Gremlins' Gizmo With Spawn

Constantly infected by his older brother's enthusiasms, Ansel decided he was also interested in Spawn.

While Archer wants to see the R rated movie, (not going to happen) Ansel merely would like me to buy him some Spawn action figures from the 90's that he saw on the back of a old comic book. 

For the moment, I am very successfully resisting the urge to find out if such things are still available.  I got myself into trouble on a similar topic after we watched Gremlins.  That movie came out in 1984... that is 29 years ago, for those of you who are as geriatric and sleep deprived as I am.  But yet, one can easily find a Gizmo toy available on Amazon for about $13, maybe even with free shipping.  And when this toy from the early 80's arrives, its hands and feet will fall off because the glue holding it together gave out a decade ago.

This is to explain why Gizmo came to mind while I was drawing Spawn at midnight.
The combination seemed to make sense to Ansel this morning. 

Minion Reflected In Halo Helmet

Archer was somehow reminded yesterday of how cool he thinks all things Halo are.

Again, I feel I should offer the disclaimer that he is too young for the game, but that does not mean that he cannot expound at great length about the many versions of the armor and weapons.

I just could not contend with the idea of drawing a full suit last night, and one helmet seemed to offer enough detailing and reflective surfaces.

It seemed appropriate that something yellowish and rounded should be reflected in the faceplate.
This morning, Ansel told me it would be much cooler if the minion was inside the armor.
I'm not sure how that would work.  I tried this sort of thing before with the Lorax and had to leave the helmet off.

 Maybe next week.

Laser Pet Battle

What do your pets do when you are not home?

Much to my sons delight, their aunt and uncle have recently adopted Millie the puppy.  The preexisting pet, and  older cat named Tigger, is understandably not so thrilled about the situation.

Conversation at dinner last night with Aunt Andi kept cycling back to relations between the two animals and how they must interact when humans are not around.  The boys fantasized that the puppy should have a laser sword and the cat laser claws to work out their differences.

Aunt Andi replied that she is a responsible pet owner and does her best to keep lasers away from her animals as consistently as possible, so this image is not particularly realistic.

Predator and Spawn

The dark and age-inappropriate nature of "Spawn" is very compelling for Archer...in a way similar to the Predator series.

Archer gave me specific instructions for this one last night, asking that the two characters be holding various human remains- the Predator with a his trophy skull and spinal column and Spawn with some other item that I have forgotten, or perhaps repressed. 

Obviously there were limitations to what I was willing, or capable, of drawing last night, so I left the bones and bloody viscera out of this one.

Kick The Buddy With Attacking Alien

"Kick the Buddy is a PERFECT METHOD OF STRESS RELIEF"  trumpets the description on the iOS store for this game.

Archer's affection for this app where you can torture, dismember, incinerate and inflict damage of all kind on "Buddy" is only increased by my discomfort with sadistic iPad games. 

Yes, Buddy is ostensibly an inanimate object, it is true.  But you can add a photograph image  to his face, so you can pretend to destroy someone more animate.  Fortunately, our iPad camera is disabled and Archer is not motivated enough to import an image of his brother's face.   He does particularly enjoy siccing the Alien on Buddy.

I find Buddy's face, with his realistic grin and super shiny button eyes, extremely creepy.

Snark From "The Troop"

Last night Ansel requested this critter from Nickelodeon's Men In Black for kids: "The Troop."

Apparently this critter erases memories like the MIB neuralizer... and it gestates its young inside the neck of one of the human characters on the show. 

Ansel thought it was cute, I am not convinced.

Grojband

Ansel has been watching this new animated series about kids in a band with enthusiasm.

He is slightly more receptive than his older brother to programing that is not exclusively limited to weapons and physical combat.... TV shows that might even appeal to girls as well as boys.

Don't tell him I wrote that.... 

There's only one girl in the band and their logo seems to be a skull, so perhaps the show is manly enough?  I have not had an opportunity to sit through an entire episode yet.

Super Dinosaur With Forks

Archer enjoyed Super Dinosaur by Robert Kirkman, art by Jason Howard.

Perhaps the appeal was the talking T-Rex with the harness that allows him to use his tiny arms to manipulate huge robotic arms.... or perhaps he liked it because the 10 year old boy in the story is smarter than all the adults around him?

I replaced some of the weapons with forks for lunchtime compliance.

