Now Here I Go Again

I Don’t Keep My Visions To Myself:

Inktober 2020, Day 31

Okay, yes, I finished this drawing on November 1st, so in the end, I didn’t manage to complete 31 drawings in 31 days. But let’s just say it’s close enough.

I don’t think the original Ocean Spray/Skateboard/Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” tiktok clip by @420doggface208 was particularly popular at our house, but both our kids and my spouse showed me spin-offs. 

I was initially a bit confused by the video clip of a man drinking out of a Titebond glue bottle (The woodworker version). Our younger son showed me the Halloween version by Kiel James Patrick (a clothing company) featuring a pumpkin headed person (wearing a stylish sweater) who pours something in a Starbucks cup (a pumpkin spiced latte, one presumes) onto, and into, his jack o lantern head. 

By then, I had looked up the original bit by a Nathan Apodaca. I observed that the parody videos did not quite have the looseness of the original, or the aesthetically pleasing composition of selfie arm draped in fluid sweatshirt material, so I tried to take the best of each. Minus the wood glue of course (sorry!)

A belated happy Halloween. 

And, if you are still here, thanks for making it through another Inktober of bad drawings with me!

 

Inktober 2019 Day 31

Don’t Turn Into A Pumpkin

Inktober 2019 Day 31

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead. Maybe.

The main problem with my sleep is of course my not going to bed early enough.

I was a major offender in the poor sleep hygiene category for most of my adult life. Let us be honest: for all of my life with the possible exception of the last three years. 

Unfortunately, I now find myself in the role of bedtime enforcer for teenagers who are just beginning to discover the delights of staying up too late. And unfortunately, they are my biological children also, so the words, ‘I’m tired, I think I am going to bed’ have never been spoken by either one. They are always pushing for later, no matter what, and are always ready to put up a spirited resistance. 

So, for Halloween, and the last day of Inktober 2019: here is a pumpkin portrait of my partners in sleep deprivation crime.

(I try to have a pumpkin related drawing for the last day of Inktober

Inktober 2018 Day 30

Persistent Vegetative State:

There always has to be a pumpkin / Halloween themed inktober drawing.

Those pale growths on pumpkins and other squash are called cucurbit warts, for whatever that is worth.

Is the face visible? My son suggested that I should display it sideways to facilitate recognition, but that seemed to spoil the premise.

Halloween Sibling Carving

“The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.”

Inktober 2017 / Hideous Progeny Drawing 27

Yes, it is October 31st today and this is drawing number 27.  

While I was arguing with my younger son about his homework on the subway ride home late last week, an unsympathetic individual relieved me of my cellphone, and due to a terminally uncooperative series of computer and “cloud” backups, most of my data. 

Several days, and over a dozen hours of Apple tech support later, I am pleased to report that I did not lose everything, although I did lose all of some things... but at least I know when most of our dental appointments are scheduled. Mostly.

So, back to finishing Inktober. I still have a few more drawings in the pipeline. And I have yet another appointment with Apple tomorrow. So more delays. It will be a bit of Inkvember, I fear.

This drawing was originally destined for National Pumpkin Day last week, but it seems equally appropriate today.

Happy Halloween! And maybe consider printing out the contents of your phone on paper....

Terraria Avatars

I have been quite remiss about posting napkins this summer. There have been fewer new ones of course, as we have been working off of the backlog from the school year. And, I have been busy obsessing about my health, the kids'  health and about food.  This is all probably a story for another day and another venue.

But I am going to try to post a few that have gone undigitized over the last month or so.

These two were specific requests that I draw "realistic" versions of the kids' personal avatars in the game Terraria.  Terraria is a fairly low detail, 8 bit sort of game, visually speaking.  While the bosses, NPCs and other characters and costumes are many and creatively conceived and named, there is not a lot of realistic detail available.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of these two avatars from the game itself... but suffice it to say, I exercised a good bit of creative license.  These two napkins HAD to be completed simultaneously, as, OBVIOUSLY, one kids could not take an avatar napkin to camp while the other kid went without... so these were drawn in perhaps one third the time that I might usually spend on a napkin, so they are what they are...

Powerful Pumpkins

 

What did one Jack O Lantern say to the other?

"Cut it out."

Maybe not.  Maybe he said, "Watch out, or I am going to zap you with my lightning force powers!"

There's been a weird post-Halloween trend at our house in which the boys pretend to be pumpkins...not inert gourds, but fighting pumpkins with super powers.  

It defies explanation mostly. I think it has something to do with the "pumpkin armor" and "pumpkin costume" available in the Terraria game. 

I was going to draw said costume or armor, but the boys had made some pictures of their characters, and wanted me to work from their sketches. They explained that both pumpkin guys could generate force lightning and that one was wearing a wizards hat, and the other, a red fez.  

