ISIDTA 23 : CageMatch

Okay, it was an odd week for ISIDTA. I didn't hear from Kit, so I wasn't really inspired to draw a comic. Instead, I got all fired up over creating a new logo for my CageMatch show. I bought the rights to a stock photo image, and manipulated some text to make the logo. The final product will premiere tomorrow night at 8:00 pm at the DSI Comedy Theater as part of a new "opening theme" video right after this week's promo video. Come on by and see my handiwork.

Kit's much-more-legitimate ISIDTA entry is here.

ISIDTA 22 : Tod of War

ISIDTA 22 : Tod of War
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Kit and I decided to do one-panels referencing our favourite videogame of the moment. He did an amazing job, particularly with the logo to Guitar Hero II. I tried to do a preppy Kratos from God of War. My drawing ability is still that of a child.

My picture is here.
Kit's is here.

ISIDTA 21 - Alphabet

ISIDTA 21 - Alphabet
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday; it's been quite a busy week. One video project is over, and I'm trying to sneak in time at work today to finish the second video project (which has THREE videos) to get ready for tonight's show. Cross your fingers.

Anyway, here we have this week's art experiment. It's based on something I found on Flickr, but don't have the time to find the link to right now; a guy drew an entire alphabet in an hour, one image for each letter. So Kit and I tried that this week, although we went over the hour. I really tried to rush through this thing, so my stuff sucks as usual. And I was really tired and strung out, so somehow I drew two "Y"s and no "X". Ah well. See if you can identify all the items.

My thing here.
Kit's stuff here.

ISIDTA 20 : Three Square Meals (A Day)

A day late. Sue me.

Kit and I are starting a new daily strip, alternating back and forth every day of the week except for ISIDTA Wednesday. The title of this new venture (which we came up with on the spur of the moment) is Three Square Meals (A Day) and features the witticisms of two buddies who just happen to be a cheeseburger and a leg of chicken. So stay tuned for punny hijinks. Please add us to your RSS feed or check out the strip every day here.

ISIDTA 19 - Failure

Today's theme is crap, as in the pictured crappy attempt at painting. I spent about an hour and a half drawing in a picture on this canvas, and then the minute I started putting paint on it, I could tell it was going to be a disaster. I kept marshalling on, hoping I could make it into something passable, but once I got to trying to paint the river (the lighter blue glob) I just threw my brush down in disgust. This was meant to be a double-duty project, serving as both an ISIDTA entry and a submission to the Town's Community Art Project, but both those ideas crashed and burned last night. I just can't paint for shit. I don't like paint. It doesn't do what I want it to. Seeing the globs of uneven paint bleeding all over the place and obscuring my lines just frustrates me. Painting is just not my medium.

So after that fiasco, I tried to draw the Riddler. I tried to do it in the style of this amazing Talos Tsui picture of the Justice League. Due to the style, I figured I should eschew pencil and paper and draw the whole thing on the computer. I tried a similar method to the Batman artist I blogged about a few days ago, using a thin blue brush to do the light roughs, then a thicker black brush to do the cleaner roughs. It looked like shit. I tried throwing in some colour to see if that would inspire me to press on, but I was done for the night. I had lost my fire for the whole night's project. I had never really gotten focus from the very beginning, and decided to go ahead and give up.

Better luck next week. I'm sorry, I'll draw that again.

Crappy painting.
Crappy Riddler.
My old crappy stuff.
Kit's stuff.

ISIDTA 18 - Richie Rich Redo

ISIDTA 18 - Richie Rich Redo
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

So this week, Kit and I decided to each try and reimagine a classic cartoon character. After flipping through my encyclopedia of cartoon characters, we semi-randomly selected Mr. Richie Rich. I was terribly amused to see how each of us decided to approach the character. I went pimptacular. I thought my Richie was okay, but I was quite happy with Gloria the ho.

This whole thing was done pretty quickly, maybe two hours for the whole project? Richie's right hand sucks, but when I tried to touch it up, I had the same "ink running all over the goache" problem that I did back in ISIDTA 12. I also had to touch up Gloria's left hand and cleavage area, but that came out much cleaner.

See the full pic here and the inks here.
Kit's Richie Rich Redo is here. WARNING: Kit FitzSimons is a horrible, horrible person, and did something horrendous and hilarious for his cartoon.
My old ISIDTAs remain here.

