FIERCE

What is more FIERCE than SocMoZilla stomping his way through a major city? Absolutely nothing. All other Illustration Friday participants give up now. Contest is over... turn in your pencils. :0)

On impulse, I started drawing a SocMoZilla to see what came out of my pencil. It was taking shape pretty good. I figured if I didn't worry too much about the finished product, I could get something together for IF this week... before I get covered up in work. I grabbed a chalk brush in Photoshop... something new to play with... and started adding color. It was fun to scrub the chalk brush around and actually have some texture for once. I need to play around with this more when I have time. So... here you go. A quick 'n' dirty entry for IF this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Bizee

Busy is a funny word now that I think about it. It's like you are doing lots of BIZ-ing. Whatever that is. But, I've been really busy lately working on a bunch of flashcards. They aren't easy. Well, a few are... and that helps. One card was to be a skinny lion. I started out drawing a lion head and then a very skinny body. It turned out pretty good... no problems there. But then I had to draw a British Police station. I probably spent a whole day looking for pictures and trying to draw a building. I don't like to draw buildings that much. Perspective and straight lines are a pain... but that's the way it goes... oops... am I whining? Sorry about that, chief.

Anyway, I have not had much time for the world wide webnet thingy lately.

... but I think I do see a light at the end of the tunnel...

juggler

I have been too busy lately to post anything new... but the bug-eyed baby I posted last is getting on my nerves. So I grabbed a sketch of a kid juggling jars of peanut butter. That will be something new to look at for a while.

And why is he juggling peanut butter?
... Beats me.

BABY

Who doesn't like BABY pictures?

WORRY

What, SocMo worry?

I grew up on Mad Magazine. I was drawing Alfred E. Neuman in Jr. High school. Back then, Mad was a black and white magazine with NO advertising. Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, and Paul Coker Jr. were my heroes. I probably learned everything I know about making humorous drawings from trying to draw like those guys. Bill Gaines was the publisher of Mad for over 40 years. He had a thing for King Kong (the original) so on his birthday, the artists mounted a huge Kong head outside his office window in New York. It was a great time to work for Mad. On my first trip to NYC I visited the offices of Mad. I got to look into some flat files and see original artwork by Mort Drucker. Fabulous stuff!

Mad seems a lot different to me now. It is on slicker paper, printed in color, and has advertising. Oh well, times change.

Now keeping with the worry theme, as Bobby McFarin says... "Don't worry, be HAPPY!"
(I wish I could link up with that song somehow)

say it ain't so!

I suspect there are millions of young girls in mourning today. The 17 year old David Archuleta lost on American Idol last night. Pity. I preferred him to over the other David.

I found this doodle laying around and thought I would scan it and slap it up here... LOOK I HAVE A NEW POST!

ELECTRICITY

The secret to SocMo's most mystifying trick is... ELECTRICITY.

Biker Bunnies

A few weeks ago I completed another set of images for the Alamofire guys. These will be up for grabs in their Pack Rat game on Facebook. They could be there now... who knows? The Biker Bunnies were much harder than the Bees were to illustrate. I did a Biker Bar, some long neck carrot juice bottles, a tattoo, and some other stuff... 15 things in all. Of course, the Bunnies were my favorite. I find that I like to draw anything that has eyeballs more than objects. Again, the tough part was designing something that is to be seen at 64x64 pixels. That's small. I have put up larger images here so you won't strain your eyes looking at them. I'm always considerate of you guys. I wouldn't want my 6 visitors to go blind on me....

deep dark dungeon dude... dang!

Question: How often do you get asked to draw a lawyer hanging upside down in a dungeon in a bigfoot comic strip style?

Answer: About once in your career.

I have been very busy lately doing sketches for a little teaching book. I was contacted by a local designer (who is an old friend) to do this B&W illo for him. I don't really have the extra time for another project. What to do? Well, you squeeze it in somehow. Actually, this was pretty painless. I dashed out a sketch, e-mailed it, heard back that the client liked it, and did the finish. I wish eveything was this easy. Unfortunately, a job like this is very rare. Usually there is much agony and gnashing of teeth on my part. I end up feeling like I would rather trade places with the guy in the dungeon than do the job... but not this time! Nope... this time it was a cakewalk... woo hooooo....

