The Bad Uncle

Queen of Diamonds

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IF: Muddy

"Your future is hard to read...it all seems a bit muddy..."

Joker

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Joker is finished...I did several test sketches which I'll try to post later...but they were a bit too goofy...I thought a snail fit the Joker well because of the eye stalks comparing to the joker hat...

The number cards will be pretty easy (plus the back design) and I will have to tweak the face cards to make sure the layout measurements are all the same...I've been contemplating doing more of the face cards since there are usually two variations of the king, queen, and jack...I actually even thought about doing 4 differing designs for each but that might take longer than what I have...from sketch to finished product it is taking about 10 hours.

I actually contacted a POD company that does cards and they sent me 10 decks for each paper/plastic stock they have. There is one more company I want to get some samples from to see what their quality is...but I might actually have some decks made. Since I'm not a major card producer the cost it a bit more than what I would like...depending on what stock you use there is a minimum order of 25 to 100 decks at this company but they seem pretty reputable...the other company has a really limited printing stock but cost is much less...so we'll see. I printed out really large versions and of course like them more, but nobody is going to play with 17 inch cards...too hard to hide them up your sleeve...

IF:Focused

"He might be just a tad TOO focused on his problems..."

Jack of Spades

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I finished the Jack...On the Queen I had gold trim around the heart under the Q...on the King I didn't. I think I like it better without the gold trim but doing it either way is a relatively easy fix...

Now I have to get the Joker and an Ace completed as well as the back design for the card...Joker is sketched out...back of card is in my brain...possibly using up the last space of my remaining two brain cells...after that it will just be a matter of tweeking placement to ensure consistency of the letters and symbols...



This was my initial sketch...



Of course during an after school meeting I decided to play with the design a bit and came up with this...

Queen of Hearts

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Second in the card series...tried to capture a bit of the personality of the Praying Mantis female...you know...killing and eating their partner...queen of hearts indeed...

King of Diamonds

Been a while since my last post...as I've been trudging through the giant pointillism dinosaur...and the Holidays...and it is time for the students to start putting the final touches on their portfolios...so no Illustration Friday or play time for me for a while.

Usually during the year the students design a playing card. This year's related teacher had the students design a single card...so this year I upped the project...students had to design the King, Queen, Ace, Jack, and Joker along with the back...again, another project I wanted to give a shot, especially after seeing the samples in the September/October Communications Arts mag...and since I haven't had a chance to do something out their for a bit I've thrown my hat in the ring.


I did the sketches for all the cards but know if I show them all I will be never finish them because something will blow up or I'll get attacked by a herd of jackels...or something...I'm trying to break free from the iron grip of Freehand, which I will again tout as superior and quicker than Illustrator in a lot of ways...but I know that Freehand is a lame duck program just waiting to die...PLEASE ADOBE...put the freaking bezigon tool AND the 'cut and past inside' function into Illustrator...

And with that...the finished card...


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Sock Puppet

One of the projects to help students learn the creative process as well as Prismacolor use is to design a modified sock puppet. Last year I whipped out some quick roughs to show them examples of how to take the basic form for a hand puppet that would actually work. While I guess they fall more into the line of hand puppets I didn't want them to lose the basic underlying shape of the hand in their designs. This year I was bored watching them, and needed a break from my pointillism project, so I dug my sketch back up and completed my own.

New Styraco Pose

New pose with frill adjusted...Still some minor adjusting that needs done...and will be adding back in the birds from the first attempt...in 22 minutes I will put down the first pointillism dot as I can go ahead and work on the head region...then it'll be like jumping off a very high bridge towards a concrete base...all downhill and scary...

IF:Music...Sweet Sweet Music...

I've missed the cut for band twice now...Granny always said this was musical fruit so I'm hoping it will give me that little something I seem to be lacking...

Skull Study

Another skull study from my roost as students were working...this ballpoint pen is a bit 'stiffer' and requires a bit more pressure to get it to 'flow'...the good news is I found my super sketching 'Navy' pen distributed by our local visiting recruiters. I thought I had lost it and even sunk so low as to go to my supervisor's secretary...I mean administrative assistant...and swipe...I mean borrow...hers...she forgot to inform me that hers had run out of juice so it turned out to be a long trip for nothing...

Styracosaurus Pointillism

My graphite styraco was unacceptable for a variety of reasons...I redid the pose and while waiting to start afresh I did a quick pointillism head shot...one of the difficulties I have when doing something really large in graphite is the need to keep going back and adjust the values...and I'll often erase a few times trying to get a texture to look right...trying to strike the balance of too much detail vs. overworking...at some point it becomes overwhelming and I take 20 years longer than I want to. So the debate has been if I should do the large new styraco in pencil, which I think would look sharp but drive me insane at some point, or to do it in pointillism...at least with pointillism when you make a dot it is there...no going back...and adjustments can still be made but for some reason it seems to take less work...and is almost like therapy in a weird Chinese water torture sort of way...and it does tend to lend itself to dinos without worrying so much about the 'texturing' troubles pencil drives me to at certain points...If I had space I would just take up oil painting again and solve all the world's problems.

IF: Unbalanced

The other clowns wondered if Ted was really cut out for the job...sure it was tough to lose your first balloon dog...but nobody else had ever went through the trouble of a burial...

Sometimes you just have to call a terd a terd part II

The more I worked on this the less happy I became...it was rather draining because things weren't turning out regardless of what I was trying. The head frill area wasn't 'turning' properly and seemed to be running too flat...the pose seemed too stiff...I noticed when I first laid it out that I had forced him onto the format...a bit too cramped...media use had some planning issues that I found out after the fact...

Of course there are some things I like...the idea...the area from behind the eye all the way to the beak...really like the eyeball and beak...a couple of the birds...while there might be some potential I just realize I'm never going to be happy with it...so I bit the bullet...I started over again so that I can take what I learned and really make this work...I might cut this up and save the good parts...but I know attempt two is going to be much better...and it'll get finished much quicker...which is a good thing since I already have the next idea sketched out...

IF: Blur

Pencil J. Pencil...further proof the life is but a blur. You lived well these past 3 weeks...you were kind, humble, always did what was asked of you...but now...your time is done.

I drew a face on my eraser...he too is a friend. And every time I go to erase something I stop and see the look of horror on his face. Do I REALLY need to erase that line? What could I do better next time so I can keep him around longer? I find that people often abuse eraser privileges...especially at the start of an artistic career. I mean we could draw general to specific and really keep that nice sketchy feel...but too often we are overwhelmed by a need for perfection in the beginning and start hammering out details too early...and find ourselves making mistake after mistake and in the quest for perfection end up with something dull and lifeless...misproportioned...awkward...items not placed well in the composition...value sets clashing...and we drag our poor eraser friends out...sure there are times to erase...it isn't a capital offense...but if we spend more time drawing and less time erasing wouldn't the world be a better place...and our eraser friends would perhaps be around a little longer...and they would thank us...

IF:Skinny

Skull

Just a quick sketch done while students were doing their sketches...nothing like a good sketching pen...

IF: Fast

IF: Frozen

"I said freeze his ASSETS...HIS ASSETS!!!"