Friday 29 April 2011

Furever - Murdo *Update*

If we're talking about memories and departed pets then inevitably I think of Murdo. He was a Scottish Deerhound, an exceptional character and the last family pet that we had. Once he died my parents decided to not have any other pets. Partly for convenience, but mostly because they felt that they could not replace him. It would have felt disloyal. He lived a long and happy life, 12 years which is exceptional for a dog of his size. I helped dig his grave in a high patch in the garden, near where a patch of Rosebay Willowherb grows.

We were later informed that there is a Donkey buried on the same spot, though somewhat deeper. We didn't find it.

My cousin Gail has unearthed a drawing I did of Murdo for my grandmother. I was maybe 16 years old at the time?
This one has the virtue of being drawn while he was still alive.

Oh and the object of this whole exercise is to help my friend Amy fund her documentary entitled 'Furever' which is about the way we deal with the loss of pets. It's quite fascinating and a little weird...ok very weird. Help her out, it's a great project.

Forever Beautiful



I've seen stupider earrings...

Furever Finkel

Drawbridge Studio pal Amy "Matter" Finkel is directing an amazing documentary called "Furever", about the practice of freeze-drying departed pets as a sort of eternal monument to your favorite fuzzy pal. She's got it up on kickstarter right now, where you can pledge some funds and stake your own claim to immortality.


Anyways, here's my own first experience with the practice of freeze-drying animals. For awhile I worked part-time at a really awesome store in Soho called Evolution where they sell bones and bugs and stuff like that. One of the store's hottest sellers were freeze-dried mice, that arrived packed in boxes just like what I pictured above. They were all captured in extremely lifelike poses, standing up on their hind legs to sniff at something, or curled up in sleep, all looking adorable. The theory around the store was that the animals had probably been placed in the flash-freezer alive, and been captured for time immemorial in whatever pose they had taken.

Anyway, we sold these things like hotcakes, including to the A-list movie director who liked to buy them to prank the crews on his films, and the rockstar who incorporated them into one of his stage outfits. They were soft and silky and surprisingly light, and they kind of smelled a little. One of my coworkers liked to put them in his mouth, which was unspeakably foul. We also had a freeze-dried cat at the store, but I never touched it because it was just too horrible.

Furever

"Furever" is a movie that studio neighbor, Amy Finkel is Making.
She just got funded on Kickstarter.

You can see the details here. After which...you'll understand my cartoon
and hurt yourself laughing.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1121014244/furever-a-documentary-film

Thursday 28 April 2011

Dr Who - Matt Smith

Copic Markers taken with a digital camera. I really need to buy a scanner.

Dr. Who? no seriously, who is he?

Despite living in the UK on and off for a few years, I'm not very familiar with this character. This is what comes into my head when I hear the term, "Dr. Who".

And before you ask, George, I have no idea what kind of pants these are.

Professor River Song


River Song is my favorite (mysterious) character. I haven't seen the new series yet but I rewatched Silence in the Library...one of my favorite episodes from the new show.
School is almost over so I can start being a real person again, and doing art just because I feel like it! So exciting.

Doctor Who

Yes, we've done this in the past, but Natalie wanted to celebrate
the new season starting and all the positive reviews and geeky
love for it etc etc...

Also, I did a few IDW "Who" comics which are on sale now!
The Weeping Angels are not in my comic, but who wouldn't want to draw
the creepiest beings in the "Who-verse?" Statues that can only move
when you're NOT looking at them.


Wednesday 27 April 2011

Lee Meriwether

Is STILL lovely!

Sakura with cat ears?

started drawing catwoman but ended up with this sketch of Sakura from Naruto? Anyways, it's good to be back

Lee Meriwether/ John James Audubon

I didn't get to post yesterday, so I combined yesterday's theme of "Happy Birthday John James Audubon" with today's theme of the apparently wildly inaccurate "Happy Birthday Lee Meriwether" (this is why you never, ever should let Tim Hamilton choose topics-- sucka doesn't even know what month it is).

