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So I finished that painting of Teddy. It's on watercolor board, which I have never used before but I found out that I really like it. Unfortunately it was a bit too big and bulky to put in my scanner. So here's a crappy photo of it instead:
I also watercolored the background of Pinky Dandy's second internet whoring photo this weekend. I had previously scanned in the painted version to begin the whole tweakage process, but then Photoshop had to go and quit unexpectedly so I lost everything I had done so far. Thankfully it wasn't that much. I am at work now so I can't re-scan it at the moment, but here's the penciled version anyway:
Tomorrow morning I have an interview arranged with Brian Webster, the manager of Trader Joe's in midtown Atlanta for the position of in-store sign artist. Man I hope I get it.
Here's Pinky's first profile picture for Myspace and Facebook. I am going to try to do one of these a week, so this week's already taken care of. This weekend I am going to paint a portrait of a neighbor's corgi, Teddy. He is recently deceased due to pretty tragic circumstances and he was like a son to this lady, who doesn't have any actual children. A few neighbors went in and commissioned me to do a painting of Teddy for her. I'm thinking watercolors because they are by far the most delicate and sentimental medium. So that's my next project-within-a-project.
Last night after Paige and I went to Blick for some art supplies and had dinner at Yama Sushi, I painted a scenic watercolor of the beach, scanned it into my computer, and messed around with it a bit. I am fiddling with a new style that combines my digitally colored characters with my more serious watercolor paintings that everyone loves so much. When I used to be in Maher Yacoub's class all he ever did was make me paint watercolor landscapes so that he could steal them after I had thrown them out. This isn't even the first time this has happened, I also had a teacher in middle school that wanted one of my watercolors out of the trash. I always thought they were alright, but honestly what was I going to do with a million paintings of trees. Maher usually would ask if he could keep my stuff, but not always. A few of my drawings mysteriously went missing a while back and Maher claimed that he never saw them or that he didn't know what I was talking about. Whatever, he can keep them for being such a cool guy.
Anyway, I don't know what's so great about my watercolors but they are fun to do and probably the easiest way to for me to paint backgrounds. They are also great for getting realistic colors in landscapes. The only issue I have with watercolors is that they are often a bit too somber for my characters. Most of my characters are solid, vivid colors, and lot of them have bright pink or magenta somewhere on their person. I guess that's just me wanting to interject my favorite color over everything. When you try to get a good pink with watercolor it never really works; it's always too red or too peach. When it comes to PINKY Dandy there is no excuse for this. So lately I have just been saying "fuck it" and coloring my characters digitally. Something about the slickness of digital combined with the sporadic-ness of watercolor fascinates me. I don't know if it looks "good," but it does definitely look interesting. Sort of like a reference to cell shading in animation, where the characters were really solid and the backgrounds were these wispy works of art. This is my first attempt at whatever this is:
A little weird looking, but I think I like it. I'm not sure. If I decide that I don't like it later on, I have a plan B: Dr. PH Martin's concentrated watercolor dyes. They are way brighter than normal watercolors because they've got a hellofalot more pigment. I picked up a bright pink yesterday in case I decide to do the rest of the Pinky Facebook photos completely traditionally. Then I will lament about having to ink everything. Pinky, along with all of my other characters, looks better as a sketch than inked. I think my pencil drawings have awesome line weight and a sporadic quality that I would hate to lose to the carefulness of an ink-over. And they would also not have that nifty super-opaque coloring that they do digitally. Damnit, I am thinking about this far too much. So look at Pinky in a swimsuit instead. Isn't he a dreamboat?
Paige and I are taking pictures of Doll tomorrow if all goes to plan. In the meantime here is Marc Bolan's handwriting.
Someone posted a bunch of crap he wrote on Facebook. I love how he spells 'magick'. The lettering reminds me of Norse runes. Sometimes his writing was more loopy than pointy, especially when he was writing about how drunk and/or hungover he was in his old diary from when he was Mark Feld and/or Toby Tyler. He often spells things phonetically or incorrectly to the point where you are not sure what is an accident and what is purposeful. Also I love how he dots his i's with circles. I do that too, and I get a lot of crap for it. My writing is really curvy, but I write really similarly to this way when writing in dramatic all caps; jagged lightning bolt 'S's and everything. Marc and I also both use parenthesis all over the place and would put explosion lines around otomatopias of loud sounds written in all caps in our old diaries, comic book style. Most of Marc's sentences have nothing to do with grammar at all and read more like song lyrics than anything. I could relate to his stuff so much that I translated some of it to the girl that posted it, who had no idea what it said. I just have such a weird connection to Marc, and I probably will never understand why.
Here in this story from his childhood Marc says he's a fairy. In a supernatural being way; not a homosexual way. Doesn't that explain so much? He was a changeling and I knew it all along.
So Paige and I made it to Scad last Thursday...only to find that the photo room was closed, despite the claims that it would be open. So not so much progress on the photos of Doll. Will take some this weekend though.
