Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is an American exploitation filmĀ from 1965 that follows the crime-filled adventures of three renegade go-go dancers (played by Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams). It’s notoriously hard to find due to rights and distribution issues or something. Anyway, the movie is wild and it’s hard not to become a little obsessed with Tura Satana afterwards.

Sketchbook Entry 5: The Penciled Horse

A good friend, Jared Norby, has been showing me some new techniques. I’m a strict ink user mostly. But every time we meet he gives me more insights and he has gotten me to experiment with pencil a wee bit.

The pencil, I must confess, does offer a bit more subtlety. I still may like the pen, but I do have a hard time getting slight shading and really capturing the mass. My inked stuff generally has a sharp, flatness to it so this is a good exercise for me.

Although still far from a pencil artist, this is definitely a direction I have mistakenly left unexplored. You can tell I am still a little uncomfortable forsaking my hard expressive lines but I must examine technique this further. I will be honest, coloring things digitally (at least, the way I do it) takes forever. Even though the pencil gradient is unfamiliar territory and it does take more time than I like to spend on my drawings, it might prove a welcome ally. Perhaps even charcoal one day.

Dust Bunnies & Such: evolution of an idea

This was a quick project I did for a friend. A little show of how I work.

I was told to design a dust bunny cartoon for a cleaning company. This is the first wave of ideas I had. (Inked illustrations)

After showing the first page and some discussion and getting a clearer idea of what they wanted I tweaked the ideas and expanded on the specific things they asked for (i.e. fake ears, no movement, etc.).

Once the desired dust bunny was chosen I set to color it.

Once initial digital coloring was finished I added a gradient for depth. In this case I actually prefer the flatter image to the gradient one, but I let the client choose.

There it is. Evolution of a logo character.