Screaming Death Dragon

The excessively toothed dragon from Dreamworks' "Dragons: Defenders of Berk":
Definitely too many teeth for me to render in a responsible fashion in one evening.

Jack Frost and Hiccup

 

Dreamworks boys with big eyes and tastefully tousled hair:

A classmate taught Archer how to draw "manga eyes" yesterday.  This seemed to mean enormous black eyes with two large white ovals on the iris.  Archer then taught Ansel, which led to my assignment for today's napkin to draw Dreamworks characters in manga style (as noseless bobbleheads) with enormous manga eyes.  

As you can tell, I pretty much ignored this assignment.  Unfortunately,  I did spend more than my allotted 5 minutes Googling while trying to determine whether there really is a defined stylistic convention for eyes in manga.

I narrowed the characters down to just the two boys that our boys find to be the coolest, and decided to draw them large enough to display their oversized eyes.

And speaking of Googling... When one searches for "Jack Frost and Hiccup," one encounters quite a bit of suggestive material.  This is an issue that is certainly not limited to these particular characters- apparently animated preteen characters provide fertile fodder for many peoples' erotic imaginations.  I have seen quite a few things while searching for napkin source material that I wish I could unsee.  My older son occasionally reads this blog, so I will just leave it at that and not provide any particularly memorable examples.

At any rate, I offer this observation to explain why I ended up drawing Hiccup and Jack not interacting in a blank space.  After scrolling through all the fan art images of them snuggling, I couldn't come up with anything that didn't seem peculiarly suggestive as well.  While I am certainly not against imagining of a romantic link between the two boys, I was pretty sure that was not what my son had in mind for lunch today

Of course, they would have to be touching to have their heads this close.

Rabbit Hiccup and Toothless

The heroes of the "How To Train Your Dragon" / "Dragons:  Riders of Berk" fall victim to the ridiculous rabbit treatment.

As Ansel would say: not one of my better efforts. 

Rabbit Samurai Viking Assassin

Inspired by several of the boys' favorites: James Howe's "Bunnicula," Stan Sakai's "Usagi Yojimbo" series, the Vikings of Dreamworks "Dragons: Defenders of Berk" and of course Connor Kenway from Assassin's Creed.

Our younger son really wants to determine whether his father might be allergic to pet rabbits...

Vampire Bunny with Lugosi Style Cape

Bunnicula continues to compel Ansel.

He has begun a campaign for a pet rabbit.

Vampire Bunny in Coffin

Bunnicula strikes again.

We've started reading one of James Howe's entertaining Bunnicula books, (Bunnicula Meets Edgar Allan Crow)  but I think Ansel's love of the vampire bunny character is still based purely on the concept.

Bunnicula

Ansel announced yesterday that he is now very interested in vampire bunnies.
He has yet to actually read any of James Howe's Bunnicula series, but apparently the concept is very appealing.

Millie As A Viking Dog

 

Our dog deprived younger son is always rather happy to see his aunt and uncle's dog Millie.

And he told me several times yesterday that he is "into Vikings."

Thus we have the Viking dog.

Archer took a look at the napkin this morning before his brother was up and said, "Oh, I don't think Ansel is going to approve that one."

He did...although not happily.

Zak Saturday, Ben Tennyson and Hiccup Haddock

Adolescent boys with prominent eyebrows and cryptid/ monster/ alien sidekicks.

We had a lot of debate over just how old these three characters are supposed to be in their various television appearances. My sons generally argued for younger whenever there was a question, because it is perfectly plausible for them that a 10 year old boy should work as an equal with his parents in a dangerous situation... or save the universe. I voted for at least 12 years old... (Ben is supposed to be 16 in the latest show, isn't he?)

Steve from "...Meatballs 2" and Belt from "The Croods"

My sons' favorite characters from "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2" (viewed last weekend in a theater) and "The Croods" (viewed this weekend from the family couch) were of course the non-human simian, and simian-like, sidekicks.