Fluke was not bad. I only got mercilessly hit on by a couple of nerds and no one tried to talk Transformers with me. Martyn and I had the most confusing table by far with such a strange variety of content on such a small surface. It worked though--my creepy glittery sculptures lured people in and then they realized that Martyn's minicomics are really cool despite being so...well, mini. They especially went for his three-dimensional pop-up comic of Andy the Retard in Donkey Kong and his 'Infinity Comix' which he has cleverly folded in a way that the story loops and goes on for infinity. I don't even understand how they work, but each panel opens in a different way until it brings you back to the beginning and then the story starts over. They are insane just like my B.F. He sold a lot of comics and I sold a Chinese Golden dragon, a phoenix hatchling, a unicorn horn, and a ton of wisher whatsits. After Fluke was finished we roamed over to the park next door as the sun was setting and just laid in the grass. Then we went to a few shops and met up with Martyn's good friend John for Thai food. Martyn bought John dinner because he was nice enough to let us stay with him. It was a good day.
Anyway, until I have pictures of Doll or any actual artwork to show for myself here are the pictures I took of our table at Fluke:
See? Definitely a strange variety...
A happy Martyn with comics and Stongbow. My favorite part about Fluke was that it was in a bar that had Strongbow on tap.
The fabled pop-up Donkey Kong themed Andy the Retard comic:
A close up of Andy reaching the last level. That's Mel, his G.F. She is not meant to be me, contrary to popular belief--Martyn designed Mel before he met me. I guess I'm just his type. The fat guy is James, a hateful human being that wants Mel for himself. I would say he is Andy's enemy, but Andy actually thinks he's cool.
If you want to actually read some of Martyn's comics you can see most of them on his blogs. His most recent is his journal comic which is nonfiction for the most part and about his everyday life (bottom row middle on his display below.) I'm a character in it, of course.
Also there's Andy the Retard, which would be a blatant Mary Sue character if not for the fact that a Mary Sue is usually a better version of yourself. Martyn still draws Andy from time to time but you can see the archive, along with some other stuff, here.
Martyn built a pretty cool display for all his minis:
An overexposed close up of my stuff:
Martyn had a lot of fun. It was like a dream come true for him. Yeah...he's a nerd, but his British accent he's more of a nuhd.
My friend Charles also had a table with some of his friends. He was selling cookies, so I bought some. They were great.
I thanked him with a unicorn horn. I had to, he played my feral pantsless love interest in our 80's Legend/American Werewolf in London/Pretty in Pink spoof movie so well. That was a long time ago now. Ah, the sparkly memories...
The bar where Fluke was held was called Tasty World, by the way.
Later I will post real quality pictures on Deviantart, Etsy and the like. Paige was going to photograph him tonight but the SCAD photo room was closed mysteriously. Go figure.
I also have written the story/description of Doll for anywhere I plan on posting him. Here it is:
GLAM FAIRY # 4: DOLL
Meet Doll. He’s just a sweet transvestite from New York that’s looking for a kiss. Formally known as Frank Fratelli, he was named after Frank Sinatra and has gone by many other names over the years. Among the members of the notorious and extended Fratelli family his nickname was Frankie. Despite how tough the family ‘business’ could get at times, Frankie’s skin was always so nice and smooth, his boyish face intact. For this reason he was often called Frankie Dollface, or sometimes just Doll for short. It has never been considered a good thing in the family to a pretty boy, but the Fratellis do take pride in their expensive suits and haircuts. Always looking professional no matter how dirty the job gets is a major aspect of the Fratelli creed. Doll just takes it one step farther by raiding women’s closets. He particularly loves shoes. I found him basking in my left shoe one day (I think he was attracted to the glitter) and he told me his life story. That is how I know his secret—that he is Frankie Dollface by day, and The Incomparable Doll by night in the local burlesque clubs. Now that you also know his secret I would suggest that you do not tell anyone else. Doll would not like to disappoint his mother and may be forced to make you say hello to his little friend.
Doll is number four in my Glam Fairies series. He is sculpted out of a special mixture of Studio by Sculpey and Sculpey III polymer clays over a strong metal armature. He is six and a half inches long in his reclining position and would be approximately eight inches tall if he were standing. Doll’s dark brown eyes are made of glass. His platinum blonde hair is extremely soft and fine because it is made from a cultivated silk brick. His skin has been lightly blushed with Genesis paints, his tattoos then inked in acrylic. He has a large heart on his left pectoral that reads “Ma”, knuckle tattoos that read “Dollface”, and a Rocky Horror style prison tattoo on his right thigh. The signature red kiss of Quarley that identifies him as a one-of-a-kind edition to the Glam Fairies line is located on his right cheek (no, not on his face.) Doll is wearing a real corset that has been crafted from leather. His undies are black vinyl; his garter belt and fishnets are recycled lace and tulle. Doll’s wings are made of pretty much all of the above and are flexible so that they can wrap around him while he is resting or unfurl when he is ready for flight. Doll’s shoes are Barbie heels that have been painted and modified to suit his needs. In his left hand he holds a feather fan and in his right hand he wields a whip. Doll comes with a ticket of authenticity that has been autographed by the artist and a copy of the original sketch when he was still in the design phase. He is very talkative and would like to share his story with whoever adopts him, or whoever will listen to him. He has pretty much moved into my shoe by now and has even constructed a makeshift bed out of an old feather boa from one of his performances. I would ask him to leave, but I don’t want to die.
