The Slacker Speaks.

The observant of you ( in fact even the most unobservant of you ) will probably have noticed a severe lack in anything appearing on this blog. I have many excuses, one of which is my usual slacker attitude. But I won't bore you with these excuses (mainly because that would involve too much typing and as I said before, I'm a slacker).
Instead, here's an advert that was published in a couple of NZ newspapers back when a fair few of us New Zealand film technicians were worried the Hobbit was going to be filmed overseas. Because of the tight deadline, it ended up being one of the few times I've sat down at a computer and painted from mid morning, through the afternoon, through the night and way into the following day. In total I was awake for 40 hours straight. (cue the woe is me, sob-story violin soundtrack.) But... hey... it was worth it.

"Way back in the year 2 thousand and diggity 3..."

"Rowlf" was my Weta merchandising swan song. Made back in (approx) 2002/2003.
That's right! 2003: A time before the invention of the IPod, the PS3 and long before Mr Obama was telling Americans "Yes They could".

After I finished the piece, I handed in my Weta Merchandising badge and schmoozed my way into the design room. Might try sculpting for personal gratification again someday but I doubt I'll ever go back to doing it for money. Not worth it considering the many talented Weta sculptors that are a lot quicker and a hell of lot better than me.


ADDITIONAL BIG, FAT, BLOATED, EGO-BOOSTING FACT: The bust won the 2003 "World's best statue / bust Global Award" from Action-figure.net.
HA! Stick that in your hat and call it macaroni, Yankee Doodle!

Slap Dash Sketches - "Raiders of the Lost Ark" 1

Re-learned a basic rule while doing this week's Slap Dash Sketches. Namely don't pick your favourite movie to do sketches from. You'll end up watching the movie instead of drawing it.

Anyways, here's the result of about 45 minutes to an hour of drawing and 30-45 minutes of gratuitous slacking off.

Slap Dash Sketches - "Once Upon a Time in the West" 1

Blogging twice in one week. Stop the presses, chief!! One of the signs of Armageddon has happened!

"Why, oh god why?" I hear you moan.
Good question.

Well, since I'm supposed to be keeping this blog thing updated now I have a fancy 'puter, I might as well get back into some other old habits while I'm on a roll. Namely One Hour Slap Dash Sketches.

Back in my Cartoon Portraits in Shopping Mall days, I would practice in my time off sketching something that interested me. Since the only thing that interested me most the time were movies, I would pick a scene or two from a favourite movie and sketch it for one hour. No rules except it had to be one hour exact and no erasers allowed except for rubbing out scummy hand smears and stress teardrops on the page.
The result of this whole exercise usually ends up being pretty embarrassing but hey... you guys won't laugh at me, will ya? ( I hope like hell you're nodding in agreement otherwise I'll just go back to living in my spiderhole.)

Well, here goes.
I'll probably make this a once a week thing on the blog.
The movie scene for this week is the opening of "Once Upon a Time in the West"
Remember, be gentle. It's been a long time since I've done this.

SCOOP!! Famous people get insulted by mediocre artist.

Well, I'm back.
It seems like only several months ago that I posted something on this blog. My oh my. Doesn't time fly when you're doing diddly squat with your spare time.
So what's new?
Well the biggest news is I got me a brand sparkly new computer, which looks something like this...This means I might actually be updating this blog a bit more often. (Please note the word MIGHT. The above sentence is by no means a contract or a promise so you can't sue me if you don't see me post anything for the next 5 years.)
One of the first mediocre pictures I did on my new wonder abacus was a picture for the crew of popular Discovery show "Mythbusters". Apparently co-host Adam Savage is a huge fan of Weta. So he sent us a bunch of Mythbusters T Shirts and autographed Postcards.
"Awfully nice of the chap" I thought. "How can I repay his kindness? I know! I'll draw him an incredibly mediocre picture so he'll end up hating us & never contact us ever again!"
A few chaps from the workshop were due to meet up with Adam at Comic Con. Out of this group, I selected model maker extraordinaire Dave Tremont to be the unfortunate bearer of my aforementioned piece of mediocrity.

Here, in all it's blandness, is this image.
Children, pregnant women and weak stomached people - look away now.


Unfortunately, it looks like I failed my mission. Adam and the Mythbusters gang liked my picture.
Yet another failure to add to my list.

Caloo and Calay. It's a Jelvis today!

Now I remember why I slacked off posting blogs.
I have so little time yet I have so much procrastination to be done every week. How can I meet my procrastination quota if I have to keep drawing 15 min quick crappy sketches for my blog?

Speaking of which, here's this weeks poop peanut .
Fellow Wetarian and all round incredibly talented bastard Ben Mauro (go look at his feckin' cool artwork at http://www.artofben.com/) sent me a youtube link to a Peter, Bjorn and John music video called "Nothing to Worry About".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwcaQ3qJ88U

Viewing it reminded my remembering meat muscle of the entertaining phenomenon of Dancing Harajuku Elvis gangs. That started my thinking thing a-working which resulted in me saying "I will draw me a Jelvis". 10 minutes later, the picture below had oozed out of my wacom pen.

If you're lucky, a Jelvis will take offense at the image and stab me to death with his oh so pointy hairdo. If you're not so lucky, I will return next week with another time waster.


Fries

WHAT THE...???? THE LOSER HAS POSTED SOMETHING ELSE IN THE SAME WEEK?????!!!

Believe me. I am as amazed as as you. For almost a year I do squat all on this website then suddenly it's a flood! Sure it's like a flood of tepid artistic yogurt but it's still a flood.
What the HELL is wrong with me??

Anyhows, this time it's not Jean Reno (praise the lord!) Instead it's a quick sketch of a Dragoney type thingy whatsit doohicky. It's rushed, it's rough, it's not particularly great but hey... anything to add to the tepid yogurt flood.

GOOD LORD!!!! HE'S ACTUALLY UPDATED THE BLOG!!!!

Yeah I know. I ain't done nuttin' on this blog for almost a long time now.
You probably thought I was dead or running across America trying to forget Jenny and her coyly sleezy ways. Well, you were close.

I was being artistic. You know, putting things off then never getting round to actually doing them. It's a fine tradition handed down from lazy artist to lazy artist and who am I to try and break tradition.

Anyhows, I actually did a picture recently which I thought I might splatter on the internet to take up more room between the spam and the Catz images. Did it in 'bout quarter hour or so, so if it looks rushed and slightly 15 minuteish, that's why.

As yes it's Jean Reno again. Don't know why. It just is.
Might try moving onto pictures of Gene Simmons next. Just work my way thru all the Gene pool.

T.T.F.N.
Fries