Minions With The Alien And Eggs

Archer was dissatisfied with my previous attempt at pairing the minions with the Alien.  He wanted a particular narrative: the minions first being excited about something and then disturbed by the Alien.  I told him this was definitely asking a lot for a napkin and that I was not sure I could pull it off.

I seriously considered drawing the lovely green glowing cracked egg from the original ad campaign, but finally went with nasty eggs that were more true to the movie... But there are so many iterations of Aliens and Alien paraphernalia that it is hard to choose.  For instance, how many fingers does the average Alien have?   A 2 minute visit to Google yields several versions of the Alien hand. This is the sort of topic that I can't really dwell on at 11:30 on Sunday night.  My apologies for any lack of Alien accuracy.

The minions seem to only have three fingers... I am reasonably sure of that anyway.

Alien with Despicable Me Minions

It has been a big week around here for minions and aliens.

I somehow feel the need to issue the disclaimer that my children have not seen any of the Alien movies, despite repeated requests.

There are limits to even my bad parenting.

Secret Agent Guy Who Is Not Tom Cruise

Ansel wanted me to put a guy that he has been drawing lately on today's napkin: a sort of Robinish person dressed in black with dark glasses that he calls the Secret Agent Guy.  He wanted me to work from one drawing in particular- a very large one done on a white board in our apartment.  He told me to be sure to add the sunglasses because he had mistakenly left them off because the hair was in the way.

I am not sure exactly what is going on with the second character on the right in his drawing.  I think he is a bad guy and that the stuff around his head is a result of receiving a punch from the Agent (stars and birds or such)  Is he farting an evil green fart also?  I did not ask.

My version ended up looking very Cruise/Mission Impossible, which was certainly not my goal.  I had briefly considered looking for something Mission Impossible like for the background, but instead borrowed the cliche macho action hero background explosion from Wolverine's movie.  Ansel does not even know of the existence of the MI movies yet, nor of Mr. Cruise for that matter. 

Happy July 4th From The Predator, Uncle Sam and The Alien

Alien versus Predator is Archer's favorite franchise this week.  He has been very frustrated with me as my plot knowledge only covers the first two Alien movies...and the more recent Prometheus, regrettably.  Somehow I missed all things Predator the first time around.

Bomb Pops were a childhood favorite for me.  Now, of course, I see them as an unfortunate opportunity for my kids to dye their lips, tongues and shoes both blue and red.

Ski Mask Thumb Wrestler

There was a lot of fierce thumb wrestling going on last night around bed time.

One of our Batman/ Dark Knight action figures came with a little black ski mask- I guess so one can act out the pre batcostume phase of Bruce's career.  Ansel was wearing this mask Luchador style on his thumb.

I couldn't come up with anything better last night.  Ansel was very disappointed this morning with my uncoolness and took an old napkin to camp today. 

Sonic The Hedgehog

Sonic never really is out of style as far as our older son is concerned. 

But it has been a while since I have had a request, and I discovered that I was out of practice.  His arms are supposed to be the strange plastic flesh tone, not blue.  Having made the mistake, however, I find I like them better blue.

Lone Rangers

Clayton Moore and Armie Hammer debate who has the better mask and hat:

Ansel asked for the Lone Ranger today.  I watched the 1950's series back in the early 70's, and somehow felt compelled to include the earlier version here.

Unsurprisingly, Ansel told me he prefers the guy on the right with the star.  I definitely did a better job rendering the recent incarnation, plus the costume and accessories have been refined to be more cool: no exposed forehead and no fey lace-up shirt and droopy bandana.

Tontos

Jay Silverheels from the 1950's series contemplates Johnny Depp's spectacular headgear.

This morning I tried to convince Archer that Tonto was more the cool character rather than the Lone Ranger, but he wasn't having any.

He has spent the last couple of years in school studying Native American  cultures in the northeast and how the reality differed from media stereotypes.  But I don't think that applying that information to a Hollywood movie with that probably has cool gunfights is all that compelling for him right now.

Monsters University's Mike Wazowski With Despicable Me's Minion

One eyed guys with rounded teeth:

 We saw Monsters University over the weekend.  Ansel and Archer find Mike kind of funny, but his ambition, anxiety and angst does not make him as simplistically hilarious as the minions are.

Despicable Me 2 Minions

The kids really wanted to see the new Despicable Me movie over the weekend.
Unfotunately, it does not open until Wednesday.

They find the minions hysterically funny.  My feelings are mixed.