M.A.T.O.

Let’s hope there never comes a time when dragonflies have to rely on M.A.T.O. (Matron-Assisted TakeOff) to get airborne, because I’m betting those guys can get pretty verbally abusive and hypercritical… and old ladies just don’t need that kind of pressure.

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The Ballad of Banjo Bill

 

When the urge to draw a guy in a tiny hat hits you, I find it best to just give in.

The Yo-yo Bots Are Coming!

  I’m sitting there doodling a robot, and I randomly decide (or so I thought at the time) to draw him yo-yoing. Now, I have a friend, Rob, who loves yo-yos…it’s a passion of his…so it almost always makes me think of Rob whenever I see a yo-yo.
  And then I thought, “That’s funny…here’s a robot yo-yoing..and Rob loves yo-yoing…and-hey….wait a second…robot…Rob…ROBot! Aww, dang! Rob’s a robot!!!! And he’s probably one of those crazy ‘destroy-all-humans’ kinda robots, too! All this time he’s been deceiving us while he made his plans for world domination!
  “And the whole yo-yo thing, that was just his subtle way of showing us puny humans that he’s toying with us….stringing us along while he calls all the shots!! I feel so betrayed!
  “Well, fine! See if I ever invite him and his little robotic people-hating family over to my house for any more cookouts. That’ll teach him!!”

You never know. I could be right….or that could just be the Mountain Dew talkin’.

It’s in the blood! Ethan fires up his doodler…

 

“So, Ethan…what’s that blue thingy supposed to be?”

“Nothin’, it’s just a blue thingy.”

“Well, that’s the best one of those I’ve ever seen.”

My son Ethan has apparently been stricken with the same malady as his pop. The kid can fire off some of the most beautifully random doodles. And much to my wife’s chagrin, his thought processes also seem to closely mirror mine. Pray for him.

Flirtatious Inebriated Redneck Wizard Elf

 

Yet another doodle for which I have NOTHING in the way of an explanation…nada…zilch…zippo…jack squat!

But, hey, it could help somebody out there who might have been losing sleep at night wondering what one of these guys might look like. Rest easy, friend….here’s your answer.

Philippine? Phil O’Peen? Feel a peen?

 

Well, apparently I’m so Southern that, even when someone has pronounced a word properly, I hear it-and, therefore, doodle it- with a Southern accent. But, see, this at least proves that I was listening.

Birthday Boy!!!

  So, as all good friends should, I felt it my duty to do an embarrassing birthday card illustration of my friend Allen a few years back on his 30th. He’s a self-proclaimed superhero-lovin’ übergeek, thus the character Birthday Boy was born.

The zombie horse is from one of the many bizarre things that have happened to dear ol’ Allen during his lifetime, and merited a starring role on the cover. I won’t go into all the gory details here. Let’s just say the car he was in at the time of the…er…encounter ended up looking like the Purina Dog Chow float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade.

You can see the finished piece in all its glory by clicking the thumbnail of the card.

Buncha Freaks!!!

Not all doodles are happy doodles….some are angry…or manic depressive…or lazy.

And, yes, that’s part of a nose in the lower left corner. I got a thing for doodling disembodied noses, alright? You got a problem with that?

Opening up a whole can of Eric on ya!

I’m hoping that my friend Eric will some day become President of the United States just so this can be the official portrait they hang in the White House. Or maybe they’ll decide to put his likeness on the $7.34 bill, and use this drawing. And then, when you have to pay for something that is EXACTLY $7.34, you could whip one of these bad boys out.

Yeah…that’d be cool.

Digital Doodles

I like to experiment with different techniques in Photoshop. With this one, I was mainly focusing on mimicking a stippled ink effect by modifying some of the brush settings. That, in conjunction with my pen tablet (a tool I love so much I briefly considered naming my daughter Pen Tablet Gregory….darn my wife and her levelheaded, merciful ways!) makes stippled inking about a billion times faster than doing it by hand on paper.

And you don’t have to worry about smearing your ink or ruining your base sketch in Photoshop, either, which is a BIG plus for those of us who have large doses of klutz running through our veins.

Thumbnailed for your safety and convenience; click to see more detail.