Star Wars Action Figures!!!
I was just thinking how much I loved my old Star Wars action figures. Stiff and off model as they were… with only five points of articulation… we sure did have many many intergalactic adventures together.
I just started having fun with some new ink brushes and watercolors Santa brought me... and before I knew it there where like, twenty eighty of these bad boys... yikes!!!
The whole time I was creating these odd little mis-mashed versions of our favorite 70's action figures... I had this quote that I'd read on the Drawn Blog a while ago.
"" Steig’s drawings seem to flow effortlessly from his mind to his pen and onto the paper. I doubt he ever looked at a blank sheet and thought, “I have nothing worthwhile to say today,” or “I can’t draw a car as well as Joe Shmoe, so why don’t I crawl back into bed and wait for the day to be over.” Steig gave himself permission to be playful and experimental. One of the many wonderful things about looking at his drawings is their message, especially to his fellow artists: Draw what you love and what interests you. Draw it how you want to draw it. When we are children we do this instinctively. But somewhere in our passage from childhood to adulthood, the ability to be truly and fearlessly creative is often lost. To quote Pablo Picasso, Steig’s favorite artist, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” ""
I had little rules that popped up too. No reference except this blurry little jpg with zero resolution i printed out... this forced me to fill in the details from memories. No redraws even if the proportions or whatever where off... this forced it not to turn into any think like "work". Bleh. Work.
I feel like I succeeded with these little star wars guys... it delighted me. I want to make more art like this, art that is just fun, pure fun.
I was just thinking how much I loved my old Star Wars action figures. Stiff and off model as they were… with only five points of articulation… we sure did have many many intergalactic adventures together.
I just started having fun with some new ink brushes and watercolors Santa brought me... and before I knew it there where like, twenty eighty of these bad boys... yikes!!!
The whole time I was creating these odd little mis-mashed versions of our favorite 70's action figures... I had this quote that I'd read on the Drawn Blog a while ago.
"" Steig’s drawings seem to flow effortlessly from his mind to his pen and onto the paper. I doubt he ever looked at a blank sheet and thought, “I have nothing worthwhile to say today,” or “I can’t draw a car as well as Joe Shmoe, so why don’t I crawl back into bed and wait for the day to be over.” Steig gave himself permission to be playful and experimental. One of the many wonderful things about looking at his drawings is their message, especially to his fellow artists: Draw what you love and what interests you. Draw it how you want to draw it. When we are children we do this instinctively. But somewhere in our passage from childhood to adulthood, the ability to be truly and fearlessly creative is often lost. To quote Pablo Picasso, Steig’s favorite artist, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” ""
I had little rules that popped up too. No reference except this blurry little jpg with zero resolution i printed out... this forced me to fill in the details from memories. No redraws even if the proportions or whatever where off... this forced it not to turn into any think like "work". Bleh. Work.
I feel like I succeeded with these little star wars guys... it delighted me. I want to make more art like this, art that is just fun, pure fun.
In his first solo outing, illustrator Armstrong (Rhino, Rhino, Sweet Potato) offers a charmingly illustrated story, full of physical comedy, about a girl’s bumpy friendship with a monster. Jane is waifish and shaggy-haired, while Mizmow is a pudgy, furry owl-like creature with rabbit ears. When they first meet, after Jane shakes Mizmow out of a woolen cap, she loves him immediately (a cartoon heart appears above her delighted face), though Mizmow unexpectedly licks her, gobbles her up, then spits her out. After this opening interlude, which unfolds in wordless panels like a cartoon storyboard, Armstrong introduces some perfunctory and generally unnecessary text to describe the duo’s episodic misadventures, which culminate in a big fight (“Mizmow is mad. Jane is more mad”). Mizmow is mischievous—much of the book’s humor revolves around his heft and large appetite for red autumn leaves and books—with Jane playing straight man (and getting catapulted through the air on more than one occasion). It’s a humorous account of an unlikely friendship, but the bland prose saps some of its magic. Ages 3–5. (Oct.)
