bugged out.

I did another small sculpture, this time of the daughter louse character.

Sugar and Spice and everything.... Lice?

After a bit of a struggle, I think I've hit upon a design for the daughter that I like. My first designs seemed too old, and I wanted the character to seem like a tween-ager, not a 20-something.


Here are some throw-away gags I want to put into the cartoon- The lice see "deer ticks" on their camping trip:

and for no real reason, here is the back of poppa louse's head.

Poppa Louse (enlarged to show detail)

I made a 3-d version of the headlouse character design to help me visualize him more fully, and get the tricky perspectives and camera angles right. The pose I selected was based on this sketch of the character.

I made the head, body, and arms as separate pieces for a couple reasons: first, so I could sculpt it more easily, without the clay all mushing together as I worked on details; and second, so that I could move them around afterwards as drawing references.


While the clay cooked, I figured out a basic color scheme using the sketch on which I based the pose in the model.


Then I mixed paints and proceeded to apply color to the finished sculpture.

blending with surroundings

a little part of some experiments i am working on with character and background environmental integration/blending.

Camping With Pop

I have been mulling over an idea for a rather bizarre concept for a future cartoon I plan to draw.

It is the story of a father and daughter on a camping trip.

"how is that BIZARRE????" you may be asking.

Okay, maybe that concept sounds a little pedestrian...but here's the hook: the main characters are headlice.

"Gross!!!" you say.

and you're right. it's revolting. but i really don't care what you think. I think the subject is full of comic possibilities. in fact I'm certain. I filled three pages with ideas for jokes, gags, story ideas, etc. (while I was working- as the ideas came, I scribbled them on a piece of scrap paper and pocketed it and resumed working)

Then i began quickly scribbling out ideas for character design for the two leads. These were done quickly (since my job requires efficiency and speed, I had to draw these in as little time as possible so i could get back to work) and they were mostly drawn rather small.

I have photoshopped the various scraps of paper into two large collages here, one for the father (who is closer to a final design)


and the daughter (who i haven't really worked very hard on yet).



Here is a comparison to give you an idea how small I drew these.
sometime later I may post more of my ideas for this cartoon, but just in case you totally hated the whole concept, here are a couple completely unrelated things i did recently:

a chicken i drew today at work during our monthly shift meeting,


and a bunny i drew on a plastic fork with two marks-a-lot pens.