A Second Digital Foray

I really enjoyed myself with this one. This is my digital entry for the monthly caricature competition over at the Cartoonist's Club of Great Britain site here. So, how did it come about? It started off with a pencil sketch which I then scanned into the Artrage software package on the Bamboo Fun graphics pad. Next, I created a new layer in the package and "inked" over the pencils and with judicious use of "pen", "brush" and colour, I produced the almost life-like caricature you see before you. Next, I saved that particular layer which removed the underlying pencil guides so that only the "inks" and colour remained. And abracadabra, a masterpiece!

Who is it? What do you mean, who is it? It's obvious isn't it? Come on, come on, look again. Resevoir Dogs? Mr. Pink? Fargo? Ghost World? Don't make me tell you. Okay, okay. It's Steve Buscemi. How dare you? It does look like him! Yes it bloody well does! How many points did I get? Does it actually matter how many points I got? All right, all right, I didn't get a single one. There, happy now? Pleased with yourself? You certainly know how to take the fun out of creating digital masterpieces, don't you? All I'll say is this: You're going to look pretty bloody silly when the National Portrait Gallery come begging at my door. Just you wait and see.

My First Digital Drawing - The Journey Begins

What on Earth has happened to the smooth, flowing artistry of yore? Why is Brendini, world famous millionaire-playboy cartoonist, posting an illegible scribble on his Blog? This is an historic moment, that's why. From this little effort a universe of possibilites may ensue.

What you see before you, my friends, is my very first digital, paperless, virtual, doesn't-actually-exist-in-the-real-world drawing. I fully accept its rough and ready nature, but I find it incredibly exciting. Here's the reason why: A few weeks ago my wife bought me a belated birthday present. It is a Wacom Bamboo Fun graphics pad. It comes with two software packages, Photoshop Elelments and Artrage. I've had a little play around and I found that Artrage seems to be more user-friendly than Photoshop. It ought to be emphasised that I'm using these things from the standpoint of a complete ignoramus. Photoshop, especially, is pretty much a closed book to me. Most, if not all, online tutorials that I've stumbled accross seem to be aimed at photographers and distorters of historical archives rather than millionaire-playboy cartoonsists, but even I can see the boundless artistic freedom these packages are capable of.

What I have before me is not so much as a steep learning curve, but a learning cliff-face. Having said that, I have my boots, ropes, crampons (something used by climbers - not a feminine product for ladies) and a willingness to acquire the knowledge I need.

The cartoon itself is Leonardo Da Vinci drawing a water squirting joke flower. I thought I had better explain that fact because the manner of the cartoon's execution doesn't make that very explicit. I still like it. Me, grinning as I type.

Nothing To See Here, Folks...

Update on its way soon. I have a few irons in the fire, some of which are rather ambitious. This also explains my absence on the Caption Competition front.
Spent four nights in New York, though. Brill. Ee. Yunt.

And the Winner Is....

Two points for this week's effort, but as they come from Andrew Birch I shall wear them with a broad grin. It's nice to name-drop now and again. All the winners (and to my mind they ARE all winners) may be viewed here. My cartoon on the left may be clicked upon for the purposes of making it more easily viewable (tortuous use of language in order to prevent any unintended innuendo). I think it would have been funnier had I drawn it at the time of the actual awards, but nevertheless, I'm rather pleased with it.

It was another hurried piece, I'm afraid, as I have half a million other things going on at the moment, but I likes it, I do.

May I hasten to add that I have no animus towards Ricky Gervais, he's very likely to be a lovely bloke, but I bet some of the attendees secretly harboured the desires that I made explicit

Do Ventriloquist Dolls Give You The Creeps?

A bit of a strange one this week, I think you'll agree. I'll go into this week's cartoon's thinking and its history in a little while. In the meantime I'd like you to feast your little peepers on this lot (there's a montage near the bottom). I am always astounded by the huge diversity of styles and ideas this competition encourages week after week. Go on, it's astonshing isn't it?

Ennywhey, on to this week's scribble by yours truly. To be completely honest I didn't expect any points whatsoever. After all, it's hardly a thigh-slapper is it? The theme is Ventriloquist and Paul Mahoney (last week's winner) plumped for an optional caption. I struggled a little with the caption. My first attempt was "Helg helg! Nurder!". I thought this was hilarious - at first. This eventually evolved to "Helg, helg! Call the golice!" and then on to the final one you see above. I decided that the repetition of 'helg' was excessive, but the simple 'call the golice' was funnier because it was less fussy and more straight forward AND it only uses the ventriloquist's problem consonant once. That said, the caption was always thought about in conjunction with the drawing. The image came first. Where did the image come from? Once again we are about to delve into my childhood.

When I was nowt but a scrimbleshonker to a niddlewright (I don't know. I just made it up) I was allowed by my - I now understand to be thoroughly irresponsible - parents to watch a film titled Dead of Night. It was an anthology of four stories (if memory serves) the last one of which starred Michael Redgrave (pre-knighthood) as a ventriloquist with a strange, obsessional relationship with his vent doll that tips him over into the maelstrom of madness. Or does it? Does he project his desires from the Id through the doll or is the doll actually an autonomous thing of evil in its own right? As you can see, Dead of Night was the direct inspiration for my cartoon (in the film Redgrave 'murders' his doll) and I've continued with the ambiguous nature between vent and doll. It's a doll isn't it? We all know it is inanimate. So, are we witnessing a psychotic crisis, or is the doll really appealing for help?

Brrrrrrrrrr. Sleep well!

"Poor Robin Crusoe! Poor Robin Crusoe!"

And just how many points did yours truly garner this week? Go on, take a wild guess. That's right, not a sausage. Not even a chipolata. Zilchola. And small wonder when you consider what my scratchings were up against this week. A very deserved win, in my opinion, by Mr. Mahoney and a very nice bloke to boot.

I really am my own worst enemy at times. The brief for this week's competition was a cartoon with Desert Island as a theme with an optional caption. In other words I could have drawn and written anything I like. So, being me, I concentrated on a character from literature - Robinson Crusoe - and opted to do without a caption. An edgy maverick, that's me! Without any points.

My thinking went like this: which archetypal character do you associate with desert islands? Long John Silver. Well Treasure Island was uninhabited (except for Ben Gunn) until the Hispaniola hove into view. What if he met up with Robinson Crusoe? Mental image: Long John Silver and Robinson Crusoe looking non-plussed at each other. Either one of them could be saying, "well, one of us is in the wrong novel." Yes, hardly a side-splitter is it? Then I got to thinking about Robinson Crusoe. What is the most iconic image of this fictional character that springs to mind? Well, my mind anyway. Crusoe's discovery of a footprint, not his own, naturellement n'est pas? Would he be startled by a footprint? Possibly. Would he be startled by a Nike trainer? OH MOST UNDOUBTEDLY YES! And how hilarious would that be? OUTSTANDINGLY HILARIOUS! And how many points did it get? LLAREGYB!

God, The Devil and the Nature of Man.

Not really. Theology, philosophy, psychology pffft! I don't do deep. Shallow as a puddle on a summer's day, that's me. This is my entry for Caption Competition 76. Click here, scroll down a bit. A bit more. Just a little more. There you are, a montage of all this week's entries.

Good points: I like the devil's insouciant attitude. Bad points: God's hair. I didn't get it right. He wears a mullet, you know. And don't mention his monk's tonsor. He's very sensitive about that.