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!