April 2006

jen’s brother and his wife our down here visiting us from ohio this weekend. we spent our first full day together yesterday at disney’s mgm studios. despite some very quick rainfall in the morning we all had a terrific time, and i was surprise at how much the park’s grown since i was last there. by the end of the day my legs were so sore and exhausted from walking around the park that all i could think about was how much i just wanted to crash into bed and read a bit more of creature tech before falling off to sleep. the only thing i was disappointed in was what the animation section has become. i remember how there use to be all these animators busy working on whatever feature was due out in three or four years (i’m pretty sure it was lilo and stitch the last time) and the excitement that was carried through out the halls with concept work and storyboards and models of the characters. now, it’s much more of small animation history museum, with examples of how things used to be done and one lonely cell painter painting the same image of jedi mickey over and over again for park souvenirs. it made me really miss seeing another large scale traditional animated film from disney again like beauty and the beast or even tarzan. still, it was fun to find out that if i was a disney character i would be scar (though that might have been different if i had chose “i like to have lunch with nice people” instead of “i like to eat nice people for lunch”). oh, and my favorite attraction is still the muppets 3d thing they have. though again, nostalgia really set in there for another decent run of the muppet show.

okay, enough longing and more drawing. it’s time to get back to the drawing desk. but first, here’s a sketch out my sketchbook for sketch out of my sketchbook’s sake:

well, i have two sketchbooks that are about three pages away from completion. i keep one in a bag that goes with me wherever i go, and another one sits either on the coffee table at home or by the bed, depending on where i used it last. it might seem odd that i work in two books at the same time, but i have a couple of reasons. the main one is that goldfish have better memories than me, so if i don’t keep one in my bag, i’d end up being stuck somewhere with out a sketchbook and that would just be annoying. the other one is that i often find people want to flip through my sketchbook (the most humbling of experiences) and i use my “home” sketchbook for some of the more private figure drawings of jen that i’m sure she wouldn’t appreciate people sifting through. now that i have this blog though, i can share some of these sketches. no, not the ones of jen! but some of the one’s that people like to flip though. so i’ll slowly start scanning some of them and showing them over the next few weeks. it should be fun- kind of embarrassing, but fun!

first up, one last superhero. honestly, as much as i love ‘em,
i really don’t draw superheroes that often. but i don’t know. these are fun, so that’ll probably change.