Doodle a Day: 31/10/2013

Happy Halloween/Splendid Samhain everybody!

here is th capital it's been trousering down with rain today, with the CBD's north-south streets like Featherston and Taranaki producing the dreaded spring and autumnal 'wind tunnels', ergo... sideways rain by the skip load. Not great for running off to work in, or waiting for a bus home, but not too shabby for dissuading those pesky Trick or Treaters!

Anyway, in honour of Featherston Street and Halloween, here's a nifty, shifty combination of the two. Pleasant dreams, Mr Meromo!

And, with October drawing to a close, that also wraps up Doodle a Day; a pleasure and a challenge, but something of a relief now it's over. Thanks to everyone who's followed, chanced upon this thread (you know who you are and I know what you were drawn to!) and especially those who've commented on and off to blog - I might yet revisit this in time, though probably not this year!

Doodle a Day: 30/10/2013

Second to last Doodle for this month, and while I'm also two days shy of the Day of the Dead, here's my little candy skull character and his seedy leedle friend:

Libido and Mortido were my first proper cartoon characters, and found their way into two or three issues of Dunedin comic zine Treacle, as well as (via reprints) a Wellington zine nearly ten years later. The characters, if you could call them that, were pretty much one-liners: Libido the helpless and hopelessly deluded priapic would-be Lothario, and his buddy, death-obsessed risk taker Mortido. neither could resist their respective temptations, although in the limited run of stories I steered well clear of giving ether guys what they wanted - Libido especially. What can I say? I was a squeamish cartoonist.

Mortido was my favourite, and was (and clearly still is) the easiest to draw. His design had actually sprung from an earlier idea of 'Dead'-themed single panel cartoons ('Dead Tired', 'Dead Heat' etc.) Libido, on the other hand, resisted any sort of consistent drawing throughout his life - to this day, in fact. Usually the inspiration for his weirdly exaggerated proportions was a cortical homunculus. Those things creep me out, and so it should be no surprise that Libido I generally find a chore to draw.

I haven't drawn these guys in maybe fifteen years! I should plant a tree or something.

Doodle a Day: 29/10/2013

A late post tonight as I just went and saw Gravity. Wheee! What a movie! Anyway...

Halloween is almost upon us, so time for some spookier doodles. So far I've done the ghost of a werewolf, and then more recently a werewolf... so just to shake things up, here's a ghost!

A Japanese ghost, according to my dream of 24/9/2010 after which I woke and scrawled: "Along a winding coastal road in a late 70s car (a Charger?) Young woman's head and shoulders emerge from out of the road ahead. I have to be careful as, if she emerges fully and has no form below the ribs and waist [stop sniggering back there - Ed] she is a ghost." Despite that, apparently it was okay, she wasn't a ghost, but my memory doesn't record whether I stopped the car or just kept on driving!

The image in my head is as you see it above, so don't get any ideas about the nature of my dreams, okay? In fact, my little dream diary records no fewer than three Japanese folklore-themed nocturnal flights, including the above (which, according to Wikipedia might be called a teke teke or something), a dream about a creature with a dish-like head full of water called in my dream a 'Golle' (although in Japanese folklore it might properly be called a kappa), and finally the most cryptic of them: ""19/9/2010: I'm writing on creatures of Japanese folklore and find reference to a [fit?] I don't know the name of. Nearby creatures help out with cards and suffixes/tables for the purpose."

Clearly, I was going through 'A Phase'. Thanks for not asking what it all meant!

Doodle a Day: 28/10/2013

Today I broke a rule of Doodle a Day - but it was a late rule. I re-drew the same subject when an earlier attempt- well, earlier attempts, had failed. Lou Reed did not resemble Brad Garrett nor Paul Holmes, so I had to do the late, great grump some honour...

Lou Reed was for a long time in my youth an old man, when he was really only the age of my Dad. I knew of him and The Velvet Underground in my teens, but I was a little stunned to realise that he made the album that really introduced me to his solo work - New York, when he was only two or three years older than I am now. And these days, 71 is old, but not OLD. To some people, he's probably still the young man of the Velvets, the glammed up street punk from Transformer at least.

But I digress. New York was one of the soundtracks to my first year of university, and in following years I'd learn a few VU songs through fellow bands (one of our contemporary groups, My Deviant Daughter, did a running and not-entirely faithful cover of Sister Ray) and shared music collections - White Light/White Heat, Heroin, Venus In Furs... lots of stuff novel, ground-breaking, or just fun (I'm Sticking With You, naturally.) And what I heard of Songs for Drella, I liked.

I don't own any Lou Reed past the Trainspotting soundtrack. I think I might try to rectify that really soon. When Jet Jr wanted to hear some David Bowie from You Tube today, I suggested we listened to something 'David' had made with his friends 'Mick' and 'Lou' instead; and so we listened to the singles from Transformer, which is where I might as well begin.

A pen sketch of Lou Reed wasn't of course what I'd planned for today, so today's idea will probably be posted tomorrow.

Doodle a Day: 27/10/2013

For the second time this month I find myself drawing a werewolf! Odd.

Anyway - a worked-up pencil study for a picture of said beastie surprising a warrior wumman PC (Player Character), based on an old D&D game of distant memory.

Doodle a Day: 26/10/2013

 

Yup. Hippoptimus Prime.

Doodle a Day: 25/10/2013

This doodle is really not my best work...

..but Jet Junior is.

Jet Jr turned five years old today, finishing kindergarten and starting school - a new era, and a new adventure for a young man who's already had quite a life to date. Five years ago he wasn't supposed to be in the outside world for another twelve weeks, and since then he's been the most important thing in my life, next to his mum. It's a cliche, but parenthood changed me in my outlook, my work ethic, and my place in the world; it's truly been one of the most humbling, awe-inspiring, heart-breaking, life-affirming and terrifying experiences I've ever been through, and I never want it to end.

Happy birthday, young Simian. May you find as many pleasures in life as you did doing this four years ago: