Bubble-Bot

I doodled this guy while nursing an incredibly sore back:

[click for to make bigger]

I was lying in bed, watching some Flintstones episodes I had taped off of Cartoon Network several years ago. They were using a lot of circles in their promo stuff and it made me want to work with some circles. Now, I'm not that great drawing circles that are round. They're always pretty oblong and mis-shapen. But what can you do? (Practice? Ha!) This drawing is no exception. But I actually like how the "circles" look in this. I can't explain it, maybe it was the pain pills? But were that the case, I wouldn't still like them, and I do still like them. They just work well with this. The shading turned out pretty nice, too. I keep swearing that I'm going to get my pencils out and start working with them again, but then I go and do something like this with a Bic. I like the shading alot. It's very simple, no gradients or anything, but there are at least 3 distinct levels of shading. The lines are simple, the shapes are very simple, why shouldn't the shading be simple, too?

Maybe that's why I like it so much. Simplicity. Things get complicated sometimes and I just dont' want to deal with all that. Classes started up again so work is busy as hell. Equipment failures, annoyed faculty, annoyed staff, annoyed students. Preparing for upcoming terms while putting out the fires of this one. House is a mess. Sub-freezing temperatures and inadequate heat. My girlfriend in Iraq dumped me. Did I mention the house is a mess? Don't get me wrong. Life is not bad. It's just complicated. I don't like complications. I like simplicity. So that's probably why all the simple shapes and lines and coloring. And the robot's there no doubt because, in my mind, robots have it easy. Do what you're programmed to do, that's it. No deviations. Ah, the life of a robot for me!

Billy n Me

Flipping through the sketchbook the other day I found this one:

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Before you strain yourself trying to read my terrible handwriting, here is what the text says:

Billy stabbed me on the bus when
I was 8. I bled from my leg & I
cried. I got embarassed that I cried
so I didn't tell my mom & it got infected.
My mom yelled at me.

When I was in Middle School I punched
Billy in the mouth and he bled. I laughed
about it because of the irony. I got
sent to the principal's office.
My mom yelled at me.

Four years later Billy and I shot
a BB gun at the old man across
the street. I hit him in the foot
and Billy hit him in the shoulder.
The old man screamed and fell over.
He bled from his hip.
My mom laughed at him.

This never happened. I never got stabbed. I never punched a kid. I never shot anyone (old or otherwise) with a BB gun. My mom would never laugh at an old man who had gotten shot, fell over, and started bleeding. In fact, she wouldn't have laughed if even only one of those things happened to an old man. Also, I never hung around with anyone named Billy. It's just one of those names.

But I decided to put this here because after going back and re-reading it and re-seeing it, I really like it. The original part of the drawing (the left side) was no doubt a drawing about tension, pressure, stress, depression, etc. all fucking with my brain, keeping me from thinking straight and feeling good. The words came next. I have no idea what it's about, truly. Again, it never happened. Not remotely. But that sort of thing could help to explain why a person was a bit muddled and confused. Trying to hide fear and pain from "Mom" which leads to worse pain and then getting in trouble for it could make one confused about what to do when something happens that you don't want "mom" to know about. Trying to fight back and winning, only to get in trouble with authority all around makes you wonder if it's worth it. Being reckless and mean causes "mom" to laugh could completely distort your sense of right and wrong. Which is probably already fairly distorted to begin with. Especially if your best friend stabbed you in the leg on the bus when you were 8. So anyway, the "poem" maybe "explains" the trauma our hero is going through on the left side of the page. The drawings above the words are illustrations of what happened at the different ages in our hero's life. I wanted the drawings to be simplified, like they were done by someone who hasn't much talent. (Fortunately that's about on par for me!) That goes well with the way I drew our hero in the first place.

Toasty

I drew the image for this a couple weeks ago and then, since I don't have Photoshop anymore, I threw it into Photostudio 5.5 (which came free with my scanner!) and tweaked it, added the text:

I think that this would make for a pretty cool sticker, wot? Myself, I would assume it's a beverage of an adult nature and therefore quite tasty. One day, when I'm more motivated and less lazy, I'll get this made into a sticker. For now, I'll just pretend.