Magic Cowboys

 

This is the first image I ever though of and made for this idea I had about, as you can see, magic cowboys. I was thinking of ways to portray traditionally violent topics and situations in nonviolent ways. That's when I realized: magic! Magic can be directional through wands or hands, and unlike bullets, it's colorful and less graphic, kind of like light sabers. And as Harry Potter shows, you can use a lot of the same hand-eye-coordination skills and dexterity for spell casting as you can with traditional ranged weapons. In short, it's the perfect device. So that made me think, "What if I put magic into a traditionally violent genre- like the wild west!" It happened pretty much how you'd expect it to. Plus, Disney has been pulling this trick for years.

Additionally, I'd love to get practice drawing Monument Valley type settings like the kind you see in Calvin and Hobbes. I've got a long way to go. You can probably tell that this picture is not recent because at the time I hadn't started working in pen yet and I hadn't even started dating my drawings. I've worked on this particular idea lot since then, and I might share other drawings I've made later. But I don't want to give anything away, and some of the drawings are a mess anyway, as you might expect. So this may be the only image from Magic Cowboys that I put on this blog. I would reveal more of the plot and characters, but I'd like to turn this into a web-series or something. Where would the fun be in telling you all of it before I'm even started?

I can say that, looking back, it's a bit more political than I'd expect from such a simple concept, but I still think the characters and lessons intended could apply to everyone. Part of it is that the two main characters are based on an actual struggle inside myself over selfish rationalism vs. religious altruism. I think there are a few people out there who can relate to that. God's will be done.

Dropped

As you can see from the picture, I did this drawing one week ago. It was actually during my spring break, but I didn't post it that day because me and my family were doing college tours. Very exciting, but I had some time to kill so I drew this as quickly as I could in pen. I read some advice from Dana Terrace recently that people who want to be animators should practice drawing people in situations with other people. You may have noticed I don't always do this in my drawings so I wanted to do it in this one. I also wanted to draw the characters in more dynamic poses than normal, and it worked very well for a rush job.

Looking at the drawing, I'm not sure if I was subliminally drawing about my feelings during this time or not. The anxiety and concern the characters are showing didn't come from nowhere, but I don't feel particularly anxious about my college search or about not posting to this blog enough. God will make thinks happen how they should, regardless of whether that's how I want them to be. There's nothing I can do that's so bad God can't turn it around somehow. Now if only I could convince my unconscious mind of that.