Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Hobbity Holidays to all, there and back again!


OK, it's finally here! My new Brill/Stockham Christmas card for 2012. This year's theme is, obviously, The Hobbit! I had initially thought about doing one based soley on the designs of the new movie, but since it was going to be caricature-ish and cartoony, I thought perhaps I should base it more on the old Rankin/Bass TV movie. You know, the cartoon one with John Huston as Gandalf and Orson Bean as Bilbo. Thats why the cutesy cartoon version of me is wearing that particular outfit. But when working on the sketches of Bel and Edmund, I realized I preferred the new movie designs for their costumes. Although, in deference to the cartoony style, I gave Bel fantasy comics/games elf ears instead of purely LotR ones. Sorry Bel! Also I liked the movie gollum better for our dog (whose name is actually Gandalf) than the REALLY creepy TV one! I put our other Husky, Luna, in the background as Smaug. Our cats Merlin and Gallifrey are portraying Thorin and Elron respectively.

In any case, it's a bit of an amalgamation of the two, which works for me because I LOVE the old Hobbit movie! And as much as I enjoyed the Peter Jackson movies, I still have a soft spot for the style and watercolor wash elegance of the Rankin/Bass version of middle Earth.

Anyway, happiest of Holidays to everyone and hopefully an even happier new year!

PS: Here is the black and white line art.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Honorable Rabbit-san!


Recently I saw a drawing challenge posted by a site called OzComics on Facebook calling on artists to post their own interpretations of Stan Sakai's beloved comic book character "Usagi Yojimbo" and I just had to toss one in! I love Usagi and have a collection of the books (not quite all of them yet, but working on it) which are wonderful tales told by a master storyteller.

This was the drawing I did for the challenge. It took about an hour and a half...and he turned out looking too much like the Grinch to me, but all in all, it turned out pretty well. I even received a kind compliment form the samurai rabbit's creator, which was a real treat! Thanks Stan Sakai for giving us over 25 years of Usagi's adventures!