EATING BREAKFAST

In artist families a sketch war can break out without warning, at any time. Here (above), on a normal day, on a normal morning,  my wife puts outs out breakfast cereal for my daughter and me, and I, as I often do,  pick up my sketchbook to record it.

 Little did I know that this day would be different because my daughter...who hates to be drawn...has decided to take a stand and fight back.

She eats her food in the most gross way possible, no doubt hoping that'll deter me from drawing her.

She peels off the crusts from her bread (something every parent hates to see for some reason), nibbles her bread into patterns, and taps out a song on her cereal bowl. 

   

All this drives my wife nuts and she makes small talk to cover up her anxiety. She's dying to say "YOUNG LADY! That's NOT the way we eat a meal at the breakfast table!!!!," but she restrains herself because I'm nudging her under the table, begging her to let my daughter go, so I can draw it. 

My kid takes full advantage, knowing how uncomfortable we are are. She rolls  her bread into a baseball and crams it into her mouth.  She masticates it, gorilla-style. My wife is appalled.

Finally my kid ends it all by putting up a wall of breakfast cereal around herself. Well, that's it. You can't draw what you can't see.

MORE RANDOM EDDIE SKETCHES

Here's some idea sketches I did for various projects I worked on.

Haw! I like the idea of an inventor who's harried by his own inventions. Here Igor tries to impress his master by making everything user friendly, and then has to live with the consequences.

This (above) is an excerpt from something I did for Theory Corner. Normally I can't draw John but for some reason I don't have any trouble doing continuity about him. Maybe that's the secret of caricaturing hard to draw people...you do a comic about them and a different part of your brain kicks in.

Here's (above) a sketch from another strip. How do you like the short bell bottoms John's wearing? He doesn't really dress like that but he used to draw other people that way and I picked it up from him.

Here's (below) a fragment of a different continuity, also for Theory Corner. It's about an acting class exercize....

...well, it went on for a couple more pages. This reminds me that I seriously considered taking acting classes at one time. I didn't want to be an actor, I just wanted to see if doing that would make me a better storyboarder. I didn't end up doing it because I became interested in something else instead...stage movement.

By that I mean how an actor sits, walks, gestures, enters and exits and relates to other actors. There used to be lots of acting coaches who taught this sort of thing but they're a rarity now. I couldn't find one, and I live near Hollywood for Pete's sake!

I had to learn stage movement on my own, being mindful of the maxim that says "The man who teaches himself is taught by a fool."

MY BEST AND WORST JOBS

I'll start with the worst animation job I ever had. No, I didn't draw the picture above. It was a handed out as reference for a cartoon I was invited to freelance for about a zillion  years ago. It was not, to put it mildly, my type of thing and I should have respectfully declined it, but I needed money so I took it home and tried to get started.

I spent hours then days staring at white paper, unable to draw. I simply couldn't imagine how a creature as appallingly generic as that would think or act. I ended up giving it back and the schedule no doubt took a hit. It was not my finest hour.

My best job? I've blogged about some of them, but here's one that I might not have mentioned. It was for a video game that Spumco consulted on, and it was so much fun that I could hardly wait to get to work in the morning.

One of my tasks was to think of obstacles a skateboarder might encounter on his trip through a haunted house, a demented Disneyland-type theme park, etc., etc. Not a bad job, eh? I had to work fast but it was pure pleasure.

One assignment was to draw a ghost airplane and I sketched several versions.

One of the versions had a ghost with a big pistol. The one that was chosen was the one on the right.

I cleaned it up (above) a bit.

You can do anything with airplanes.

Once I realized it might be okay to to use guns in a video game I began putting them in everything (above). I realized that trees can have guns, parakeets and goldfish can have guns, and even ghosts can have guns. Guns make everything funnier; witness Oil Can Harry's shootouts with Mighty Mouse. Of course, modern audiences are sensitive about the subject so you have to be careful.

Ghosts are easy to think of ideas for because they can never get the hang of dealing with real world objects. Even eating a meal (above, bottom right) is done in an unconventional way.

