1 Samuel 17:34

Another drawing inspired by my youth group, only this time it actually pertains to the lesson we were learning. In the story of David and Goliath, David mentions protecting his sheep whenever they were carried off by lions or bears. One very smart guy in the group asked what geographical region you'd have to be in to encounter both bears and lions. Our youth leader suggested maybe it was mountain lions. I'm not sure if that's accurate or not, but I wanted to save the image in my head just in case. I've had an interest in doing an independent web animation series based off the Bible, because I learn best when both my hearing and sight are engaged in a story based way. I want people like me to be able to quote the Bible (or even ideas from the Bible) as easily as we quote our favorite movies and tv shows. To that end, I had already done a concept sketch of David that looks much like this one. So I already knew how to draw him.

Because this was during youth group, I drew David and all three animals from what I remembered about them. The drawing is in pen, and obviously I made David's arms way too big in proportion to his body the first time I drew them. I'm not crazy about how big the rest of his body is compared to his legs either. I suppose I've got the image of mountain lions in my head better than bears or sheep, because David and the lion are drawn much better than the other two figures. As you can see, the bear is at the edge of the scan and blurry, but I'm okay with that. It's not my best bear anyways.

Touch the Stars

 

These are a pair of drawings I did in Youth Group today. I'm feeling much less depressed than I was earlier. If I do anything surreal, I like it to be positive. I think I've had a fascination with the idea of actually touching tiny starts ever since I actually went on Mission Space in Epcot. All I know is that it keeps showing up in my art and writing. I pictured this girl in my head from the back, but then after the first picture I just had to do another one from the front. She draws inspiration from the origin story of Rosalina from Super Mario Galaxy. It's a surprisingly emotional story for a Mario Game, which is probably why I was thinking about it while I was gloomerated. This girl's left arm looks a little weird zoomed in, but I like her expression.

Since I'm talking once again about my mood swings anyways, I guess I'll mention that I wish mainstream American culture didn't trivialize existential crises as much. And I mean all of the different kinds, whether they're teenagers' or mid-life or artists'. We all have that image of the moody, melodramatic teenager, but now that I'm actually going through the emotions... they still feel real even though I know they're irrational. So today I was kind of annoyed that existential outbursts are treated like jokes in most of the media I've seen. Eh, I'm probably being overly emotional about it. God will save me.

Chapter 2

It's random drawings of my "Bookends" characters '83 and Classica. The title of this post comes from that the hypothetical episode names of this hypothetical show could be chapter names. I wanted to draw this to get a different view of both of them. This image has '83 standing up, and you can actually see Classica's book "wings" from this angle. I drew Classica way too big this time, and consequentially their eyes aren't actually meeting as well as they should. Still, you get the kind of attitude the characters have towards each other. I actually wanted to draw the top left image of '83 to make it obvious he does actually have two eyes and not just one- though one eye would be cool. Regarding that kind of proud, loudmouth expression I experimented with on the left- for some reason I actually find that expression really cute in an obnoxious sort of way.

I'm not extremely confident this idea will ever become much more than an idea, but I have fun drawing these guys. Besides, you never know. "God knows, but he's not saying..." And I'm okay with that.

Experiment Comic

I'm not really sure about posting this before all my other Pines Twins stuff, but obviously I did it. So. Rebecca Sugar, the amazingly nice creator of Steven Universe, suggested writing and drawing comics for people that wanted to be in animation. That struck a cord with me tonight because I need to learn how best to tell the story ideas I have, not just how to draw certain scenes from them. So I needed to start again somewhere, and that somewhere was here, with this comic. If you can't read the words that's fine because they're not my best by the long shot, especially for Dipper and Mabel. I actually think it's more meaningful without the words. I'm basically just posting this because I like the art (for how quick I drew it) and the way I did the panels. The idea for this story came from a very visceral feeling I had when I encountered these huge piles of garbage in the woods behind my church. It was saddening to see something like that. So I had the idea that Mabel and Dipper would feel the same if they encountered something similar. I intend to make this into a much bigger, better story.

I guess I should mention somewhere that I have a job now. It's at a pizza place called Blaze Pizza, and yesterday was the start of about my second full week there. The people there are really nice to me, and they're very helpful. The customers have been friendly and understanding. It's a much easier and nicer environment than school (the teachers were great, the other kids usually not so much). I'm still amazed I got my first job at a pizza place after I wrote and drew "Tachy's Time Pizza." Things like that make me wonder if Someone planned it.

Meeting of the Minds

Well, here's a blast from the past for me at least. I was drawing in this journal tonight and I decided I should post this one that was already in here before I posted the drawing I'm working on. This drawing is of two comic characters very close to my heart, with one of them aged up to some degree. I won't say which two characters because I want to see if you can guess or if the dialogue that goes with it surprises you. I drew it at a time when I was really missing the character on the right- because the author had stopped making the graphic novels containing her- and I wanted to feel like there was a future for her and that she wouldn't just end. That's the thing I've felt about characters. They don't go to heaven. They don't have lives that happen afterward unless someone keeps writing them. For that matter, we don't really have a future unless God wills it. I guess I needed some help from my first favorite existential character.


I'm really pleased with how well I drew each of these characters for what my drawing skills were when I drew this. The right character is about perfect and the left character is awesome. You may be surprised that I gave this character glasses, but his family has a history of it. Also it was kind of a tribute to my cousin, who just got glasses about when I drew this and he mentioned in passing that he wished more characters he liked had glasses too. I was so surprised it affected him so deeply. The shadows on the tree and bus stop sign are a little weird in this image. This is also one of my favorite in a long trend of crossover fiction of mine that has existed since I could imagine Harry Potter as a Star Wars story. I see no signs of it stopping either, but I'd like to learn how to write better first.


Life is... busy. It's hard, and it seems impossible. But it's good because God gives it a point. It's not just filler space till the end. Anyway let's set the scene: these two teens are waiting at the same bus stop, and for some reason the character on the right (I'll just call her "Right" for now) feels like the character on the left ("Left") is a kindred enough spirit to talk about something on her mind:

Right: Hey, I don't mean to bother you, but do you ever wonder if maybe we don't have a real purpose in life? It always seems like people are telling you who to be and how to be it, and they never consider that it might not be the way to do things. It's always "do this" or you wont get what you need, "get this" or you'll be sorry, "be this" or no one will like you.
Left: I think the problem isn't that humanity has no set purpose, just that we tend to generalize about that purpose. It isn't that people are misinformed about communal aspiration, but self fulfillment. My best friend says the world isn't so scary if you know what you're doing, but people rarely do.
Right: Yeah, and I guess that if people ever thought someone else could be doing things better they might have to deal with the idea that they could be doing things better too... I'm Amelia by the way.
Left: My name's Calvin.


Yeah. So for those of you that don't know Amelia is from the graphic novel series Amelia Rules! by Jimmy Gownley. And Calvin is obviously from the classic comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. I think I kind of nailed Amelia and Calvin's voices- and even Hobbes'. But part of why I like writing dialogue for older versions of my favorite characters (*cough* DipperandMabel *cough*) is that there's a margin of error for how they may have changed. God is my fulfillment. He is my aspiration and my purpose. He's the only thing that really works, and He's just so great anyways. Oh and if you scrolled down prematurely to see the reveal, that was a bad thing to do. You're only hurting yourself.