"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.