-5:30 pm.

(I haven't had a chance to work on this series for quite a while, so just to explain what it was about...
I was trying to make a time based journal of our daily schedule on a typical day in February.  The series was loosely drawn from the idea of "Hourly Comics"... although it is taking me months to do the drawings for the one day.

(You can see the whole series so far at this link. )

On a typical school day last year, we would bike into the city after school for my younger son's therapy appointment.  My older son and I would sit in the compact hallway outside the therapy room and bicker about whether he was going to do his homework or not.

Archer looked at the napkin today and said, "I never said you were a bad mom."  He did not, however, debate the general nature of the exchange.  Bear in mind that this is a child who would loudly threaten to call Child Protective Services in crowded subway cars when he was 4 or 5 years old if he thought I was not being cooperative.  This is one of the many reasons that I prefer to move my sons around in a bike.

A Visit From "The Napkin Dad"

Marty Coleman has been drawing on napkins for much longer than I have.  I discovered his blog "The Napkin Dad Daily" online a couple of years ago while idlely googling something related to napkins.  I sent him an email, and he kindly suggested that we might guest post on each other's  blog and I said that I did not think that was a good idea as the only readers of my napkin blog at the time were my kids, and maybe once in a while, my parents.

After a bit of pleasant email correspondence regarding things napkin and art related over the last couple of years, Marty stopped by for a visit while he was passing through New York last week.
He wrote a nice post on his site about it. He is also a photographer, among other things, and it includes some of his photos.

"The Napkin Dad visits the Napkin Mom"

Flame Fist Shark and Teddy with Nerf Titan Missile Launcher

The favorite bear at our house this week is a nondescript brown one straightforwardly named "Teddy."

On this napkin, Teddy is armed with a Nerf missile launcher.  Ansel is eagerly awaiting the arrival of this colossally overpriced colossal Nerf weapon named "The Titan."  He bought it with his share of the proceeds from the boys' yard sale last weekend.

Archer's contribution was a character who has flaming boxing gloves... who might as well be a great white shark.  Why not? Right?

The combination of the two was not one of my more successful efforts, but I did manage to put that Nerf contraption in the hands of the stuffed bear, more or less.

New Profile Picture, Sort Of

It had been a while since the first napkin profile picture, so it seemed time to try another.

It's not a particularly good likeness, but it is not worse than its predecessor.

The kids were so unimpressed, they could barely interrupt their viewing of "Ghostbusters" long enough to hold the thing up.

Rac The Blue Raccoon

Our sons were very proud that they won a stuffed blue raccoon from one of the dart throwing arcade games at our local canival last month.  And it only cost something like $20 to bankroll this spectacular win.

My feelings about this expensive carnival raccoon are mixed, but it is one of Ansel's most favorite stuffed toys lately.

He wanted me to draw the raccoon as an adventurous character named "Rac" and provided me with a sketch.

As you can see below, his sketch is far superior to what I managed to produce.

The only information that I can offer in my own defense for my image is that Ansel was very pleased with it.

Kronos From "Sea of Monsters" with Gipsy Danger From "Pacific Rim"

Large characters from my sons two favorite movies square off.

The older child much prefers "Pacific Rim" and definitely does not share his younger brother's affection for the Percy Jackson movie.

I imagined them as fairly evenly matched for the joint napkin.  Gipsy Danger might be larger, but Kronos is a god after all...

T-Rex Boy as Wexter From Axe Cop

This one is perhaps one of the more disturbing napkins in recent memory.

Archer had asked to be portrayed as Wexter, the Gatling gun-armed, reflective sunglasses wearing Tyrannosaur from Axe Cop.  I didn't think I was going to be able to pull it off... and I was correct to be concerned.

It's hard to say which aspect of the image is the most troubling.

Archer's only response was, "What? am I naked?"

Wexter With Dr. McNinja and Axe Cop

Who do you call when your pet gatling gun-armed T-Rex has a sore throat?
Dr. McNinja is not a veterinarian, but in the Axe Cop universe, he seems as likely a candidate as any.

The request from the boys yesterday was Wexter, Axe Cop's pet dinosaur, and Dr. McNinja.
To be completely honest, what they really wanted was for me to draw them as the two characters- the older child as the gun-armed tyrannosaur, and the younger as the masked doctor. 

They went to bed later than usual last night, and it was just too late in the evening for me to get my mind around the problem of how to make my 10 old son look like a dinosaur.  Dr. McNinja was less problematic, but still daunting as only his eyes are visible... and was I going to draw him with the physique of a six year old?

So, I went for something more straightforward... although as it turns out, no less complicated.

Maybe tonight a solution to the dinosaur-gun-boy will come to me.
(If I do manage to draw such an image... it will definitely not be going to lunch at their Quaker school in the fall.)

Sketch of Kids as Wolverine and Axe Cop

This one didn't make it past the preliminary sketch stage.

Ansel swears he asked to be drawn as Dr. McNinja not Axe Cop. 

The result was shaping up to be fairly strange either way.

Zombie Assassin's Creed III Connor With Zombified Zombie Hunter

The widespread popularity of zombies has finally sunk in around here and I got a request to draw my sons as members of the living dead.

The kids are definitely too young for most zombie movies, but Archer has at least a half dozen video games where the guiltless and gleeful bashing of zombies is the both the goal and the pleasure of the game.

So it was certainly not that they weren't thinking about zombies, but last week for the first time, they  decided that perhaps being a zombie might be cool.

Maybe not as cool as caving in the head of many zombies, but cool nonetheless. 

And cool enough that Ansel wanted not just to be a "Zombie Hunter," but as he said: a "Zombie Zombie Hunter."

Flying Cat Legged Manta and Shark from Axe Cop and Dr. McNinja

Our kids really liked the flying, legged sea life created by the witch doctor cats in Axe Cop's "The Dogs." (link to Axe Cop archive)

They agreed that it was reminiscent of the flying sharks summoned by a ghost wizard in Dr. McNinja (link to Dr. McNinja archive)

Since we were first introduced to Axe Cop through his team-up with the Doctor, here is a team-up between a flying manta and shark.

Portrait of Archer

As usual, these portraits are accurate, without being particularly good likenesses of either child.

Portrait of Ansel

 

Here in the unscheduled wasteland of August, I'm trying to do some portraits of the kids.  I realize it has been a year since the last set. (Which you can see here)

As usual, cooperation is a major issue.  Posing even for 60 seconds can apparently lead to intense physical and psychological pain for my sons.

As a result, there is rarely one source photo to work from.  I have to compile several images to get the child with an acceptable expression, standing in the right place, and wearing his glasses.

There were some requests via facebook that I show some process images, so below there are a few of the source material and the first napkin in its earlier stages.

I'm still not sure if this one is going to work out in the end.  I am seriously regretting the bookcase backdrop and am not optimistic about orchestrating the final image.
 

 July 25th, 2014:  I realized almost a full year later, that I never managed to post the final image of the portraits:

 Process and source photos: