gross layout- stretching my long-dormant painting muscles

perhaps i was overconfident, or just feeling brave, but last week i attempted to reach beyond myself and grasp at the stars... or at least a couple distant planets known as Milt Gross and Art Lozzi.

The original art, courtesy of Milt Gross:

My first attempt at this combination of a Milt Gross drawing with a HB bg painting style was
rather rough:
I lost the original forms- all the shapes turned to mush after a couple layers of paint were slathered on too hastily, and the brushwork left much to be desired. But it gave me a general idea what colors i wanted to use, and i used this as a reference on my second go-around. This time i selectively added textures to the painting. the long brush strokes are a bit shaky since the painting is only on a standard-sized paper, but overall, the results were more satisfactory.


after I finished, I retraced the characters in pencil and placed them on top with colors to see if they read properly against the painting. judge the results for yourselves.


interestingly, the composition of the drawing changed dramatically without the speech bubbles crowded in the upper left quadrant of the picture.

well, If I get to feeling REALLY audacious, I might have to record dialogue and animate this as a short scene!