Red1.2

This is almost certainly of interest to no one but me- but I always meant to muck about with this one and so I did. Re drawn as a vector illustration and then numerous adjustment layers, alpha channels and filters applied in Photoshop and even a couple of effects in Painter. For no reason but to see what the difference would be. Oh well, it keeps me happy...

Red

Quick joke (not for children or the weak of heart)
Man on holiday in Spain and keen to sample authentic Spanish culture stops in at a little out of the way restaurant. Not being too daring he sticks to some fairly safe items on the menu but notices that at the table next to him the locals are eating something different- large round meat shapes in a rich tomato sauce. It looks delicious but he is a little wary so says nothing.
The next night he is back at the same place and still cautious about his choice of food but asks a waiter what it is that the other patrons are eating?
“Senor” the waiter explains “after the bullfight, it is a great delicacy to eat the balls of the bull in a thick tomato sauce with a touch of oregano”.
Our intrepid hero decides that the following night he will take a chance and once again returns to the restaurant and orders the 'special'. He is disappointed though when it arrives and the portion is very small, so he calls over the waiter-
“I am sorry to complain” he says “but the last two times I have been here the locals had much bigger servings, the size of the meatballs in my plate is tiny!”
The waiter sighs, shrugs and replies
“Well senor, you must understand... sometimes the bull wins.”

Super Tricia

I need your help! It's my neice's 14th Birthday today January 25th and my partner Maureen and I didn't send a card. So I made her into a super hero for Illustration Friday- now if I can get as many people as possible to wish her a happy birthday?

Please don't comment on the cartoon, just say happy birthday to Tricia and let's see how many people from all over the world we can get to post a message.

(Nothing bad will happen if you don't- I hate chain letters- but please pass this to other bloggers and see how many we can get to say something nice for her birthday)

Thanks

Stephen

Super Hero3

My analyst is deeply concerned by my spandex fetish and thinks that it masks a deep neurosis. I am (sort of) intending my Super Hero to be part of a larger drawing but I don't know if it's really worth the bother. In the meantime Merchandising Man finds he has landed in Glasgow and isn't sure why...

From Illustration Friday Night

This is posted in Illustration Friday Night (where things are a little darker)...

The Tale Of Jerry The Mouse

Let me say from the off I'm a kindly man,
A patter of the heads of small dogs.
Controlling my temper is something I do
With an ease like falling off logs.
I'm known for my unruffled exterior
Even a joie de vivre of sorts-
An absence of malice, a vacuum of bile
Iron control over bitter retorts.
It is important to keep things in context-
Keep all your assumptions intact.
Don't leap to hasty conclusions
Until you've carefully weighed up the facts.
I concur that the mouse that you spotted
As it scurried across the parquet
Was as cute as the proverbial button
So I gracefully allowed he could stay.

And though I wanted to call him Ivor
Or at a pinch Albert or Stan,
When you gleefully christened him Jerry
I consented 'cause I'm that kind of man.
We could all have lived happily thereafter
Just Jerry the mouse thee and me,
Harmonious co-habitation
An idyll of pure harmony.
But the bloom of our peace was to wither
By stint of an untimely frost.
Metaphorical lines were stepped over
And sadly, paradise lost.
That the rodent must die is inevitable,
There are some laws it's fatal to flout;
He nibbled on my bar of chocolate
His fate's no longer in doubt.
So I crouch in the dark with my hatred
The bells toll a final farewell,
The end will be soon now for Jerry
As I cast him down to mouse hell!

Super hero2

It's a wet Saturday afternoon and I'm doodling away while listening to the football on the radio. I would resent the hell out of this if I was doing it for a client. This is Merchandising Man- his power? To empty the piggy banks of small children...

Super Hero

Hopefully being a cartoonist is a good excuse for still enjoying a good cartoon super hero. Every now and then you get the reason to draw someone in Lycra with ridiculous proportions. This is my first post but I have a couple more I'm working on, or to put it another way- COMING SOON... MERCHANDISING MAN!

80's

The 80's were, for me, a time of growing up (a process that doesn't seem to have actually developed very far). I was 16 in 1980 and wanted nothing more in the world than to be cool. Or more importantly for my friends and school mates to think I was cool.

There was a song around that time by a Scottish comedian called Andy Cameron 'I wanna be a punk rocker (bu' ma mammy willnae let me)' that summed up my late teens. (For non-Scots that reads 'my mother is reluctant to grant me permission'). I did try to sneak out the house with torn t-shirts and had a chain that hung rather pathetically around my waist, but that was about it.

Last night my step-daughter was sent back to the house to wipe off a couple of layers of rouge from her face before going out to visit relatives. Some things never change.

Buzz

I wrote something terribly clever and witty a minute ago and the tears were running down my face with the pure joy of undiluted brilliance and fiendishly clever humour. Then I lost it because I forgot to save before moving away to another page. Doh! I was saying something about the fact I got a new airbrush for my Christmas from Maureen (my bird) and this is the first time I've been able to use it 'cause my computer crashed about three weeks ago. So I went a bit mad with it in this Illustration Friday submission... bit of a tenuous link to the theme but I can't draw bumble bees.