This is it. This was my first Cast of Horribles. After drawing these strange squigglies in front of a city, I realized I may be on to something. It took a few more drawings to flesh them out, but they became the loveable (at least in my head) creatures that now adorn this website.
I don't remember what I was thinking when I drew this. this was posted on sewcrates under my original Doodles category. It was the first doodle that stuck with me and made me want to draw more of them.
Here's what I had to say about my first attempt:
"I doodled for the first time in a while today. I’m not sure what to think of my creation. I always liked the cartoon-building style, and the little people staring at the rising circle thingy, reminded me of the scene in “City of Angels” where the angels wait on the beach for the sunrise. I don’t think I could sit through that movie again, but it was disturbing and very powerful. And it had a great soundtrack."
It wasn't until I drew Julie in the next doodle that I was truly hooked.
There was a lot of discussion about the title of this doodle between Julie and my mother. They both think that the English is bad, that I should have titled it "If I only know now what I'll know then." I didn't agree and it remained the way I drew it. I know the grammar isn't right, but I was trying to convey the circular sense of time: the Little Guy is looking at himself in the past, and speaking as the past Little Guy about knowing the future. I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it, which is why I used the grammatically strange title.
Julie didn't like my first version of the little, Little Guy. He was full sized with an extra large foot. I explained that the large foot is like the large head of babies. Julie didn't buy it and I ended up redrawing him.
I've always loved the night sky. At the beginning of college, I thought about a career in astrophysics. I took Astronomy 101 during my first semester. After an early class, I spoke with the professor and expressed my interest. I don't remember what advice he gave, but I told all of my freshman friends about it. I had a rude awakening after my first examination. It turned out that for classes that require memorization, I was not able to squeak by with no effort. It actually required studying. I never studied in gradeschool, and I wasn't about to start in my freshman year. It wasn't until Calculus II that I woke up early on a Saturday morning and spent the morning memorizing integrations and working on problem sets. I can't believe it took me so long to learn to study.
I dropped the astronomy class to protect my GPA and didn't tell my friends. I pretended to attend for the rest of the semester, too embarrassed to admit my early failing, especially after my enthusiastic career plans.
As to the title, this is another of my Jewish learnings. If we accept the Jewish teachings, then God created the world for humans to choose His path. This is a very involved concept, and something I really want to write more about (or at least plagerize out of my one of my better Judaism books). To be truly happy, you follow God's laws. It seems almost anticlimatic to know that happiness equates to absolute obedience. The easy question is What happened to free will? (Free will is a core belief in Judaism.) The hard answer is that the choice to follow God's laws is the perfect exercise of your free will. I'm not explaining this well, but there's something more involved in that answer, something that needs a longer sewcrates musing. Don't think that link brings you there. I haven't written it yet. I'm just hopeful, is all.
We love truffles, and especially truffle oil. Not too much, or it takes over a dish. But a sprinkling on mushrooms or a piece of fish. We'd never use it at home, of course. That would require a level of skill I'm not comfortable with. But in a restaurant, as soon as we see truffle oil, we know it's going to be a good dish.
I made a break through in my Marathon planning. I might have found a genre and a style. I still don't have much of a plot, but I do have some ideas, probably small minded and worth ten or so thousand words. It's a start. I'll see if I can continue my progress through the end of the month.
Late post today. The rain and cold returned to Seattle with a vengeance (I didn't realize there was an A in vengeance). I think its trying to get back at us for escaping to the warm sun of Hawaii. I can't believe we were there on Sunday. It feels like it was a long time ago.
Chuck has agreed to restart our ping-pong short story "contest." This is where one of us sends the other a story idea, and the watches (with sadistic glee) while the other writes a story based on the story idea usually within the month (or was it a week? I forget). We played rock-paper-scissor and I won (or lost, as Chuck looks at it): I get to serve first and deliver him a story idea. I still haven't come up with the appropriate idea, but it should be ready by this weekend. That means I'll be writing a new short story next month. While I'm excited to start writing again, I'm a bit nervous about actually doing it. What if it comes out like the Marathon?
This Super Little Guy horrible wasn't as good as my others. I don't particularly like the city or the building colors (they're backwards: the buildings further back should be darker)--but I'm too lazy to fix it. You should see the terrible horrible I doodled today. I still haven't returned to form after a week away.
Inspiration is a wonderful thing. I remember drawing this doodle. I was bored of drawing the Little Guy and adding the same background with a different hue. I decided to go crazy. I added a few swirls, and glowing stars, and then decided not to stop with just the sky. I was a rebel, a breaker of molds, a dreamer of bigger things, a. . . . Okay, so I can only go so crazy with an electronic pen in a small box with a sperm-like fellow. Looking at it now, months after I drew it, whatever inspiration struck, it still gives me tingles. I guess that’s what I hope for in these things.