I also like the idea of purse bashing old lady ghosts on skateboards (above).

Old ladies are on the cutting edge of animation though few people realize it yet.

I did some shoe ghost gags.

Haw! Here's (above) an update of an old Mack Sennett gag.

Here (above) was a first pass on city buildings that resemble people. I had to try several versions before I got it to work.

Well, that's all I have room for. Copyright by the copyright holder.

MORE ABOUT ME (PART TWO)

Here it is, the second (and final) part of the "Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner" retrospective, summing up about 640 posts over a period of nearly two years!


Next to animation and cartooning the thing I've probably posted most about is architecture. It's easy to see why an artist would do that; architecture is art that you live in. My own preference is for architecture that's romantic. You picture yourself having adventures in it, it provokes your best thoughts, It reminds you that you're part of a culture, you want to show it to friends who haven't seen it yet.





I've done a lot of posts about dinner friends like John, Mike, Steve, Kali, Katie and Marlo (excerpts from two different strips, above). I've done a zillion "My Dinner with Andre"-type posts about John and I'd do the same for Mike if he'd let me. In Mike's case the dinners would be especially easy to write about because they all begin the same way: we sit down, Mike spots a beautiful girl, he shouts, "Eddie, Eddie, quick! LookLookLook!", I look, and Mike gets completely unhinged because I'm too obvious.


I've published a lot of sketch reference (above) over the last two years. I love the way real people look, as opposed to fashion models.


I've also posted a lot about fine art. Here's (above) excerpts from one of my favorite posts, showing the contrast between Roman and Renaissance (spelled right?) sculpture. The Roman bust celebrates the practical man of action, the Renaissance one, by Donatello, celebrates the sensitive, thinking, man.


I frequently censor pictures that make me look fat or ugly (above).


I did a few posts on my film, "Tales of Worm Paranoia." I'll do some more when I find the drawings I saved.


Lots of Greek stuff (above) on the site. Greek philosophy is refreshingly manly, clear and practical.


I've done several posts on the subject of cartoon anatomy (above). Theory Corner Readers have a scientific bent and frequently catch me on factual errors.


Once I did a whole post (excerpt, above) on patterns of male back hair. You won't find that in Burne Hogarth!




Sometimes I publish drawings from the projects I work on, but not too often. Most employers don't let me draw in my own style.



I've done lots of doodles (above and below) for this blog.



Smoking: it's a dangerous, filthy habit, but the rituals are soooo interesting!




When I draw in my own style I never have trouble drawing women. Women are simply men with long hair and breasts.


I haven't drawn anything for the blog since before Christmas. That's because all my free time is taken up with the computer. I'm determined to get comfortable with this machine and learn a little Flash and Photoshop.





Well, that's it! I'll have to do another retrospective this time next year! Good grief, I hope I don't run out of things to say by then!

MORE CARTOON ANATOMY!

How about a few more words on how laughter happens? I'm obsessed with finding out why the cheek enlarges so much, even for a smile as shown above. Mark Mayerson says the cheeks enlarge to accommodate the extra skin which is pushed out of the way by the smile. He's almost certainly right, but...well... where's the wrinkles you'd expect to see if skin was being packed that way? And why don't you see the skin traveling upward in steps, into the cheek?

I really shouldn't pursue this. The answer is probably obvious and I'm just being dense.

Here's a picture (above) that seems to confirm Mark's opinion. The cheeks don't bunch up much, maybe because the skin is spread all over the side of the face. Boy, this face resembles a screaming baboon!

The small picture on the lower left (above) is interesting. It shows the lower jaw receding backwards into the face as the woman laughs. The upper teeth don't seem to move much.


Of course it's an effort to hold a smile very long. You get tired of keeping the cheeks up. When the strain becomes unbearable (above) you stop supporting the cheeks and the meat collapses downward, back into it's home in the muzzle.

I've seen lots of flabby muzzles, especially on middle aged men and Star Wars fans.