Inktober 2018 Day 15

Regarding The Interior Critic;

I am always a little ambivalent about anatomical information. Sometimes the incomplete knowledge (it’s always incomplete unless one is an anatomy master, and there are very few of those) is more of a distraction and an impediment to careful observation.  

I did study anatomy pretty attentively during college on my own and in an ecorché class at the New York Academy of Art. Sadly, I think I might have managed to forget most of it.

But...I do clearly remember an undergraduate class with the venerable Bernard Chaet. He was not a practitioner of anatomy as an end in itself, but he assigned projects where we had to draw skeletons into famous works of art. And he had us repeatedly draw self portraits.  These he would mercilessly correct in class, looking each student in the face while commenting on both our failures in drawing skill and physical attractiveness: For example: “you’re clearly misunderstood how to use perspective to render your face in a three quarter view...and your nose has a much larger lump on the end than you have drawn.”

I fear that Bernard Chaet would not be impressed with my Inktober Day 15 offering.

But he does continue to influence my drawing and sculpting still despite the passage of many years and his passing in 2012.

So perhaps this is a momento mori subway selfie? 

That sounds pretty pretentious doesn’t it? I was really just trying to see if I could stuff a skull into my head on short notice. The answer was only sort of.

Laughing Skull

I’ll be entering your dreams tonight in the form of a laughing skull:

Our younger son very much enjoyed Matt Groening’s “Disenchantment” on Netflix. This was not exactly a surprise as he has watched much more of “The Simpsons” and “Futurama” than is appropriate for his age. Most of his cultural and historical references seem to have been filtered through one or the other of those two shows.

Disenchantment definitely works a similar vein of dark humor. The above quote comes from Luci, the personal demon of the show’s main character.

Luci is most often mistaken for a cat, not a dog, and we never get to see the skull, so this napkin is a bit of a departure.

But I figured if I were going to draw a dream skull, it might as well be on a cute dog.

The result, however.... definitely not so cute.

Skull Rings

Skull Rings Go Well With Everything:

(particularly with good dental hygiene)

In her office, our Pediatric Dentist has a bin of cheap toys that one might think that our kids are pretty much too old to find interesting...

But who among us can resist plastic skull rings? 

I certainly can’t resist drawing them.

They were a bit small for our giant son, however, so they were only first or second knuckle rings.

He was more conservative in his ring application on this visit having learned his lesson previously. At another appointment, we had to apply copious amounts of mom’s lip balm to his finger to remove the undersized kiddie ring. 

But that wasn’t a skull ring anyway. Just a plain old ring.

I tried to improve the rings for the napkin. The eye sockets weren’t quite that glow-y. 

My sons hair, however, definitely looks better in person. No matter how many times I draw it, I can still mess it up.

Eight-limbed Monster

(Or, Fleece Onesies Inspire Late Night Hysteria)

When you are a saucy, parent-taunting adolescent, somehow, there is nothing so gratifying as dancing around in an infantalizing fleece suit long after your aggravated parents have insisted you should go to bed.

Our older son previously derived an immeasurable amount of pleasure from refusing to take off his Deadpool onesie for days on end. I’m not convinced that the plastic fleece was really all that comfortable, but it sure irritated his father.  

The skeleton onesie did not inspire quite so much devotion/irritation, but it was definitely good for a joint party of twerking and parent tweaking.

General Ogun and I-r0k

Skull Brothers: 

“Who Wore it Better?”

Or, “Separated at Birth?”

I-r0k, played by TJ Miller in the recent movie version of Ready Player One strangely has much in common with General Ogun from Jason T Kruse’s “World of Quest”

Like “Quest,” Ernest Cline’s original novel was one of our younger son’s favorite reads...  Even though I-r0k is a rather minor character and I don’t remember anything about what he was wearing....

Really, one can never go wrong with a skull body.

(You can see a previous napkin appearance for General Ogun from back in 2013 at this link)

Happy New Year Porg with Ewok Skull

Happy New Year from Ahch-To:

Who is the most popular Star Wars charismatic microfauna now?

I feel pretty much the same way about the Porgs from “The Last Jedi” as I did about the Ewoks.

The Ewoks appeared to be dangerous predators as well as insipid furry eyesores. (They were planning to eat Harrison Ford, remember?) 

It is amusing to imagine that the Porgs might also be threatening. 

No, I don’t dislike Ewoks that much.

I just wanted an opportunity to draw a skull.

Commute

"We must continue our course with the rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate"

Inktober 2017 / Hiseous Progeny Drawing 17

Hard to be grateful during the morning commute on the NYC subway.

But cold weather and the approach of Halloween does present the opportunity to dust off the skull neck gaiter- and to reveal one's essential undead nature.

Sans From Undertale Drinks a Juice Pack

For the record, our younger son prefers the grape flavor.

He was annoyed that I drew the pink lemonade.

Cast of Characters Who Could be in "Goosebumps" Movie

...take one of those abominable group selfies...

