Long-Legged Lovelies

Gentlemen of a certain age (i.e. mine) may get a certain frisson from this week's competition entry. During my, erm, burgeoning years I was subjected to the Tiller Girls each week on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. For those of you too young to remember when the window on the world was black and white, the Tiller Girls were a troupe of high-kicking women in skimpy (although modern eyes would probably regard them as quite robust) costumes designed to display their legs. Ah, the legs. The women in the Tiller Girls lost their individuality as they morphed into a precise, tightly timed and co-ordinated human centipede. Their legs rose and dropped at exactly the same second. Sometimes, using little demi-kicks, the row of girls split into two separate entities slowly turning clockwise or anti-clockwise on their own axes. I am trying to describe all this from an unreliable memory, but it was all very skilled and clever and charged with an erotic undercurrent, which is why I think the chap at the end is one of my more successful creations.
I was going for total incongruity with this cartoon and I think (for all its faults) I pretty much achieved what I set out to do. There is the incongruous image of a pudgy little man in his underwear high-kicking with a chorus line of long-legged lovelies, but it is the expression on his face which I think works very well indeed. I aimed for an expression of surprise that he should be asked to cease dancing - why on earth would I want to come with you when I'm dancing in a chorus line for an audience? Well, that's what I feel would be his reply to the two intrusive gentlemen in evening dress.
The faults? I think they speak for themselves. The girls aren't just tall, they are positively elongated and stretched. A little spell studying human anatomy might not go amiss. I tried to hint at fishnet tights, but I don't think it really came off. The string vest was an essential part of the humour and was supposed to echo the fishnet tights but, again, it didn't really come off. I'm not going to let these shortcomings bother me too much; after all, I can't envisage the need to draw too many fishnet tights and string vests in the future.
I reverted to my usual cartridge paper and Indian ink this week. I also used a little bit of light pencilling on the finished drawing. This is an avenue I might explore more in the future.
If you would like to see all the winners and also-rans (moi) kindly step this way, you will not be disappointed. There are some real beauties this week and a very deserving number one.

Dummy De Dum Dummy De Dum Oooh Weee Yew...

This, let me kid you nowise, is Matt Smith. Oh yes it is. This is my contribution to the Cartoonist's Club of Great Britain's inaugural Caricature Competition, the subject matter of which is Matt Smith. This is my caricature of Matt Smith as Dr. Who wearing a fez. He wears a fez now. Fezes are cool. Click on the pic and watch it grow! See, it really is Matt Smith.

Now then, O best beloved, it could be argued that this is not a caricature at all. It could be argued that it is just a straight-forward drawing of the actor Matt Smith playing Dr. Who and that it doesn't actually loook like him. This argument is so feeble-minded and deluded it doesn't really merit a counter-argument, so I won't proffer one. I won't, do you hear me? It's Matt Smith, dammit, Matt Smith.

I will admit to this. Several weeks ago I drew a cartoon called "Well that's where your problem is." featuring Matt Smith as Dr. Who. Here is my admission. I think that cartoon looks more like him than this caricature and I wasn't consciously caricaturing him. *SIGH*

Now then, dear reader, if you want to see how it should be done, get thee hence to here. If you scroll down a bit you should find a composite picture of all the entries. Some are truly marvels to behold. The bar has been set, the gauntlet has been thrown down, the challenge has been, um, challenged sort of thingy. Let slip the dogs of war. Gok Wan here I come!

Just a Roll, Just a Roll on Your Drum.

The more culturally erudite and intellectually perspicacious among you will have duly noted that this entry's title is taken from Fairport Convention's Sloth. Knuckle-draggers won't be reading this anyway, so I don't have any worries on that score. Only the best people read this blog, so count yourself as being one of the elite.

All the entries may be seen ici for your delight and delectation and in my opinion the winner was a very worthy one. Yours truly came sixth out of eighteen entries and I'm VERY happy with that, I was worried that there would be seventeen other apple trees this week. Perhaps everybody did, indeed, think about it but rejected it as being too simple, leaving the field - or should I (ha ha) say - orchard open to me.

