Halloween Tidings

Happy Halloween from the Paintmonkey! May everyone have a safe and sugar filled holiday!



More football fun this weekend! (And maybe a surprise or two in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!)

Dares and Marching Bands

This week's cartoon was done as bet/dare/challenge from a friend who didn't think I could work the Redcoat marching band into one of my cartoons. Challenge accepted! I also decided to do it on the most important one of the year since the Florida game (years ago) she had a scary experience and needed a boost in cartoon form.

So without further adieu:



My only concern is that Florida fans will think I'm being super insulting about their team by saying the marching band could beat them up. I am not. The Florida Gators are my beloved Bulldogs most hated rivals. And they are struggling this year. But that's what makes watching the SEC so darned entertaining. ANY given Saturday EVERY possibility is there. You do not look past a team like Florida. Ever.

Lawdy, I love football in the south!

Doodles and Bye Weeks

Should have had this put up sooner, but alas the world is a busy place and I am but one procrastinating member of it.

Last week was a bye week for Georgia and I actually was "gone huntin'" as the sign proclaims...



I've touched on this before but I like seeing drawings. I like to see the way artists work out their assorted and sundry compositional problems. It's why I share some of my drawings. Drawings, I feel, represent the artist at their most vulnerable and exposed. Through trial and error it is where they try to compress their thoughts and feelings into that one image that will express the innermost workings of their brain.

So here's a doodle I did of a cartoon mammoth while on hold with a vendor at my day job.



Enjoy! (Coming up this weekend: Georgia/Florida!)

Quick One After the Game

I'm working this weekend so I'm having to fit these updates in when I can. Georgia played Vanderbilt and won (barely) 33-28. Here's this week's cartoon.



I did make one little fix in the computer version. On the Georgia "G" on the swami hat (turban? I don't know. Tired and not looking it up.) I had accidentally painted the entire thing red. I just made it white with paint software. Sometimes technology is not horrible...

Sketches Are Almost ALWAYS Better...

So my Bulldog tests continue. Seriously, these are mostly just a weekly test of new mediums, papers, and styles to see what works best for me and for other projects. But they are fun to do so we venture on, fearless illustration lovers!

This week UGA plays the University of Tennessee. Should be an excellent game. (Although I may not be able to watch it. The Paintmonkey has an informal class reunion to go to. Ah well...) But here is this week's entry:



Getting happier with them.

So here is where today's post title comes from. Almost every artist will tell you that the sketches done for almost any piece of art whether it be illustration, painting, or cartoon are almost always better than the final version. Whether it is the pose that you just can't get right again, or the composition is just a LITTLE off, or whatever other tiny little imperfection that does not allow you to get it just exactly the way you liked in that first impromptu sketch, it is just NEVER the same. It is...maddening, quite frankly. Compare the finished cartoon up above to the sketch here:



See? Looser, more dynamic, just a more fun representation. But I am not TOO upset at it this week. I had to fit the new Dawg into a drawing I had already started. I just wasn't happy with the way the legs looked in my first drafts. Then, while at work, and for entirely unknown reasons the way the legs SHOULD look just hit me. Out of nowhere. It happens that way sometimes.

So that is why finished drawings are almost never as good as the sketches which spawned them.

Mythology and Sports

I'm feeling very literal tonight. Mostly because I spent most of the day with a splitting headache brought on by change in the barometric pressure. (Seriously, I woke up and felt like my head had been spiked to the pillow.)

Nope, I just have two things to put up today and they happen to be about...mythology and sports. Get it? First the mythology.

My comic book store is named Odin's in Lilburn. I first went in there about 5 years ago and reawakened my love of reading funny books. But this wasn't the comic book store of my youth. This one was well lit and the people in it were friendly and seemed to know what customer service was. I'm not saying I don't miss the ambiance of Wuxtry II on Baxter Street in Athens. There was a definite charm to the dank, musty air, the boxes of comics next to boxes and boxes of old LP's (ask your grandparents, kids) and the "will he or won't he speak to me today" tension of dealing with whatever burnout was behind the register reading some obscure French novelist. I'm just saying it was refreshing to walk into a brightly lit store and be warmly greeted almost as if you were welcome to be there.

On their website and now their Facebook page they had portraits of Odin done by guest artists. I am not in the same fame category as most of these guys but I always like to show my appreciation for the businesses I frequent so I did my take on Odin.



Next up is this week's installment of my Bulldog cartoons.



I got a set of markers this weeks and I'm trying them out. These are the first two experiments. Hope you like them.

UPDATE: I thought of a teensy little way to tweak the Bulldog cartoon. Can you spot the difference?

Addition To Last Week...

Unfortunately I don't have a lot to put up this week but here is the latest in my Bulldog sports 'toon theme.



I liked this one. It worked out well from a compositional standpoint and I am improving on the coloring. Plus...I got to use the word "giblets" in a punchline.

I'm off this week so I am going to attempt to get a couple of new things put up before I have to go back to the grind of a regular job.