Both kids were home sick on Friday...and for the rest of the weekend, so we were able to perform an experiment to see if children's brains can be liquified by watching too much TV.  (We watched the Croods twice, among other less intelligent fare)

Results were inconclusive.

Bart Simpson in Assassin's Creed Costume

In the continuing spirit of Too Much Connor Kenway...

Ansel and Archer have recently started to appreciate "The Simpsons"... mostly because they think the show is full of inappropriate jokes.

Toothless and Hiccup Wearing Connor Kenway's Costume

If one imaginary character is wearing another imaginary character's costume, does that qualify as cosplay?

Hiccup is appearing in Ansel's favorite assassin's get-up today.  

Ansel was planning to wear his older brother's Connor costume from last Halloween this year, but now both of them have to be Hiccup.

Pikachu/Toothless with Ash/Hiccup

The latest "How To Train Your Dragon" spin-off, the TV show on Cartoon Network now titled "Dragons: Defenders of Berk," reminded both of our sons that they are pretty excited about Hiccup and Toothless.

We had all our Halloween costume choices made until they watched the lastest Dreamworks Dragons episode.  Now they are squabbling over who will get to be Hiccup....because they can't both be Hiccup... can they?

They were both amused by this napkin's Pokemon/Dragons mash-up anyway.  Each boy made a point of telling me the picture was funny this morning.  Not "hi-larious" (the highest praise)... but funny at least. 

Connor Jaeger: Pacific Rim Meets Assassin's Creed

I usually object to drawing Mr. Kenway because of all the fussy detail on his costume. 

After trying unsuccessfully to turn him into a giant mech, I now appreciate the relative simplicity of his human form.

Pacific Rim Meets Pokemon: Pikachu Jaeger

I somehow dodged having to draw Connor Kenway again for today (although Chris Giarrusso's version is very nice) because my kids were reminded recently of the coolness of giant mechs.

There was some debate about the translation of various jaeger features to Pikachu anatomy:  Where do the weapons go? What does one do with the tail?

I'm sure one could spend hours on the topic of  Pikachu mech design...hours that I did not have last night.  So my apologies to all those who inhabit the overlapping territory of the venn diagram circles of Pikachu and Pacific Rim fans.

G-Man and Giarrusso Style Connor

Mikey goes in for a high-five with the axe wielding star of Assassin's Creed III, Connor Kenway.

We've been reading (and rereading) the three G-Man books by Chris Giarrusso over the last few days.  

As I am very well aware of my sons' interest in the character, I showed them Chris's "Weekly Wednesday Sketch of Connor Kenway yesterday.  Ansel immediately told me he wanted a G-Man style Connor on today's napkin.

I was perhaps overly ambitious and put the two characters together.  Ansel looked at it this morning and said "Nice.  But I want the other one for tomorrow."  (Meaning: "Copy Chris's sketch exactly, Mom!) Innovation has never been encouraged by my children.

Shaggy and Scooby with Uncle Grandpa's Pizza Steve

One might imagine these chronic overeaters being troubled by the appearance of talking food.

Some iteration of "Scooby Doo" is scheduled on Cartoon Network right between getting dressed time and racing out the door late for school time, so Scooby and the gang are back in our kids' heads.

While I absolutely loathed the Scooby Doo franchise when I was a kid, I have come to grudgingly appreciate it over the last few years of exposure.  Now I'm working on Pizza Steve.

Stork And Christmas Tree From Chris Giarrusso's "G-Man" Series

The Baby Eating Stork and The Christmas Tree of Doom:
Two of my sons' favorite characters.

The tree appears in the first book, "Learning to Fly", where it becomes animate and violently escapes while being decorated by the unsuspecting family. The tree then breaks through the front of their house and steals the family car. It later returns while in Santa's employ to make amends, but parks the car on the roof, leading to further damage to the house.

The stork appears in the most recent G-Man book, "Coming Home" and does pretty much what is culturally expected of a stork... except he does threaten to eat the baby, and he has a mouth full of baby-eating teeth.

My sons find this to be side-splittingly funny.