What I Drew Sunday, June 28th - Top 3

Sunday’s comic book themed edition of “What Shall I Draw Today?” fielded plenty of multiple character suggestions. The trade off, of course, is that the more complex the ideas are, the longer it takes for me to complete each one of them and thus the fewer that I am able to squeeze in an eight-hour session. I’ve long since abandoned any ambitions that my WSIDT output success should be measured by volume.

Here are the top 3 liked pieces from Sunday:

#1 - Usagi Yojimbo, Samurai Jack and Lone Wolf & Cub having a tea ceremony: suggestion by @rockamola

If I can make it work, I will design a WSIDT sketch layout taking priority cues from the literal suggestion. For example, the first named character is primary and can be the largest, or the focal point, or the first/left-most character or she/he gets the punchline. Being the left-most character is, of course, in-line with left-to-right written languages like English. Don’t give me too much credit then, that the character order is correct according to the Japanese right-to-left way of writing. The reversal of the order just seemed correct in my head.

As the first sketch of the day, I drew this the Saturday prior, so that I could post it at 12 noon EDT. It’s a cheat, but I think the experience is better than having my first post an hour or so after my stated start time. As with many WSIDT suggestions, this piece had me taking a crash course on some of the characters, namely the Lone Wolf and Cub series and the Usagi Yojimbo saga. Not to mention Japanese tea ceremonies. Thank you Internet. Thank you YouTube. Still, I don’t doubt that I’ve depicted a detail or two inaccurately.

To the far right, I’ve included one of Usagi Yojimbo’s comrades, Chizu. At least, I thought that’s who I was drawing. One commenter identified her to be Tomoe Ami. Her inclusion had everything to do with having only seen women host tea ceremonies in my brief amount of research.

Not that I can do much to correct this piece, but in the interest of my education, if you can point any out inaccuracies, please do so kindly in the comments.

#2 - Black Widow on The Dating Game: suggestion by Kinzey Freels

I can only guess that this assortment of characters is what the suggester had in mind; namely casting the three hidden bachelors as actual comic or movie characters that have had romantic connections to Natasha. Here I chose Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Daredevil (Matt Murdoch) and the Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes). American super-hero comics have long had an inequity of male to female characters. Natasha’s love life is mostly the result of being a young, single woman in Marvel Comics.

The camera angle is intentional to maximize Black Widow, and make the entire scene less wide compared with a straight on audience point of view.

I had thought to include a caricature of Jim Lange, original host of “The Dating Game” from the 1960s, but recasting Stan Lee as the game show host seemed a nice and possibly clever touch.

There’s a not-so-hidden Spidey head in the sketch.

#3 - White Violin: suggestion by @assortedvariety

The actual suggestion was “Anything from The Umbrella Academy!” In my ignorance of the Dark Horse published comic series, I chose the easy route of drawing just one “anything” landing on one with a distinctive design as judged by a quick internet image search.

In drawing White Violin, a.k.a. Number Seven, I instinctualy happened on stylistic result that is  in part Marc Davis’s Tinker Bell and in part something of the fairies from Walt Disney’s Fantasia. With a little better layout planning, I perhaps could have kept the entire violin within frame. The all white character necessitated a ground color. I chose brown, because of it being neutral.

As the piece is small and simply of single figure, it surprised me that the accrued the third highest number of like from the day’s work.

Here are the rest of the 6 drawn on Sunday:

“Snoopy as Captain America”

Suggestion by @benmcdermott93

“SHAZAM meeting He-Man”
Suggestion by @jazzatron5000

“Zatanna Meeting Scarlet Witch”
Suggestion by @jonmpeterson

All of these and more original piece of art will be for sale at my next comic convention showing, which, honestly, I don’t know will happen this year.

The next official WSIDT session is scheduled for Sunday, July, 26th. However, stay tuned for a special, experimental version in early July.

Thank you to everyone who pitched their fun drawing suggestions. Thank you for following my blog and/or Instagram (@Monstergram7) and/or Monster Enterprises Facebook page. Thank you for liking.

All: Black ink and color pencil.

“Tea Ceremony” on watercolor paper. 17.78cm  x 12.70cm (7.00 in. x 5.00 in.)
“Dating Game” on Bristol Board. 17.78cm  x 12.70cm (7.00 in. x 5.00 in.)

“White Violin“  on Bristol Board. 6.35 cm x 8.89 cm  (2.50 in. x 3.50 in.)

What Shall I Draw June 28th?

The June edition of What Shall I Draw Today? will be themed “Comic Books.”

What Shall I Draw Today?

Sunday June 28th, 2020

Eastern Daylight Time:  12pm noon - 8pm

Pacific Daylight Time:  9am - 5pm

For the entirety of the drawing day, I will draw the most fun and/or interesting comic book themed suggestions. Marvel Comics! DC Comics! Archie! Judge Dredd! If none of that interests you, then your not-a-comic-book suggestions may yet be considered for a daily drawing following that WSIDT Sunday and appear on my Instagram.