My younger son and I finally saw the "Goosebumps" movie over last weekend. His brother was going to a fun birthday party, so he was feeling terribly under-served and required some compensation. As far as I was concerned the movie was pleasant, but not particularly memorable.  My son thought it was great and immediately wanted me to pledge to take him to the sequel, whenever it might be made and released.

While we own several "Goosebumps" books, and I have tried to convince my horror-loving children to read them on many occasions, the series has just not been very popular in the past at our house.  I must confess that I was unaware what a publishing juggernaut the series has been...350 million copies have sold worldwide, and it is the second most popular children's series of all time, according to Wikipedia.

The movie's specific and rather dopey plot aside, "Goosebumps" the movie's charm is that it is a compendium of funny horror characters and therefore transcends the possible failings of each tale of scary zombies, creepy clowns, malicious lawn gnomes, deadly werewolves, etc., etc.

Being an 8 year old, my son was willing to attribute the original creation of many of these sorts of characters to R.L. Stine and the Goosebumps franchise. I reminded him that certainly the idea of werewolves, zombies, the abominable snowmen and ventriloquist dummies among many others predate Scholastic Publishing, some by tens if not hundreds of years.

And, on a more personal note, several of these characters appeared in my recent sculpture show "Popular Monsters," so perhaps I am particularly not willing to cede all credit to Mr. Stine.

Today's napkin is a reunion of sorts of characters who could appear in a best selling children's book series, in a major motion picture, or in my small, unsaleable sculptures.

Portrait of My Son with Skull Mask

Our younger son pretty much always claims to hate any napkin drawing that I do of him.

I wasn't sure that even this one with only one eye exposed would pass muster, so I did not solicit his opinion about it this morning. I expect the purplish cast to his black fleece hoodie will also receive some criticism.

He has been wearing this skull "tube mask" (or is it a "neck warmer"?) around the last couple of days, at home and in the cafeteria before school in the morning.  I assume he is not wearing it during the school day.

Seems like they would discourage that sort of thing at a Quaker school.

He preferred the below version, where you can't see his face at all, and he can't see much either.

 

 (Do you want a skull face "tube mask"?  They are sold in many iterations at Amazon and other places: for motorcyclists, commandos, assassins and seven year old boys. )

Skull Brother 2 From "Gladstone's School for World Conquerers"

Ansel insists that we reread this book by Mark Andrew Smith, art by Armand Villavert, at least once every couple of months.

"Gladstone's"  is a story about the kids of super-villains, including Ansel's favorites, the infamous Skull Brothers. Not only do the masked brothers look cool and carry an erxtensive armory of weapons, they are appealing to Ansel because their mother is locked in the super villain prison and they are free of adult authority. And even in the context of the bad guy community, the Skull Bros  are definitely up to no good.

My more realistic version of Skull Brother number two definitely diminished his coolness.
You can see the cooler originals on the Gladstone's Facebook page.

Skull Pinata Head Guy

Ansel is developing a real taste for the macabre.  He spent the hour before bedtime last night wearing a skull head pinata (from last year's birthday party) with various drapery, trying to transform himself into a "jump scare."  When he finished wearing the head, he carefully composed it on the couch (note the placement of the tv remotes- even death's heads need their media) for maximum shock value for his brother in the early morning.

He decided that this skull guy really should be a character in our ever developing- yet still nonexistent- web comic.  I really liked the idea of a creepy individual who wears an old pinata on his head, but I suspected that Ansel had a literal skull in mind.  I tried to split the difference in the drawing.  There is some suggestion that it's a pinata, but Ansel still thought it was cool and not silly.

The main horror of this skull guy's visit last night was that he left little scraps of white tissue paper strewn all over the apartment.

 

General Ogun From "World of Quest"

Ansel and I started reading "The World of Quest" by Jason Kruse again last night.

The kids really like the main character, Quest's sarcastic and hostile attitude.  I like the thigh-high boots and skull face suit on one of the bad guys.

Ansel did not share my enthusiasm this morning.

Skull Brothers Dogs

Another canine version of characters from "Gladstone's School for World Conquerors":
I'm not sure what breed of dog they might be, it was another late night.

Kid Nefarious and Skull Brother from "Gladstone's School For World Conquerers"

Our sons are still rereading Mark Andrew Smith's graphic novel.  They are collecting as many details as possible so they can take on the personas of their favorite characters.  The 10 year old prefers Kid Nefarious, and the 6 year old want to be the taller of the two Skull Brothers.  

As usual, Ansel was not satisfied with my arrangement of the two characters, (and there are no weapons!!) but did not have any suggestions as to how I could have improved the situation.  

Skull Brothers From Gladstone's School

The boys were very impressed with "Gladstone's School for World Conquerers" written by Mark Andrew Smith, art by Arman Villavert.  Ansel was perhaps a little unclear on who exactly was a good guy in the context of the story, but he was sure that the Skull Brothers were cool.

Ansel wanted to know why they are "standing on nothing?"  And why the one brother's hand is so close to the other's tooth?  As usual my drafting skills are not equal to my son's facility for criticism.

The strawberries are there to ineffectively pacify the weapons.