I feel like the guy who just thinks he discovered fire when I say, wow, I never realized how hot Lee Meriwether was as Catwoman. Well, no $#!T, Sherlock, it's only something that the rest of the western world has known for over 40 years, but, whatever, I'm a slow learner. Anyway, I decided to draw a picture of Miss Meriwether as Catwoman, posing with a rare resplendent Quetzal, first painted by Mr JJ Audubon in September of... oh.

Bad kitty.


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Happy Birthday Lee Meriwether ( a month early )

Loved the sparkly catsuit and the heels!

Happy Birthday Lee Meriwether

Tuesday 26 April 2011

John James Audubon hears "Duck Rogers" and prepares to fire.

James Audubon vs. Buck Rogers

Well, today's theme came from the depths of Natalie Kim's mind!

Being I know next to nothing about Buck Rogers, I drew that
woman I know as, "Wilma" from the less than stellar TV show
from the early 80's.

Wilma would roam the galaxy in her Star cruiser the "UUP Audubon,"
swooping down, killing and eating small ground dwelling mammals so
she could later regurgitate them for her young.

That is SO hot.


Monday 25 April 2011

Rise of the Machines

Paul Hoppe of Rabid Rabbit and "The Woods" fame
sent me his "Rise of the Machines" sketch which I
posted for him below.

This from Paul:
Saw what you guys are doing today at the Drawbridge and couldn't resist!
When I was a kid/adolescent, not only the Terminator movies but also the comics drawn by Chris Warner and Paul Gulacy had a big impact and inspiration on me. Anyway, this turned out as nerdy as can be, but I guess I'm just too close to it!


It always starts small

Still at my Maa's because of Zombie Easter Bunny Day, so I'm a bit lo-fi this morning.
and you know, the alarm didn't go off this morning either.

The Risen Machine

Rise of the Machines

As fore told by the Terminator movies, this past week should be
the last week of freedom for us humans before Skynet takes over.
Rather than do anything about it, I drew a female terminator
type thingy.

Saturday 23 April 2011

Elisabeth Claira Heath Sladen (1 February 1946 – 19 April 2011)

I'm a bit slow off the mark with this drawing. Like many a boy in the early 70's I was besotted by Sarah Jane Smith. She was the ideal woman, smart, brave, funny and not afraid to be silly. She will be missed.

Friday 22 April 2011

Happy Belated Birthday Tim!!




Tim always amazes me, I wonder if he is really human sometimes. I had a great time drawing for fun at the natural history museum with Tim, Simon, Becky and George the other day, we should do this more often! :)

EarthDay - Lilly & Cosmo

Go lie down in the grass and stare up at the sky.

Earthday!

Earthday 2234!
We see here the famous
Commander Sharpie as she battles
the evil ALL CORP, who plan to harvest
the last remaining resources of a near
dead Planet Earth.

Okay, time for me to put the French fashion mag down.
Really.

Thursday 21 April 2011

CHINNEGAN

Tim's Chin is the only chin in human existence that has its own nervous system!


Sorry man, I'd do up somethin a little more refined but I'm on the road, as is my wont lately

Happy Birthday man

A Day at the Museum - Dem Bones

So as George has informed you all, we spent much of yesterday at the American Natural History Museum. Which is a wonderful place, full of wonders and MANY people too. Nevertheless we drew many fine sets of bones.
We started off in the prehistoric Mammals, this is as Gomphoterium, an ancestor of the modern Elephant.
Then I drew an ancient ground dwelling Sloth named after George Cuvier.
Then there was an amazing predator called the Amphigon or 'Ambiguous Dog' a massive Bear/Dog combo type thing.
Then I drew the Timitherium Megahamiltonii, though obviously a different sample from the one George Drew.
Then we moved onto Theropod Dinosaurs. This is a Ceratorsaurus skull. You can see the bony ridges where the nasal horns would have attached.
I did a marker sketch of one birdlike dinosaur and one dinosaur like bird.
Then we finish off with the schoolboys favourite Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It was a great day , we should do it again sometime.

Really Old Bones: Tim Hamilton



Happy berfday, you old bastid!