Pitch your suggestions at any of the following social media spots where you find the above prompting image from now until the 28th:

Blog:  monotonae.blogspot.com (right here in the comments)

Instagram:  @monstergram7

Facebook:  /Monster Enterprises

For frequently asked questions, please click on the WSIDT tab above.

What If... I Drew the First Idea I Had for the Cover of “Unstoppable Tuff-Girl” No. 1?

Here’s how I realize a 14 year old doodle into a comic book cover for the first issue of my self published comic book:

Compare this to the final cover in color.

As I write this in 2020, I am in the scripting stage of issue number 4 of my self-published comic book, “Unstoppable Tuff-Girl.” Thinking that it would be a good idea to speak more frequently on social media about my personal projects, if not a branding essential notion, I thought that it might be fun to consider issue number 1.

With a cover date of September 2010, UTG, volume 2, number 1 represents the anthology nature of the comic. The main image is the titular hero, Tuff-Girl, preparing for an attack from an airborne man-lizard aggressor to be revealed in the book as Rip Tyler. The left side panels allude to the other features “Wichita the Tuff Mutt” and “Little Tuffy and the Tuf Gurlz.”

On page 32, are depicted over 51 tiny thumbnail images each representing a concept sketch for the book’s cover with the first scribbled in 2006.

The multi-panel layout was a late consideration not only for the cover image development, but frankly also reflects the late inclusion of second and third story features.

The moment on the cover has a marked difference by placing Tuff-Girl in peril, rather than being portrayed as a confident actor.

The concept also features the lead story’s main antagonist, Eagle One along with obvious gambling elements of the coin-slot machines and roulette games of chance. This undermines whatever surprise the story may have as to the nature of Eagle One’s actions.

The redux cover was drawn and inked at actual print size, as opposed to the traditional process of creating art oversized for the benefit of tightening up the art when it is reduced.

What do you think. Did I make the right choice back in 2010?

Logo Grow

Is a company a real company if it doesn’t have a logo? Not if you judge it by American capitalism since, oh, 1960.

Starting in high school, I played around with logo designs as an extension of musings about what would I call my own company. This, in turn, was the natural extension of the high school activity of thinking about what one would do after high school. Designing logos was the easy and fun part.

I came up with logos for a variety of businesses:

• Illustration services
• Engineering design
• Film company
• Detective agency
• Animation studio
• Apparel design
• Distribution company

They all happen to be creative outlets. Considering that I would be pointing my nose in the direction of university engineering studies, these diverse pursuits could have been a premonition of the mega-corporations of today. Or perhaps not. I don’t think Amazon or Warner Brothers either have detective agencies in their respective families of divisions.

It was a fun exercise. The fun was topped by imagining a corporation for them all. That corporation was called Monster Enterprises. If you’re paying attention, “Monster” is a play on my last name “Mon.” It was an is better than most other puns on my name like “Monkey Co.” and “Money Maker, Inc.”

In college, I developed a character called “Monster” which was to be what Mickey Mouse was to Walt Disney. Intentionally, I took the three letters of my last name and mashed them to be the basis of Monster’s face. With that, I moved to formalize the corporation idea with a logo that used the same Monster’s face that served double duty as the “Mo” that begins “Monster.” Unfortunately, right now any copies of drawings of that character are buried deep in some moving box. I think I attempted a visual link by pairing the “TER” common to both “Monster” and “Enterprises.” I still think that maybe I should conflate the two into “Monsterprises.”

Monster as a character evolved as needed in a couple of comic strips all while serving as the corporate mascot. Around 2010 or as late as 2013, I re-designed the corporate mascot Monster to be specific and distinctly different than the ones used in comic strips. Much of this design, borrowed from my Cartoon Network job. Think Fred Flintstones and “Billy and Mandy“ as the nose inspiration.

By 2013, the corporate logo was updated with the new corporate mascot design. Here, I pushed the letter forms to NOT be reminiscent of the “Disney” logo type. The forms have saw-tooth jaggedness, asymmetry and breaks. Here, also, Monster’s ears were left off for better “Monster” legibility.

For the logo icon, Monster’s earless face was isolated and often is placed in a circle. 

This year, Monster’s face has been completed with ears and a defined face/head shape. It seemed necessary for the icon/logo. While I attempted to place the new head into the logo type, in doing so hampered legibility. Too many thick lines, I think. Other detail adjustments include a slightly smaller face compared to his nose and the long cowlick hairs were changed as to not appear to be an “F” and an “N.” Since the icon and the logo type are different, the icon head can be a bit rotated counter clockwise.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the logo gets re-designed again within ten years. That seems to be what all the big companies do.