My favorite moment of their pumpkin game was an instance during a sword fight where the older brother had just skewered the younger with a Nerf weapon.  The elder pronounced him dead or at least injured, but the younger replied, "No, you just stuck your sword into my cut-out eye hole. You didn't hurt me at all."

They told me that in my drawing the pumpkins were too human and not cute enough.

Yep.

Happy Halloween from Pumpzilla

Or maybe it's a Kaiju O Lantern?

Since the younger child starred on the last pumpkin-themed napkin, we had to give the other, Godzilla costumed, one equal time.

My younger son did look at this napkin wistfully and said, "I wish pumpkins could actually do that."


The Doctor and the Terrible Lizard pose after trick or treating.

Pumpkin Head

Jack O Lantern pumpkin head. He is a fearful sight:

We did finally get around to carving a pumpkin last night.  I did all of the messy excavation and removal of pumpkin guts, and left the design to my younger son. I think his concept might have some debt to Minecraft Creepers.

After roughing out the face, it quickly became clear that the whole point of this activity was the repeated and....can I say ironically, pointless, stabbing of the pumpkin with various sharp implements.
The cutting of the Jack O Lantern design in no way fulfilled this urge. The joy of inflicting additional meaningless damage seemed inexhaustible. As usual, impulsive destruction was so much more compelling than thoughtful creation.  Eventually, the pumpkin stabber had to be pulled away and made to go to bed.

 Since we've been doing a series of photos of people posing with the sculpted heads from my "Popular Monsters" show, it seemed like a there ought to be a head substitution.  I was aiming for a Headless Horseman sort of backdrop.  I considered putting my son on a rearing horse, but just didn't have time to tangle with equine anatomy.

Most of the damage was on the back side of the pumpkin, and cannot really be appreciated in the photo below. 

Blast O Lantern

With Halloween bearing down on us, I had big plans to carve pumpkins with the kids today, but was impeded by their sincere desire not to carve pumpkins. They don't like the messy business of cleaning out the insides, the actual carving takes too long, and they are totally uninterested in participating in my parental fantasy of a fun seasonal craft activity.

But, no question, they would be all in for blowing up a pumpkin.

One of our many books of collected Liō comics, "Reheated Liō," includes a strip about an exploding pumpkin where the blast actually creates the jack o lantern's features. Having looked around online at various videos of exploding pumpkins, I can report that this is not a realistic scenario. I did not have much success at drawing it either...lack of good source material, perhaps.

But if we could make it happen, the kids would definitely be into it.
Maybe we can explode a turkey carcass in November.

"Attack on Titan" Style Colossal Pumpkin Titan for Halloween

We've gone back to reading the "Attack on Titan" series again.  A couple of months ago, we had read all 13 books in the series, except Book 12 which was mysteriously missing.

Ansel and Archer had been waging a campaign for me to buy another copy of 12, because how could we go on without it?  I resisted, however, fairly certain that it was merely obscured by a pile of toys in their room and annoyed that they weren't actually making any attempt to look for it.

Perhaps you remember thinking that your mother always knew where to find missing objects during your childhood?  I am pretty lousy at keeping track of  my own stuff.  If my phone didn't ring, I would have had to give up long ago on having one at all.  However, the kids' missing things are usually easy to locate because not even the most minimal effort has been made to find them.

At any rate, Book 12 turned up pretty much where I thought it was, and now we are back to reading about teen drama and monstrous cannibalism by huge naked zombie like people.

I thought about drawing the kids in their Halloween costumes for today's napkin, but was overwhelmed by the task of reading Ansel's mind and portraying him in a way that would not mortify him.

So, giant pumpkin titan it is.



The kids' costumes are pictured below from a test drive last week.  Ansel is wearing a costume of his own design: an amalgam of Ezra Bridger from "Star Wars Rebels" (the helmet) and Star Lord from "Guardians of the Galaxy" (the coat) and an unnamed cool guy who would wear a Minecraft t-shirt and fingerless gloves.  Archer is Eren from "Attack on Titan" in his non titan, non pumpkin, form

Hiccup and Toothless with Carved Halloween Pumpkins

Halloween anticipation is building around here.  I already dread the let down that will arrive on November 1st.

The kids' costumes for Hiccup before and after the foot amputation are almost done.  There are some unresolved issues about representing the metal prosthetic foot and the strings at the neckline of his tunic, but otherwise we have most of it pulled together.  And by "we" of course I mean me.  The kids have contributed a great deal of art direction by way of strategic nagging, but have yet to actually make anything.

Perhaps there will be some more Halloween themed napkins between now and the actual evening when the Hiccups go out to demand candy.  I'm not sure if I can come up with anything interesting... much less 8 days of Halloween imagery, but it seems the kids can barely think about anything else.