ISIDTA 17 : Reading, Rhythm, and RED

Okay, this is one of those ISIDTAs where you should probably go read the strip first, and then come back here and read the notes. So go read it!

Did you read it? Good.

Long story. Basically, my buddy Jackson trimmed his beard down to a little strip, and some of his friends said he looked like a communist. I said he looked like a jazz musician, and so we christened him "Comrade Jazzman". Then we got on some weird tangent about how I hated grapefruit, and Jackson slipped into the Comrade Jazzman character, and said basically what's in the first word balloon in panel three. And obviously, it all had to be immortalized in comic form.

Postscript: this was all done with my pad in my lap as Kit and I sat around the living room. I even inked it with the pad in my lap. Jackson will be pleased to know that, while working in these cramped conditions, I managed to spill whiskey on the bristol board.

Kit's ISIDTA contributions for this week AND LAST WEEK are guaranteed to be found here.
My past crap is here.

Postscript 2: Kit asks me to remind you that those are grapefruit, and NOT BREASTS.

ISIDTA 16 : Alien Pets Dog final

ISIDTA 16 : Alien Pets Dog final
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

So this week I was completely clueless about what I was going to do for ISIDTA. At lunchtime yesterday, I communicated my plight to Jackson who said, "draw an alien petting a dog too hard." Why? I don't know. But I did it.

View the cartoon full-size here.
Inks are here.
Kit's ISIDTA will be located here.
My previous drawings can always be found here.

ISIDTA 15 : superheroes

ISIDTA 15 : superheroes
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Ok, this week's drawing is a little cruder than I had intended it to be, because I somehow managed to slash open my finger on a tin of leftover chicken pot pie, and so my drawing ability has been dealt a bit of a blow. (It's the index finger on my right hand, a most important finger for many activities.)

Also, I've just noticed that this is the first post I've made to the blog since LAST week's ISIDTA! Well that's sad. Thing is, I've been miserably sick for a week, and haven't been much in the mood for posting or much of anything else. I've been in and out of work for the past week. Even more seriously, my voice is practically gone, so I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to get on stage for CageMatch this week. Erg.

So, on to the commentary. This idea just popped into my head while reading Dean Trippe's Butterfly. I pencilled the various elements in my sketchbook, as best I could with a bum finger. Then I scanned 'em into the computer, composed the panels and inked them with a Photoshop brush and the Wacom (since I could undo my many screwups). And voila.

View the cartoon full-size here.
Here's one that might fit better on the screen.
Kit's ISIDTA can be found here.
My previous drawings are here.

ISIDTA 14 : Green Onions

Green Onions
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

This week's ISIDTA was an experiment; Kit came over and we had the Kit Is Twenty-Seven Birthday Challenge, where we agreed to each draw a four-panel cartoon, handing off our sketchbooks after each panel so that each person alternates drawing a panel. We had a time limit of 10 minutes and 27 seconds per panel, which we quickly agreed to lengthen out to 15 minutes and 27 seconds. We got a random suggestion from a newspaper, which was "tests rule out all but green onions." Neither of us used onions.

When I went to scan this this morning, I had forgotten that my copy of Photoshop had gone belly-up, and I couldn't scan anything. (It's a completely legitimate copy; I have no idea what happened--the application icon turned to a document icon, and now it won't work. I'm pissed.) Anyway, that's why this looks so weird; it's just digital camera shots of my moleskine. (Well, it also looks weird because each panel was drawn in fifteen minutes by two crazed Challengers...)

Kit's entry into the Kit Is Twenty-Seven Birthday Challenge can be found here.
My previous ISIDTA entries are here.

ISIDTA 13 : a quick one

ISIDTA 13 : a quick one
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Here's a visual pun of sorts for you, representative of the offering itself. This week has been incredibly hectic as I prepare videos for the 7th annual Dirty South Improv Festival, and I didn't have much time to create something for this week's ISIDTA, so I threw together this hasty cartoon during lunch yesterday. Hopefully next week's will be better.

See the cartoon here. Get it? 'Cause the kid has a ball, and there's a circle painted on the ground, and the other kids are playing, and the police guy was playing, but now he can't play anymore. Get it? I'm such a card.