Good points: the posture is nice and relaxed and not too disproportionate.

Bad points: I'm going to take an axe to that tree.

But I Digress

My first caption competition entry for what seems a lifetime. A very rushed affair and probably not very original, but it's a start. I quite like the instrument tray and the nurse's bored expression - not an easy thing to convey through a mask. Lots of things wrong too, but it's nice to start to get back in the saddle.

A Little Update

I'm sorry I haven't published anything in the last few weeks. Life can sometimes turn on a sixpence when it comes to changes of direction. My home has been teeming with people and I haven't had the opportunity to put pen to paper. We'll see how things go. I don't really want to say anymore than that.

Caption Cartoon No. 49 No Cartoon No Ideas

The wind whistles, tuneless and low, through the withered branches of a dried out tree. Grains of sand move listlessly, if at all, over a barren and featureless landscape. The desiccated husk of a once living creature lies as a silent reproach to an unfulfilled future. What once were dreams have come to die a countless number of ignoble deaths in this bleak, forbidding, soulless, arid land. All is dust; dust and dirt and nothing lives. Anything that dares to rise up and scream out in anger to an empty void "I am alive and I shall live," is immediately struck down and destroyed for betraying such brash impudence. How dare it presume to live?

I think the foregoing very accurately describes my creative ability this week. I could not for the life of me think of anything that imaginatively caught fire. The caption should have been the seed-bed of fecund creativity. The caption was "It's showtime!" Brilliant isn't it? So, why couldn't I come up with an image to match?

Do you want to know what I came up with? Well, whether you do or you don't, here they come. I scribbled down an Aztec High Priest about to sacrifice a surprised looking victim. Two worried looking dolphins in a Seaworldyesquetype theme park. A flasher in front of two old ladies in the park. A chorus line of Daleks with hats and canes. A dog scratching itself in a flea circus. An open flower nudging a closed flower in front of an impatient-looking bee. A male Peacock displaying for a Peahen. That's it. Nothing really worked for me.

Now look at this week's entries here.

Green? Green with envy? Moi? Of course I am. I loved the Penguins. Now why couldn't I come up with something like that?

Next week's competition is extra special with real prizes involved, so I have to lift my game; unlike a certain team in a well known global competition accross which we ought to draw a veil (actually a heavy curtain would be better).

Last night I drew a little mood piece, that's it at the top. Don't worry, I'm not suicidal or anything like that, just a little clueless at the moment.

Just wait until next week!

By the way, just a little reminder that if you click on my efforts they'll get bigger (fnarr fnarr!).

Caption Competition No. 48 "Been away?"

Ahem! Yes, well... (cough).

Ever since I began cartooning with something approaching serious intent, one of my greatest hobby-horses was the fact that my pencils, no matter how rough or inaccurate they were, had more zip and verve than my inked drawings. Older readers will know that my working method is to use a light-box in conjunction with my pencilled work in order to produce an inked, unsurpassed masterpiece ready to grace the walls of Tate Britain. Or, in other words, a loose approximation of my original pencilled idea in India ink. Alas, gentle reader, the path of good intention is strewn with manky, lifeless inks that are merely on nodding terms with the pencils even though they were created with the same hands. What these words indicate is a deep, artistic frustration.

Well, this week was gonna be different. Oh by crikey, yes indeedy. No more dead-as-a-doornail inks for this young bucko, oh no. This week the pencils will serve as only a very loose template. Pick out the salient bits and then let your nib run free. Yes free, free as a bird. Let the ink flow. Scratch away as you would with a pencil. It'll all come right in the end.

That was the theory.

What we have here is a salutary lesson in ambtition out-stripping ability. Look at those legs fer gawd's sake. Human, equine and simian - they're all dreadful.

No more joie de vivre approaches to cartooning for me, it's too depressing. In future, I think I'd rather substitute accuracy for spontaneity.

The pencils? Here you are.