RETURN of the Hoodie Ninja!

"The Hoodie Ninja"

the hoodie ninja returns! i've been wanting to color this for years... literally. basically, around december '04 one day, i was just staring at myself in the mirror wearing a hoodie... and impulsively pulled the drawstrings and tied them behind my head... haha.. after that, i HAD to draw it - and thus the hoodie ninja was born. should probably draw more of this guy..

"My Little Big Planet"

no... not the cool ps3 game, but i just barely finished coloring this doodle i did at work about a year ago. the concept was "what would be the most time consuming thing to keep me entertained and sane while working?" i thought drawing an entire civilization would do the trick, complete with planet. i realized about half way in that it was a little ambitious, and opted out for a more... village-esque thing. fun stuff though. happy to finally get some colors on this one.

"Unholy Alliance"

a few weeks ago, i colored this picture i drew for a friend and almost forgot to post it. here it be. those are some mission buddies. that's "Frostbeard the Pirate" on the left, and "Chung the Taiwanese Ninja" on the right.

and hey! I finished getting my last two gouache paintings on the computer from my illustration class.

"Fear of Everyone"

assignment: we could choose between 3 articles to paint/illustrate - the one i chose was about social phobia/fear of everyone. fun stuff. originally the character in the bed had huge bug eyes, which the professor supported, but when we had a critique he said "he doesn't look as charming as the others..." and wanted it changed. ummmmmmm.... you know he's supposed to be SCARED.. right? whatever. i'm sure people have had work sent back to them in the real world for reasons more ridiculous than this. no worries.

"The Rainmaker"

assignment: illustrate/paint either "narcissus and echo" or 1956 movie "the rainmaker" as a book cover, using two models (this here is my roommate Roger and his girlfriend, Laila). i liked the story of a con man getting 100 bucks claiming he could make rain, so i ran with that - i'm mostly happy with how everything turned out... except the girl in the back. apparently it sucks painting really, really small. fixing mistakes is a nightmare. good learning experience.


in other news, i made a dog cry last week.
i was out running when some mid-sized dog suddenly appears from out of wherever, and is about to give chase - usually i'm all about the chase, but not today. i instantly decided i was going to punch it right in the forehead. i turn around and yell "get away!" but i had murderous intent in my voice and my tight fist was ready to kill.

whatever it was the dog sensed, he sensed it - and hid behind some fence and started howling and most likely was soiling whoever's lawn he was on. i was going to type "crapping himself sorry" or something, but technically i think one must be wearing pants in order to crap one's self.

BULL

so... i was gonna blog this semi-epic tale of wo in the last post, but time was running short.

speaking of running, that's exactly what i was doing at the time i was hit by cheap destiny..
i went out about... 4 miles from my house in a straight line, just running. it's good to do things like that. anyway, i decided to turn back and take the canal road all the way back to my place of dwelling. SO, i'm running on this dog infested canal, meaning everybody's dog is barking at me on their respective sides of the fences... and i've got this weird habit of doing this same whistle to every dog that barks at me - i actually started doing it about 4 or 5 years ago as an experiment. the theory is that the dogs will start to recognize your whistle, and then as time goes by, become familiar with it and finally shut up. surprisingly it works more than half the time.
anyways, i'm just taking everything in as i'm headed home... as different landmarks i spot remind me of stupid and charming memories from back in the day... i notice theses hills on my left where i remember a buffalo farm, and heavy metal coming out of the owners house - strange, yet effective way to raise buffalo. everything's going great until right about there.
i hit this fence with this giant dented sign on it that says 'NO TRESSPASSING, BEWARE OF BULL' . . . there's a faded black swastika spray painted over the front if it. i guess i'm not the only one who wasn't happy about it.
so i stand there for a little bit... i don't see any bull. i think the only bull there is, is the sign in front of me - but you get all those good lessons about not finding out the hard way when you're a kid, so i didn't tresspass. i also noticed an old bull pie or two past the fence, so i scaled the fence to this brick wall, tight-rope walked the thing until i found a good spot to fall off.. and was only about a mile or so from home.
next thing to logically do, is run from the opposite side of the fence on the canal, and see if i hit that fence without any warning. THEN we'll know where the real bull lies.
interestingly enough, that night i think i had a dream about almost getting impaled by a buffalo or something and having to wrestle it down.

i need to post some drawing action, so..
here're some good pictures i did as a missionary, for some good friends in Belgium.

*just barely got this one on the computer.. here are the lines for a pic i'm working on that Elder Bush wanted. he said anything that involves the van "the FUP," a dragon, and a princess. naturally i thought "Mariokart!"

*about.. 7 months old? drawn on the shield which sits as guardian in the majestic fortress to the amazing Shannon Egbert. complete with quebecois woodsman super hero, Elder Duchesne. sorta like gandalf and the balrag goin' down in a ball of falme. lots of fun doing this.

*about... 8 months old? as requested by Elder Frost - he and Elder Chung are taking on some arabs in grand place as an incredibly synergistic and ridiculously unfair duo of pirate/ninja.
went a little yellow trying to clean the photo up and get it on the comp (before i had photoshop) but it gives it this cool, sepia tone, heroic memory sorta look to me.

i'm definitely planning on going back to old pictures to try and splash some colors on 'em. hopefully it works out.