Music is For the Birds

I finally figured out what my thesis is gonna be about, & it's gonna star this ragtag group of friends of the feathered kind.

Drop Me a Line...

SEE FOR YOURSELF

Goddamn 3/4 Views...

Grombledy Grumbledy Grrrrr...

Almost there... Almost there...

A Washboard Bubble Bath

I did this quick little drawing of Steve-O in an old washtub, then thought it was good enough to ink, scan & color. Click on the player below to hear the song he's whistlin' to, sung & played by one of my favorite bands!

Discover Firehouse Five Plus Two!

An Animated Card for a Sweet 16...

A few weeks ago, I got a Sweet 16 invitation from my friends Sierra & Michelle, who I knew from the Cartooning classes at Hofstra since way back when I first started there. The strangest thing about the whole thing was that I was actually invited somewhere!... but that's beside the point....

At the time, the party was roughly 2-3 weeks away, & I blew the first two still trying to decide what to get them... then it hit me. Instead of actually going through the trouble of buying a present, I thought it would be nice to actually make them something instead. But what...? At first, I thought I'd make a nice watercolor card for each of them, but then I thought "Hey, why don't I animate something for them using FLASH? That'd be easy!" WRONG! Well, I decided to do just that anyway. The idea of what the story popped into my head almost immediately & I sat down & started working.

The thing I like about Flash is that you don't need an X-sheet to time your animations (kinda) & that it's easy to go back & insert/fix/remove a frame. God bless the undo key! Now if I only had a Cintiq, then I'd be set for life.

It took me about a week to animate. For the fluid motions, it was done all straight-ahead. The only thing I hate about my animation(s) is the timing, everything goes too quick. Compared to my 'Blog Anniversary' piece I did back in March, I can see that I've definitely improved with the program, & I'm looking forward to doing my scenes for the upcoming flash film that I'll tell you about in a future post.

Since I can't post the film directly on Blogger, here's a link to it on deviantArt.com. I hope you guys enjoy(ed) it!!!

By the way, the girls loved it.

HAPPY 16TH BIRTHDAY, SIERRA & MICHELLE! I HAD A WONDERFUL TIME!

Being Sick Sucks...

I'm just gettin' over a cold. Luckily, I have a pretty strong immune system & most illnesses don't last very long for me, maybe two days tops. Still, getting a cold in the summer still doesn't make sense to me.

Although I haven't been feeling so hot, I still have been hard at work on the Ollie Tribute as well as some secret projects I've been workin's on. & while I've been in bed, I've drawn pages worth of doodles, so I'll put those up soon as well.

'Til then, I bid you ah... ahh...AHHH-CHOO!!! ... ahem... I mean "adieu".

Happy Valentine's Day!

Question #2: "How do you Draw Steve-O?"

Here's another question coming my way!

David Spector from Long Island asks me "How do you draw Steve-O?". & what better way to demonstrate this than by videotaping the whole process!

I apologize for the quality of the video. From a distance, the camera works great! But close-up, everything looks like distorted, blurry garbage. When & if I get a better camera for this, I'll redo the whole thing.

I never really noticed how deep my accent was. Now after listening & watching these videos, I'm extremely shocked by it. Maybe I should take some sort of lecture to fix that, huh?

Keep those questions coming & remember to leave comments!

For the Birds' On-Air Question-Answering Program #1

Here's my first question asked for me to answer on the site: "Will there ever be a 'Steve-O Movie"?"

Thanks Emily for submitting your question. I was very pleased to answer it.

Keep those questions coming! & remember to LEAVE COMMENTS!

Bunch More Ducks

Continuing from I left off yesterday, here are some more random duck sketches from the past few days:

Here's Steve-O playin' Bogart. I usually don't add shadows to my drawings (especially quick "throw-outs" like these, but I thought it needed that little extra "oompf", so I put some in. I've been doing it a lot more lately. Maybe it'll catch on.

Since I usually spend no more than 2-3 minutes on a sketch, I make plenty of noticeable errors, goofs & whoopsies. The puddles are too angular, the cigarette smoke is wrong & most importantly the angle of the gun is WAY off. I should of leaned it down more, it looks like he's lighting his cig with it. Oh well, it's garbage either way.

I drew this in a local park before a fireworks show. I go to the same show every year with a few friends & some family. The few hours before the show are usually a real drag, but luckily I had my sketchbook to keep me company until the bombs blew.

"Finally, something WITHOUT ducks in it!"

I asked my cousin what her favorite animal was & she answered with a tie between a monkey or a pig. So I drew them both here playing poker.

Here's a tip: never play cards with a monkey, they're cheaters to the core. Their poker faces are impenetrable & when they lose they tear up the house screaming & flinging their excretements all over the place. At least a pig knows when to cut out.

This is what you'd call an "in-joke" in the business.

All her life when getting her picture taken, my sister puts on this shit-eating grin & winces towards the lens like these camera shy fowl are doing in the picture above. At this point it's a completely unconscious habit.

I drew this for a local restaurant in my neck of the woods. It's probably THE best seafood restaurant on Long Island, if not the entire east coast. See if you can guess what it is?

Anyway, I noticed when I was in there last time that an old mentor of mine from Hofstra, Al Baruch, left a drawing there & they framed it & hung it on the wall. No matter where I go, I discover that Ol' Al has left his mark sometime before. Now I make sure everywhere I eat where he's been, I bring my trusty pencil along for the ride to follow his trail.

More to come soon!

Bunch o' Ducks

I've kinda stepped away a bit from the main intent of this site: to post my cartoon art & show it to the world. So here's some sketches I've done in the past week or so to stir some things up a bit. Be forewarned, each of them include Steve-O, my duck character.

I drew this while waiting for my dinner in a local diner. I love to bowl. It's probably the only sport I'm good at. Wii Bowling may be loads of fun, but nothing beats the feeling of getting a REAL strike in a REAL game on a REAL alley in the REAL world. Really.

I have no idea what inspired me to draw this, but either way, it's a dead on facsimile.

My sister listens to rap... recreationally. I hate riding in her car, 'cause not only do I have to hear [expletive deleted], [expletive deleted] & [expletive deleted] throughout the whole trip, but she turns the bass up to 110%, plus she's got one of those super-powered, battery-draining subwoofers in the trunk. So every expletive is punctuated by a loud, eardrum-piercing "THUMP" sound. The only redeeming quality of rap is that it has a good beat (it vibrates the seat, massaging my back in the process). It's like I'm sitting in one of those fancy black chairs in Sharper Image.

I drew this immediately after I drew Steve-O bowling. I was just about to finish the drawing up, but then my food came out. French Toast soppin' with maple syrup, bacon, fries & an orange slice... YUM!

While I was sketching Steve-O here slipping on suds, I was thinking of the scene in Snow White where Dopey tries to get the soap to wash Grumpy. One of the funniest scenes in the movie. If only Disney kept Ward Kimball's soup scene in. It really tops off the soap gag at the end.

Here's Steve-O playing tennis. Nothing much else than that.

More to come tomorrow! Stay Tuned...