Old Bones: Three horn face

Things were a mite bit slow on the bridge yesterday-- that was because, like, 90% of our regularly contributing members were on our dino drawing field trip. Simon, Tim, Becky, Robin and I made the trek to the Museum of Natural History to check out their new Sauropod exhibit (along with, like Tim mentioned, pretty much every family in NYC with a kid under 8 years old). The Sauropod exhibit was pretty cool, but it can't hold a candle to the permanent fossil collection, and we all made many cool drawings.

For me the king of dinos is the Triceratops, so much so that when everyone else left, I stayed behind to draw this study of one's skull. So cool.


If I had a Triceratops... you'd all pay.



Check out a bunch more sketches of old bones here at my own blog.



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Bones

So Simon, George, Robin, Becky and I took a trip to the
Museum of Natural History yesterday along with every other
vacationing child in NYC and drew some bones.

Here's a stegosaurus:






And then, because I do a sketch in the morning to, I did this.
I don't know why...still looking at Jean's French Fashion magazine too much I guess.
Yes, George, I made up the dino skull she is sitting on.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Hera the Great Goddess

Today's topic is "Goddess", and when I think goddess, I totally think of Hera. She's my fave. The below drawing is how she appears as drawn by me in my graphic novel series Olympians. I'm beginning to become moderately excited for the imminent release of her book (volume 3 in the series) this July. It's my favorite thing I've written so far.



Me and some other drawbridgers were out all day today drawing old bones so I didn't have the opportunity to post until now. Better late than never, says I!

Today's theme: GODESSS

Thus, I take this opportunity to pay tribute to
Elizabeth Sladen who passed away yesterday.

Yes, she was a Godess.

She was THE Doctor Who companion of my youth,
and probably one of the most loved companions ever.

I Hope she has a sense of humor where ever she is. I seem
to remember her saying once how much she hated this full on 1970's
train wreck on an outfit, but it's how I often remember her. It's
what she wore in her last episode as a regular cast member.

At 63 she was way too young to go.

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Cloaca: Good to the last drop

Considering that the topic was "cloaca", today's sketches have been in surprisingly good taste.


Well, no more.


First, an explanation. Drawbridge Studios is actually comprised of two separate, but touching entities, Hypothetical Island Studios and Deep Six Studios. We are two rooms, under the same roof, and sharing a wall, but still, not part of the same physical space. Yesterday it was more or less decided that, in an attempt to bring the two studios closer together, we would eliminate certain redundancies (like having two separate scanning stations) and share certain amenities. As we are the less filthy and disgusting of the two studios, it was decided that Hypothetical Island would host the sole shared kitchen space. Being comprised entirely of the morbidly obese or otherwise desperately infirm, the members of Deep 6 requested that we add a small portal through our shared wall, through which they, rather than heft their ungainly, pasty bulk up on their rickety, sore-covered legs and waddle the twelve feet through the hallway to our door, could request their coffee to be refilled, with extra sugar, naturally, while simultaneously maintaining a small sliver of communal space between our two rooms.

Surprisingly, this idea was well received by members of both studios, and various names were suggested for this umbilicus between our two workplaces. Being cartoonists, the suggestions quickly went the scatological route, with the sphincter, the anus, the glory hole, the ol'poop-chute and various other charming names being suggested before we finally arrived at "the cloaca", and hence today's topic.

I decided to illustrate the inevitable conclusion that we will arrive at, given the personalities involved and the logistics inherent in a coffee hole.

You want one lump or two?

Cloaca Maxima

Those Classical scholars among you will know that 'Cloaca'  means 'drain' or 'sewer' in Latin. The Cloaca Maxima was the main sewer for ancient Rome, constructed in 600BC, and is still in operation today. I've drawn the main outfall into the Tiber River, near the church of Saint Giorgio al Velabro, which is where the miscellaneous garbage that was thrown into the Cloaca ended up. In this case the body of Saint Sebastian (  executed in 288AD)

cloaca

That's the theme that
George wanted.

Jean brought home some French fashion magazines last night
so combine the two and you get this:

Monday 18 April 2011

Taxes?! - Hell NO!

Skelethor and Taxes

Ok because I wanted to (but missed) two days from last week I mashed them together:



I would have drawn him paying taxes but I made it last night...!

Tax Cuts

TAX DAY!

Today I give you an editorial comic from 1949...or is it?