Better art can be seen on Kit's ISIDTA blog here.
My other stuff is here.

Credit, Credit Due

I meant to include this in my main ISIDTA post, but forgot. Probably for the best, since it needs a little more attention than being buried in the rest of my ramblings.

I wanted to take a moment to state how glad I am that Kit and I started I'm Sorry I'll Draw That Again twelve weeks ago. It's exactly what I needed to finally kickstart me into learning to draw after thirty years of saying I was going to start. Having a regular schedule of deadlines really helps me be productive. It's also much more rewarding to be doing this with somebody; you feel a comradeship as well as an obligation to not let the other person down. And by drawing each and every week, I think I'm improving my skills, and that's a good thing. It's also rewarding to look back and see a body of work online and a sketchbook with so many filled-in pages. Hurrah!

So my thanks go out to Kit FitzSimons for traveling along with me as my partner in I'm Sorry I'll Draw That Again, and to the whole crew at ISIDTA Headquarters in Lansing, Michigan. Can you believe we've been doing this for three months?!?

ISIDTA 12: Mexican Wrestler Batman

ISIDTA 12: Murcielago Contra Bromista (inks)
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Hey, I finished on time.

So this week I challenged Kit to an ISIDTA, er, Challenge: take your favourite comic book character, and put them in a different job. I did this because a) I know Kit always likes a challenge, b) I know Kit is more inspired when given a subject to work from, and c) I had already decided to draw Batman vs The Joker as if they were Mexican wrestlers.

The full picture can be seen here.

So here we have Batman and Joker as luchadors. I tried to draw them as if they were wearing typical lucha costumes that were modelled to evoke the Batman and Joker characters. El Bromista has a suit printed on his tights and tasselled "hair", and Murcielago has a sort of scalloped vest-thing instead of a shirt and has a faceplate on the front of his mask.

I did a bunch of sketches for this one, trying to design the masks as well as working out the positioning and perspective of the two guys and the ropes. I was pretty happy with the way the layout turned out. Sketches can be seen here, here, here, and here.

I tried to be a lot more careful with both my pencilling and inking this week, as I really wanted this one to come out nicely. Still, mistakes do occur, and this was the first week I tried to fix some problems I made in the inks. I used a white gesso that Jackson turned me onto, and it seemed to work pretty well. The ink was a little harder to control on the gessoed surface. I used it where I screwed up Murcielago's hands really badly, and where the ink exploded from the pen while I was trying to draw the ring ropes.

I eyeballed this picture of Brazo De Plato as I tried to work out my perspective for Murcielago.

Overall, I was very pleased with the way this worked out. I had originally conceived it as a painting, and I may actually go ahead and do a painted version at some point, with a crowd and whatnot. There are some minor problems; I should've striped the "coat" part of the tights, the legs gave me some problems, the torso looks a little flat, but overall I really like it. It could use some shading and a crowd, but it turned out pretty well like it is.

In an amusing coincidence, the same day I was drawing this, my mom came by where I work and dropped off this picture that I drew when I was but a wee lad. (I was a HUGE Robin fan.)

The pencils for this week's ISIDTA can be seen here.
The inks for this week's ISIDTA are here. They look pretty good on their own.
Kit's ISIDTA for the week is here.
My previous ISIDTAs are here.

ISIDTA 11: Midnight:30 semifinal

ISIDTA 11: Midnight:30 inks
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Better late than never, I guess. The week just got crazy, too many demands on my time, and I got a bit stressed. You should've seen the hand in the final panel; I didn't notice until after I inked it, but it was about 80% too small. Amazing. I fixed it as best I could in photoshop.

I wish I could've made it much more detailed, with shadows of the slats in the blinds coming into the room, and more whitelining. Maybe later. The project just ended up involving much more work than I thought it would.

This was intended to be done in the layout style of the old drama Sunday comics like The Phantom or Mary Worth. I was also trying to do a good balance with the black, grey, and white fills, althought that was rushed as well.

You can see the full strip here.
You can see assorted sketches and pencils and whatnot here.
Kit was on time with his entry here.

ISIDTA 11 : INCOMPLETE

I suck.

