A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... I was starting a new sketchbook. I was about to put a sticker on the front when my son suggested I make the sketchbook look like The Death Star instead.
Who am I to argue with a 6 year old?
I know... the resemblance is uncanny.
So...
Unfortunately, most of this sketchbook was taken up by a sooper triple OMG-Darth Vader-Is-Luke's-Father secret book project I've been doing for Hyperion. And it's huuuuuuuuge. Like 270 pages huge. So most of my sketching was working out the pages for that. And I can't show you any of it.
But there's still some of the usual stuff lurking within. Like evil potted plants:
Ninjas:
Random avatars:
My wolf cub added the two on the bottom here-- awesome:
A Private (Moby) Dick:
Dinosaurs:
Guitars:
And here are a couple page headers. I try to always do a doodle for the date of the page I'm doing:
And here's a page of doodles I did whilst listening to legendary storyboard overlord Sherm Cohen's weekly class here at Fish Hooks.
Oops. Almost forgot.
Here's a picture FISH HOOKS creator Noah Z. Jones did of a horse pooping on my head.
So like every other Death Star before it... This one is finished.
Started December 13, 2010 Finished April 20th, 2011
But what's this? After buying a couple new sketchbooks my son absconded with one and built...
Why, yes. I HAVE been filling up sketchbooks over the years.
Maybe not quickly. Maybe not skillfully. But filled up they get. (Eventually.)
And while I'm juuuuuuuuuuust about to close the door on my latest book du jour... I thought it'd be fun to go down into the cellar and pick out a fine vintage sketchbook for us to drink from.
Say, perhaps, a heady 1994?
Checking out this sketchbook brought back alot of memories. These were the days of:
• Working at J.J. Sedelmaier Productions. • Living in NYC with 3 sooper fun roommates. • Dating the girl I'd eventually marry. • And...
Drawing the plant that lived in our bathroom
Clipping stuff out of my girlfriend's fashion magazines:
Creating characters that would eventually end up in TV shows:
If you check out the comments in this blog, you might have seen someone pointing me in the direction of these pics that sooper fan LIMEY404 created and posted on DeviantArt.
Just be warned...
If you have allergic reactions to mountains of AWESOME being unloaded on your eyeballs these might land you in the hospital.
Ready?
GO:
DISCLAIMER: NO! There is NOT a KND live action movie in the works. There WAS a long time ago... but it fizzled into the Cartoon Network ether. These are just pics a rockin' fan 'shopped up. So don't start jumping up and down about a possible movie. Although it would be awesome, right?
Triple XL thanks to LIMEY404 and whoever led me to these! They RULE!
While I'm often referred to as "The Best Football Player Named Warburton Who Ever Worked at Disney" I'm sorry to say it's not true.
First of all, I've never played football beyond the occasional gym class or Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl.
Second of all, there's this guy:
As you can see, he had the football skills:
But what about the Disney skills?
Cotton became a successful Hollywood film editor and won an Oscar in 1964 for his work on the box office hit Mary Poppins.
You can read the rest of his bio over here at your leisure. But in the meantime, please stop calling me "The Best Football Player Named Warburton Who Ever Worked at Disney".
First thing we did was hand out a set of KND model sheets to the 50+ kids in attendance. Don't know what a model sheet is? Here's an example:
Since animation requires LOTS of artists, everyone is given model sheets so they're all drawing the characters the same way. It shows the character from the front, back, side and 3/4 views, shows him or her in assorted different poses and gives little tips on how to draw them. Basically it's a cheat sheet that you're encouraged to use!'
So armed with these, the kids each picked a character and practiced drawing them while I went around and gasped at what a great job they were doing!
After each and every one of them mastered how to draw the Kids Next Door we moved onto the next step:
Drawing THEMSELVES as KND operatives. They picked their own Numbuhs... Chose their own sectors... And created some characters that Numbuh One would have been proud to work with!
But what's a KND operative without a sooper villain to fight?!
That's when we got down to drawing the bad guys!
I wish I had snapped some pics of some of these no-good-doers because they were awesome!
Bowtie Man insisted that all children wear bowties all the time! The Videogame Stealer stole videogames from you right when you were about to get a high score! And Catnapper stole your cat when you weren't looking!
Sheesh-- I woulda been proud to have any one of these kids working on the show back when we were in production!
And finally, as a reward for working so hard, we watched a brand-new, un-aired episode of Fish Hooks! It's always pretty cool to be the very first kids to see an episode and this group definitely earned it!
So all and all, we had a rockin' time! Lots of fun! Lots of drawing! And no injuries!
Can't ask for much more than that, right?
Thanks to everyone at the library for having me back again! It's always a pleasure!
I used to send this out to film festivals when asked for my bio: I 'borrowed' it from an old playbill but I don't remember who the actor was anymore. Hopefully he doesn't mind.