Sink o' de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo everybody! :0)

PRIMITIVE

Recently, some new cave drawings were discovered in Lascaux, France. A PRIMITIVE Neanderthal sock monkey appears to be hunting prehistoric, freerange donuts. This is the earliest record of the existence of a sock monkey ever discovered. A nearby cave was found to be the ancient burial ground of the rare Jurassic Donut. Paleontologists are thrilled by their discoveries.

Game Time!

Here are a few of the little icons I made for Alamofire. They have a game on FACEBOOK called PackRat. It was fun to design the little icons. They appear about half this size in the game. I had to keep them as simple as I could so they would read OK at the small sizes. The game is played by finding and collecting icons that are in a set. One way to get the icons is to steal them from your friends... who then aren't your friends anymore,right? Anyhoo, looks like a lot of fun. Worth signing up on FACEBOOK just to play!

HOMAGE

SocMo likes to start off each day with a big bowl of HOMAGE!

OK... SocMo is a few fries short of a Happy Meal, isn't he? This idea popped into my head and I just went for it. Does it make any sense? Don't know. But I am back at Illustration Friday after a couple of weeks of missing out on the fun. Thanks for stopping by and looking :0)

pork chop

Rumors that I have dropped off the face of the Earth are NOT true! I tripped just as I got to the edge, and didn't go over.

I have been distracted by various things lately such as working on TAXES, ugh... and getting my mower in shape for spring. I sharpened the blade and then proceeded to cut my finger REALLY good while putting it back on the mower. Anyhoo... this is a little job I did recently. It's for a bad joke about a pig doing karate... a pork chop. I don't write these things... I just draw 'em. :0)

GARDEN

SocMo is hoping for a bumper crop from his GARDEN this year...


I am barely making the Illustration Friday again this week. I found a bit of time that I could dash something out. I have planted donuts in my garden before, but they never seem to grow. I must be planting them the wrong time of the year...

LEAP

After his LEAP, SocMo realized his bungee cord was too long!

DUCK!

Some people throw things when they are mad. Can you believe it? The challenge on this little spot illo was to put something that fits a horizontal format into a vertical one. The idea here was that the guy is mad and chucked the football at the other guy's head. As I look at it now... I''m not sure this reads like that. Looks more like the other guy is not ducking, but just surprised by the football. I hope it works better in context. Oh, well...

come and get it!

Here is something fresh off the drawing board... all digitized and with extra cheese. I think it turned out pretty decent so I am slapping up here for fun. I think this illustrates a parable. Can you guess which one?

THEORY

SocMo tests his THEORY that toast always lands jelly side down.


Well, I squeezed a bit of time out to do another Illustration Friday word. Or in my case it is Illustration Monday night. Good thing TV is a vast wasteland tonight. But then it is pretty much always a vast wasteland these days. I tried using Painter again on this one. Still don't have a clue what I'm doing. I used one brush to color several items and then discovered that the opacity was set on 5%. After changing it to 100% it was really different. I tried a watercolor brush for a while then a pastel brush on the floor, then an oil brush on the wall. Then just smeared the oil brush around here and there. I can see that if I really worked at this I could maybe come up with some intersting painterly textures. Maybe someday I'll do that... but right now it is off to bed I go... :0)

Choose SocMo!

If you want change... I'm talking BIG CHANGE... choose SocMo as the next president. Nothing would be a bigger change than putting a sock monkey in the White House! (we could do worse)

What's that you say? You haven't seen SocMo in any of the primaries? Well, SocMo has been traveling from primary to primary in his SocMo for President hot air balloon. Unfortunately, this has been a huge tactical error. He arrives in each state about 2 weeks late for the voting. He only has a few minutes to shake two or three hands, kiss a dog, and restock his supply of Fritos and Dr. Pepper for the next flight.

Keep your eyes peeled... he may be fllying over your state right now!