I didn't finish my ISIDTA strip for this week. The weird thing is, I started much earlier than I normally do for the weekly project; I had the script done on Sunday, did sketches and layouts on Monday, and then when Tuesday came, it just took much longer to do everything than I thought it would. The lettering and panel layout alone took two hours. (And of course, the letters smeared badly in one place; hopefully I can clean it up in Photoshop.)

Anyway, I hope to somehow have the thing done tonight. I'm going to try and do pencils at lunchtime and ink it after work. It's not going to be quite as grand as I had hoped; the time crunch is just working against me. I also have to create a CageMatch video tonight for debut tomorrow. I have NO idea what that is going to be. First things first.

Anyway, I have uploaded some work-in-progress pictures for your amusement here. If you click through the pics one-by-one instead of using the slideshow feature, you can see my comments about each image. More later. Hopefully.

ISIDTA 10 : The Egg Toss

ISIDTA 10 : The Egg Toss (final)
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

So here we have another in the True Tales Of Ted series. I tried a few new things this week, most noticably, lettering it by hand. Boy, was that ever a mistake. My handwriting sucks. Anyway, I did enjoy using the rolling ruler to lay out the lettering guides. I used a Pitt ink pen to do the lettering and the borders. I really like Pitt's brush pen, but their other pens annoy me when it comes to doing anything long, like lettering or borders--the tip just doesn't agree with me; too rounded. The ink also doesn't flow for long enough, and it's not nearly as eraser-proof as real India ink.

I also put in more background items this week. I've noticed my stuff looks pretty empty, and felt it needed more detail. There's still a big empty space in panel six, but the rest turned out pretty good.

I was particularly happy with the circular panel at the end, and the "info graphics" action items there and in the previous panel. I thought my clothes and Ray's clothes came out well; I could've put some folds in Brian's though. And I like my one-point perspective bricks in the next-to-last panel. I probably should've put the start of the count-off in panel 5 ("1,2, 3...") in a balloon coming off the main balloon, for more drama.

I also did this on a much bigger piece of Bristol. I usually use 9x12, but this piece was 17"x22". I wanted to try a bigger piece so I could get more detail in there. Turned out to be a bitch to scan, but it was worth it. I also got to use my grandfather's T-square to lay out the panels.

The full picture is here.
The thumbnails for the piece can be seen here.
Some of the preliminary sketches are right here.

As always, Kit's ISIDTA for this week can be found here.
My other ISIDTAs are located here.

Tune in next week for more comics, hopefully showing a little progress in my artistic endeavours!

ISIDTA 9: The Sensational Intelligent Simian

ISIDTA 9: RespectTheApe_final
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

It's Wednesday again, and that means it's time once again for I'm Sorry, I'll Draw That Again! This week was going to be another episode of the staggeringly popular Tales From Tedland, but I was inspired to move in a slightly more shaggy direction.

The inspiration came from this page and this page. Kevin Church produces this blog I read regularly, BeaucoupKevin, and in the first post referenced here, he called for better treatment for simian characters in comic books. Les McClaine (he who produces the amazing Tintinesque Jonny Crossbones) followed up with the great picture you see in the second link.

So I was inspired to join the pro-ape bandwagon, even though my art pales next to these folks. Now, my idea of pro-ape may not be the same as the average person's idea of pro-ape, but to me, the best compliment I can give a gorilla is to make him into one of my favourite characters, a pro wrestler. To accentuate the positivity of the character (and the wrestltivity), I garbed him in the mask of a legendary wrestler, The Intelligent Sensational Destroyer.

I was fairly happy with this drawing, at least at this primitive stage of my art experience. The body is too small for the legs, and the head could be bigger, but I was very happy with the facial expression and the fur rendering. The fists could be bigger, but their pose is good. I had plans for feet, but I ran out of room on the page.

I did the colour in Photoshop using a method from the first part of a GREAT tutorial from Melissa Clifton. The initial sketch was done with a ColErase non-repro blue, then a tighter sketch with an everyday #2 pencil, then inked with the Tachikawa #44 and a School Pen for the details.

The full picture can be seen here.
The inks are here.
I really liked the sketches I made for this one, so if you'd like to see how this piece evolved, you can see poor scans of them here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Kit's ISIDTA should be right about...here.
My past ISIDTAs are here.

FREE THE GORILLAS NOW!

