Here are some of the tiny moments in life I have come to realize a certain tactile appreciation for.
As a kid I used to draw all sorts of ridiculous comics. I haven’t seen them in years, but I do remember some of the characters. One was Mr. Worm, and I wondered how he’d look if I’d try to draw him now.
Something like this, I guess. In his heyday Mr. Worm was actually a bit of a loon, as I think all my childhood characters ended up, but I liked the idea of making him more of a hard-working blue collar type.
I made another try at drawing the secondary character from yesterday’s sketch, and I like it a bit better. The crazy approach has a better comedic value in a visual sense, but this might allow for fun dialog. I wish I could find a middle-ground. All this, of course, is irrelevant if I never find the time to write a strip or two.
I’m going to give this weblog thing a shot, because I’d like to have a place to post and maybe talk about some of the random creative work I do, both for fun and for profit. It’s good to have an outlet.
About four or five years back I made a stab at drawing comic strips. It didn’t work out because there was really no solid idea to work with, and at the time I had to do all the drawing with a mouse. I’ve got a tablet these days, and an idea that I’ve been kicking around. I’d love to do some kind of wacky buddy strip; something like Garfield, except substituting the cat for a personified and largely as-yet-unexplained astronomical phenomenon.
Thus I give you my initial sketch for what might one day become: “Arby and Dark Matter.”
This is rough. I might change Dark Matter to be a bit less… well… berzerk. I might also prefer to dress Arby in a fashion befitting a late 18th-century philosopher, or some such similar decoration.
What excites me is the new freedom I’ve found in drawing directly into vector software with my drawing tablet. I’ve never been as comfortable with real inks as an actual artist might be, but I feel like I’m finally starting to get results that look a little more toward my preference.