The weather has been crazy in Seattle. It goes from hot to cold back to hot and then to rainy. It reeks havoc on my head, and I've fought a handful of migraines over the past week. The depression seems to have dissipated somewhat and I’m hoping the thermometer settles down soon.
Doodle-wise, this was a very productive three-day weekend. I spent much time hunched over my fancy tablet drawing doodles, and finishing other doodles I started but forgot about. I'm still not ready to return to the three postings a week yet, but if I continue at my current pace, I could be there in another week or so. (By saying that, of course, I've now jinxed myself to another slow period.)
Even though the forecasts were dire, the weather held rather well over the weekend. I posted a few photos we had sitting around, and a few albums we took over the long weekend.
I attempted to write on Sunday morning. I'll spare you the gory details, as I ended up with half a page of consternations, most of which concerned the fact that my dogs were running around my legs as I attempted to write in our backyard. Yeah, it was exceptionally engaging.
Many nights start like this: I sit in front of the computer and stare at a blank canvas and wonder what I'll draw. Sometimes I store an idea during the day on a scrap of paper--more regularly I have an idea but forget to write it down, which is the same as having no ideas. Most days I start drawing the Little Guy and hope for inspiration.
Once I have an idea, I either draw from memory if it's simple, or check sewcrates's photo page, or search various image searches for a model. I then start doodling away.
On the good days, I'll end up with something I'm proud of. On the normal days, I'll have something passable. And on the terrible days I'll question why I bother. As I was telling Jennifer yesterday, in my view, art is all about repetition until your fingers bleed in the hopes of creating something worthwhile.
Battlestar Galactica, oh how you started out so incredible and became such crap by the second season. Julie and I stopped watching it then. We loved the first season, somewhat enjoyed parts of the second season, and hated the rest. It murdered innocent old ladies. It did unspeakable things to polite society. It had such promise and squandered it by writers who forgot to plan ahead. The same thing happens to most animes: they start incredibly strong, but because they weren't well planned, they peter out and head in ridiculous directions. But at least BSG left us this Horrible.
It's snow-raining right now. This is by far the strangest winter. I had hopes that it would end well, with Spring sticking its colorful mug from the ground early. Hopes spring eternal, or something. For now I'll accept the snow-rain and get on with my day.
This is based on Justin Hillgrove's The Dreaming Tree, which resulted in much jealousy when I saw it in a gallery. So we bought it and a few other prints, and I created a Horrible as a tribute to unattainable artistic skill.
The weekend ground to a halt yesterday. Not sure what was on the road, but my wheels are gone.
Super Little Guy returns! And he's here to save the day or something. We could use him at home as things are running amok. Our nice quiet organized life is at risk.
I'm too tired to say anything this morning. This is not because of our visitor, who slept through the night. This tiredness was caused by too much sleep. I hate having to find the perfect amount of sleep every night. It's exhausting.
I had a terrible headache yesterday. Today is a bit better but the pain is still lingering.
This Horrible is brought to you by this photograph. Too tired to even type words.
We really need to get out of our house and see it.
Thanks to VG Cats for inspiring me to try a new snow technique. There's a space before the shadow under the hat. It's driving me mad, but I'm resisting touching it up. I just need to keep breathing and hope nobody notices.
It's a beautiful Sunday morning and I expect to get wonderful and/or brilliant things done today. I'll let you know how that goes.
I've got nothing but scribbles for you these days.
Another beautiful day in Seattle. Here on out, I'll only report on the bad days. Less words that way.
With the cloudy and rainy weather, these weeks have been dragging by. I'm not ready for autumn. I need me more summer! (And not that sticky can't sleep because of the heat summer.)
We're back! We barely made it, though. We missed our flight on Monday (thanks to my confusion between AM and PM on my alarm clock) but managed to catch a flight through Salt Lake City that got us home a few hours later than planned.
The Thanksgiving weekend was fun and busy. We saw lots of family (see photographs below) and Julie recorded a couple of songs at Jennifer's music studio.
My mother is visiting on Friday, so we have another busy weekend coming up soon.
We didn't get much in the way of snow this winter. There were a few weeks of terrible coldness--it may have been too cold to snow.
It's almost the weekend again. We're off to NYC for the holiday. Depending on my mood (and doodling output), you may be Horrible free for a few days next week. I'm sure the three of you that read this will somehow survive.
I didn't have coffee this morning. I can't figure out why I feel so lethargic.