ISIDTA 8: Pixellated Geekery

ISIDTA 8: pixellatedgeekery_final
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

This week's I'm Sorry I'll Draw That Again was inspired by one of our correspondents, the lovely young Katy, who writes "Please incorporate more video game nerdiness into ISIDTA next time. kthx." Well here you go, peachy princess! This is probably a little earlier in videogame history than you anticipated, but it is definitely video game nerdiness.

First, check out the strip here. Then come back and we'll talk about it.

Done? Good. So this is another episode of True Tales of Ted. Ray really did play that game all night, and every time he comes to visit, I still suggest we go to Sal's Pizza. There's nothing wrong with Sal's; it's one of the best restaurants in town. Amazing lasagna. The buffet is beyond compare. Ray's stomach was just rumbly that night. We still joke about it though.

As it turns out, the story is not 100% accurate. Apparently the "Laser Blasters" patch is awarded if you get a mere 100,000 points. You can see a picture of the patch here. If you got the million points mentioned in the story, you got this patch, which reflects just how disappointing the achievement is.

This was drawn on Bristol using my mom's old artschool nib holder, with a Tachikawa G Pen which is amazing but takes some control, and a Tachikawa School Pen for the fine details. I keep forgetting to mention a good tool tip I read about somewhere and now use all the time: you can clean your nibs by washing off the excess ink with warm water, and then spraying them with Windex to rub off the dried ink. Works like a charm.

Anyway, the pencils were done with a blue Col-Erase. I used the new inclined drawing board that I bought last week at Jerry's Artarama's year-end sale. I started the strip using this manga ink I bought at Jerry's, but that stuff dries almost immediately on the pen and gums it up, so I finished with trusty Speedball. The panels and lettering were done in Freehand. Laser Blast really sucks.

You can see detail from the piece here. There's an inside joke there that only Ray will get. (Ray: post a comment here if you get it.)

Kit's ISIDTA entry is here.
My past entries are here.
Corey has promised he'd have one up today. His'll be here; he doesn't tag, so I can't link to his set.

ISIDTA 7 : Christmas Tragedy

ISIDTA 7 : Christmas Tragedy
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Better late than never. Kit, if you're reading this later this week, please understand that there must be something wrong with the system clock on Blogger. This was posted WELL before 10:00 am this morning. And, um...don't bother reading that earlier post.

This really happened, and it gets brought up every Christmas (and usually other times during the year as well). I do tend to be a morose and worrisome fellow, as well as being amazingly literal.

This was laid out with photo references, then several sketches were made in my official ISIDTA Moleskine before I pencilled it on the Bristol in a blue Col-Erase. I inked on top of that with several different Tachikawa nibs (the 44, the 357, and the school pen for details like my grandparents). I used a nib holder my mom gave me for Christmas, one of the ones she used in art school (I love it so much more than these modern crap-pens.) Something else new this week: I used a ruler to make the house and the road straight, as well as a nice attempt at speed lines for the truck.

After I finished this, I realized I drew my hair wrong. My hair wasn't that long when I was four. I did have the ridiculous bangs, though.

See the full picture here.
See past ISIDTAs here.
See Kit's entry for today here. And read about the origin of the name of his strip! NOT a hoax! NOT an imaginary story! NOT a dream! This is part of Kit canon!

ISIDTA (Almost)

christmas layout
Originally uploaded by TedHobgood.

Well, Kit was late last week, so maybe it's not a complete tragedy that I'm late this week. Maybe it's my gift to Kit, to show him it was okay to be a little tardy. Yeah, that's it, it's a GIFT! Hmm...or maybe I'll just take this post down later before he can see it, and swear you all to secrecy.

So I should've had plenty of time to do this week's strip, what with Tuesday being a vacation day and all, but I blame the overindulgence in turkey, the trip to Cary to buy a cake (and the subsequent getting-lost-and-ending-up-in-Wake-Forest), the one-night-only appearance of Ethan Kaye, and a reuniting with an old internet friend. OF course, the REAL reason this week's drawing didn't get done on time is because I'm a bad planner and a great procrastinator.

So what we have here is the panel layout and photo references I'll be using for this week's strip. I've also written the script and lettered the captions, measured and pencilled the borders on the Bristol board, and hand-lettered the title. At lunch today, I plan on sketching out the figures, and after work, I'll blueline the whole thing and ink it, and have it up tonight. C'mon back.