I designed a tattoo and all I got was this lousy blog entry

I have to stop saying yes to all the tedious, piddly jobs people ask me to do as an artist. Y'all know what I'm talking about, right? "Could you painstakingly retouch my friend's foamcore-backed orca poster? It got damaged during the move. Thanks." I usually say yes to these jobs, because I am a pussy, but I almost always regret doing so.

The latest such job, requested by my father (family are always the worst offenders), was to design a tattoo for some Hungarian lady he works with in Manitoba. I did some thumbnails, she picked the one she liked, and I did a rough of that design for her approval (shown above).

Now, because all my dealings with this lady have been through my dad, I can't really be sure what she's up to, but I get the idea from his latest email that she (1) took the rough and ran off to the tattoo parlour, and (2) thinks I did the design for free.

Awesome.

Anyone else care to vent on this topic?

Eeeee-jits

I'm still making comics, folks, I swear! I'm just not allowed to show 'em to you until they appear in The Current.

This is something I doodled on a scrap of paper the other day. After colouring it in Photoshop, I flipped it horizontally. I do this to everything I work on (I use a mirror if I'm working in "meatspace") as a way of identifying problems with composition and proportion.

Sure enough, my tendency to shear turned up (mostly evident on the bald guy), but I liked the overall composition better flipped, so I decided to keep it like that.

I always recommend to people learning to draw that they do the mirror thing. Often, they are surprised by what turns up. One especially revealing exercise is to try and draw a symmetrical face front-on and then look at it flipped. Give it a try, especially if you feel that your ego is in need of a little deflation!

Jim Woodring

I'd only seen bits and pieces of Jim Woodring's work until a few days ago when I received The Frank Book in the mail. I can now say without any hesitation that he is my favorite print cartoonist. Seriously, folks, I can't recommend these fascinating, adorable, horrifying little pantomime comics enough. just go buy The Frank Book, a regal 350 page hardcover with one of those cool built-in ribbon bookmarks.

Oh, and here are some amazing Frank animations on YouTube.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=brHZ69DsfQI

I'm Sowwyyy

Jeezis, I haven't posted in ages. I'm feeling like some kinda deadbeat blogger. And to be perfectly honest, I'm only posting this little sketchbook sad sack to move my last post (a rather ugly list of links) from the top of the page. I'll try and post again soon with something half substantial.