HAUNT

 

 I have been a little absent from the Illustration Friday page of late but here is a something I did this morning for their topic of "Haunt". I have thought about this as the story line for something before, all the animals you have eaten coming back to haunt you.

When I was traveling I told my young cousins that I was going to eat an animal for every letter in the alphabet. in Vietnam I had Porcupine. P......as in Pig.......total waste of a letter meal. I've eaten loads of little pigs. 

Porcupine is not very nice. I know, complete shocker right?!

T-Rex with a jet pack

A little sketch I am working on at the moment. It was based on a Face Book comment made by a friend on how to make a picture of a DeLorean flying in a future inhabited by Robots riding donuts by Eric Joyner (go and check out his amazing robots!) even better. the answer? A T-rex with a jet pack. This is him returning via jet pack.I am undecided on what he is so vocal about...I am thinking of putting a DeLorean or a Tardis in his little speech bubble.

"Come on in, the swamp is lovely"

Testing out a couple of paint styles with a paint sketch on canvas. Down in the Swamp, it's awesome being green.

Two birds with one shark!

I haven't done anything for Illustration Friday for a while due to other commitments and deadlines but I was commissioned to do a piece which involved a couple of animals, one being a shark. This is a rough draft of a shark I painted to test a colour scheme. The client asked that it be wearing shades...Illustration Friday's topic this week? - SHADES.

Illustration Friday - GROUNDED

A version of this picture has been swimming (fluttering? What do moths do? That!) around with me for a while. I am actually planning on a larger painted piece but thought IF's theme this week of GROUNDED was a good chance to work on some character sketches.

Illustration Friday - SINK

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is SINK. I first thought of quicksand and Mafia hits with concrete shoes then sinks full of water....then synchronised swimmers...then Synchronised Sink Swimmers. I originally wanted to draw the four characters shown as if from an aerial view as they swam in the sink but drew this to establish the swimming team first. I opted for a Frog as the fourth member over a spider that seemed too similar to the cockroach design. It does bug me a bit that having a frog on the team might be considered cheating if Sink Swimming ever gets into the Olympics though.

Obsession

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is Obsession. This little sketch was done in between playing on my phone......I forgot to erase the pencil marks as I had to go back to defeating weird little green pigs with annoyed spherical fowl.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

This weeks illustration Friday topic is ASLEEP. Which from the look of my blog updates of late seems to be all I was doing.....I was doing stuff though....I WAS!
I had a ton of ideas for this weeks subject which while i didn't have time to finish this week (its my wedding anniversary, thanks for asking) I think I will be using in other projects.
The above picture was a lot of fun to do and the first thought i had....There is something too damn cute about it though that always bugs me so I quickly just did the following little sketch reminding people that it isn't always good to fall ASLEEP.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!

Illustration Friday topic: WARNING

"That's new"

LAYER? It's my party and I'll draw Leia if I want to.

Illustration Friday's topic this week is LAYER. I often just try to sketch the first thing that comes into my head and then evolve that into a final piece. Well, it is my birthday today (Happy Birthday Me!) and I might not have time this weekend to post anything. As it was I did this at 1am last night after cleaning for a party today. I then fell asleep before any "layer" pictures were born.

Having said that my wife noticed that the word LAYER and the Star Wars character's name (Princess) LEIA are quite similar ("exactly the same") to her American ears when I say them to her in my British accent.

So here is Princess Layer......um, sounds a bit wrong. Stick with Princess Leia. Sorry.

3 Illustrations for "SWEATER"

This weeks Illustration Friday topic was SWEATER. This sounded strangely to my ears, probably because they are British ears. Even though I know that it was referring to what I know as a "Jumper" there was still a slight nagging in my head when I drew thick woolen garments.


Y'see, what my brain (my English brain) was really trying to put onto paper was the fact that while my mum and my wife are usually complaining about the cold the males of the Powell family always run hot. As they turn up the heat: Myself, my nephew, my brother and my dad? We are SWEATERS!

REVERSE!!!

Who here hasn't driven their tiny car into a dark villain and monster filled bar and just needed to...........reverse? Nobody! Exactly, we've all done it! Everyone has.

This wasn't the first thought I had for this week's Illustration Friday topic. Actually I had seen something a good few days before the topic of "Reverse" was revealed and I was determined to shoe horn in a picture of a baby monkey riding backwards on a pig......Luckily for me (and you....just wait!) "Reverse" sort of fit with the baby monkey. Why the topic though? It is because my good friend and Athlete, Adventurer, Designer, Mr Alex McCormick brought something into my life. Something that gave me words to live my life by.....

"You got to keep on keeping on,
get on that pig and hold on tight"

It was the greatest 59 second clip I have ever seen. You would not believe how happy this makes me. Just watch it, smile and understand....

