TGIF! (Because saying Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster It’s Friday takes too long and no one would recognize the abbreviation.)

Has your week been fantastic? If your state votes by mail or allows early voting I hope you’ve taken advantage of that and cast your ballot. Otherwise, I hope your trip to the polls is an easy one.

These Days –

I have been on vacation all this week. We tend to stay around home for vacations. Travel is fun and educational but it’s also tiring and a bit stressful. Right now I’m a big fan of as little stress as possible.

I got and finished a commission for a three page black and white comic. It’s the first comic I’ve finished in … years. David Mann wrote it, I did everything else. David had put out a call for an artist in his newsletter. I offered up my website and my Redbubble design page as my portfolio and got the job. He posted it to his Tumblr and Twitter accounts almost immediately after I sent him the finished pages so I’m posting those here. I’m leaving it to him to write a process post.

On Sunday I attended a figure drawing class. Live figure drawing has been a good way for me to sharpen my observation skills. It’s easy to get in the habit of drawing things the way I think they look rather than how they are actually constructed. My first figure drawing classes, many years ago, helped my illustration skills improve immensely. Since then I’ve taken classes or dropped in on open drawing sessions when I’ve started to feel like I need a jump start on my skills. It was the first of what will be six in person sessions. The in person part was important both for me and for the teacher. For me, drawing in person gives me the ability to adjust my position and move around so I can better understand how to draw the model. Drawing from photos is helpful but you can’t change the angle if you want to see something better. The teacher was excited because we were in a new building and this was the first in person adult class that she had taught in two years.

The rest of my time has been spent catching up on chores and attending to medical things. I’ve had check ups on how my eyes are healing (and got a prescription for distance glasses), teeth cleanings and the last of my physical therapy sessions for my knee. As these physical issues have gotten handled I’m starting to think of getting out of the house more. I’ll be testing my new night vision for the first time today. Most nights we’re in bed around seven. The sun is still up. Tonight we might be out after dark. I’ll be driving familiar roads so I don’t expect to have any difficulty but this will a new experience.

Mugshots

This week’s image was suggested partly by one of my nephews. He asked me to draw a zombie T-Rex. I wanted a design that would fit on a mug so I paired the undead dinosaur with a robot version.

This design can be found on a mug in my Zazzle store
and a variety of schtuff in my Redbubble store.

Beware the Nizz

I was filing the stacks of art that have grown around my drawing space and I came across an unfinished illustration of the Mighty Nizz staring down a wild pig. I inked it up and colored it and it can be found in my stores. I may still make a process GIF of this one but, for now, I’m just showing the black and white on paper version …

And the final color image.

It’s apparently hot all over the country this week. I hope you manage to stay cool.
Thank you for reading.
See you in seven!