SURRENDER!!!!

I asked my wife what springs to mind at hearing this weeks Illustration Friday topic word "Surrender" and to my shock and awe she said "Surrender Monkey". I thought she was just adding Monkey to any word I said (this is usually a complete winner with me) but I usually have heard of the term. This one I hadn't.Sounds derogatory and offensive doesn't it?

Turns out it is!

What was even more of a shock was that the phrase was coined in 2005 on The Simpsons. This is shocking as my wife has never seen an episode without switching it off.
The phrase first appeared in an episode of The Simpsons entitled "'Round Springfield" . Groundskeeper Willie, the school janitor, is teaching French due to budget cuts, dressed in a striped shirt and a beret. In a heavy Scottish accent, he greets the class with "Bonjourrr, yah cheese-eatin' surrender monkeys!" The "surrender" element of the phrase refers to the Anglo-American perception of the Battle of France as being virtually a "surrender" to Nazi Germany. The Cheese bit being self explanatory and the monkey bit being a comedy word.
This phrase was then picked up by other U.S. media outlets, such as the National Review Online, New York Post and commentator John Gibson of the Fox News Channel towards France who oppose the U.S. in international forums in particular, the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

(All of this info was stolen mercilessly from Wikipedia)

In short this was a huge turning point in my marriage. My wife gave me a an excuse to draw a monkey that was inspired by the Simpsons that might even raise a smile from my British ancestors. I have never been more in love.

ANYWAY - It's not really my thing to be posting stuff against the French so I went with my NO SURRENDER MONKEY. I hope I dodged the bullet of offending anyone.

I also had an idea for it but I had already done something similar before but here is Sir Diddymus from the movie Labyrinth done in paper cut -
Never Surrender!

DUSTY

"So what sounds better? Fairy dust or Angel dust?" I asked my wife, "Neither!" she said.

Apparently, despite my respectable gentlemen about town character, she thought I was talking about drugs. I went with Fairy in the end and the hard life a fairy has cleaning up all the magic dust she excretes throughout the day. A topic not covered in Peter Pan but possibly in one of the Tinkerbell spin-off animations. If it isn't covered it should be. Fairy dust is a b!tch.

Nobody calls me CHICKEN.

I nearly got into a full blown fight before over what is the best movie trilogy. I said (quite correctly) that the best movie trilogy ever made was the Back To The Future saga. I stand by this. The other guy said Godfather. Can you believe some people?!

I am sure that like me this picture bugs you a little bit as it never actually happens this way. Marty McFly is not in his orange vest when Biff yells this at him. Actually he never yells this at him in the First movie at all. I am currently hanging my head in shame but thought it wouldn't be as recognizable otherwise.

The Girl of Ice

There is a girl, the girl of ice,
In a strange situation,
Her heart is warm but she is cold,
That's just poor circulation.

This is another character from a book I designed a few years back that I am planning on re-working. I posted the Boy of Fire a few weeks ago. here is The Girl Of Ice. She seems to fit the current view out of the window here in Minnesota at the moment and also the theme of this weeks Illustration Friday topic. Winter.

The boy of fire.

As my scanner is still against me.....actually it might work now, I haven't checked....we haven't been talking.....anyway, as far as I know I can't scan so here is something I was working on before. A burning character from a book I made a few years ago. I am currently looking at re-doing it, some of the art and stuff.

Illustration Friday - Afterwards

This week my scanner has joined the ranks of gadgets and technology that continues to wage war on me on an almost daily basis and refuse to work when I want them to. Damn you scanner, damn you.

After wrecking a city you just gotta rock (Acrylic on canvas)

So I couldn't scan any illustrations this week, instead here are things I have been working on that fit the subject matter.

Taking a break after climbing buildings (paper cut in shadow box)

I tell myself every week to update this blog with more than just Illustration Friday sketches but looking over the last couple of weeks, like the old blues song goes, "if I didn't have IF updates, I wouldn't have no updates at all"

Illustration Friday - Spent

I did have this idea to do an amazingly massive detailed picture and say I "SPENT ages on it".

I didn't do that though. Instead I did a tired robot and panda....

Which would never happen because, as you know, robots and pandas are mortal enemies and can always find a little bit more energy to slap each other silly. Hate each other they do.

Illustration Friday - Racing

I have sort of dropped the IF ball in the last few weeks due to a bit of a work build up but I thought of this at lunch today. As I was drawing it I realised that it reminded me of a scene from the Disney movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks"....its like Mary Poppins but with a bed and Angela Lansbury...that sounds wrong on a number of levels but its not. I also found out that my wife has never seen movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks"........

....shocking news. Absolutely shocking news.