Ahh, Sweet Nostalgia

This isn't entirely true. If historically accurate, my older brother James would have been down the stairs first.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

A reworking

You may remember this from a little while ago... Now in technicolor!

A Little Late for Thanksgiving

Well, I guess people eat the stuff at Christmastime, too.

Morning Sketch

It's getting pretty cold round these parts lately, so this sketch happened from the safety of the temperature controlled indoors. I was conducting interviews with Japanese 201 students, and while I was waiting for the students to come in for their interviews, I had a little time to sketch this--a little view of BYU campus with Provo High and the IHC hospital, and Utah Lake.

What seems like many moons

It's seems like it's been awhile. Here's some new sketches--I hope you love them!

Baby Sawyer-saurus under attack.
A dudette with a rose-laden hat.
Raar.
Sometimes, when I'm bored in class, I like to pretend that I'm Lupin III.
Or I doodle aimlessly on Japanese homework. I like defying the laws of natural physics.
A hooded figure from a recent figure drawing session.
And I can't take all the credit for this last one. Sawyer and I went for a walk when we saw this El Camino; Sawyer was strapped to my front side at the time, so he helped me draw it...and asked that I post it here for everyone to see.

Christmas is the time for Scamming

I don't know about you folks and your hometowns, but here in my hometown we've got this little organization called the United Way. Usually they're up to all sorts of good--helping the less fortunate in myriad ways, but recently they are playing on people's sympathy and good nature during the Christmas season.
You see, they've got this event that they like to call "Sub for Santa"--which couldn't be more transparent. I mean really, is there anyone out there who is less needy than Santa Claus? The man has it all--what business does he have monopolizing the efforts of the United Way to get himself a sub?
And, okay, United Way, I was on board when you were giving out wheelchairs to disadvantaged handicapped people, and providing clothing and shelter for the destitute and poverty stricken, but I had to draw the line at this. I'm sorry, but I just can't take part in this act of "charity" for a man who doesn't even need your help--he's already got a flying sleigh and a team of magical reindeer; it's not as though the timing belt snapped on his Dodge Dart or something.
And anyway, if Santa Claus really needed a sub all that badly, how come he doesn't just get his elves to make him one?
Let's think a little bit here before we jump on to this bandwagon, America.

Gals and Rhinos

Well, it appears as though the month is drawing to a close already...where does the time go? I haven't posted much lately, but I don't want you to think that that is because I'm being lazy or anything. I've just been busy working on a crazy deadline for work, which is good because work=food=my wife and baby are happy=I can keep drawing for fun.
At any rate, our group at BYU has begun work on our animated short! It's about a little girl and a rhino, so I bet you can guess what I've been drawing non-stop for the last little while. I don't really have anything clever to say right now, so I'll just get to it:
All of what you see here is marker and photoshop (except for the two watercolors and the one collage, which is entirely photoshop). Hope you like seeing the exploration--leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Roger

A little animation project from class. We were supplied with dialogue and character sheets to choose from. Since I have a similar physical constitution as Roger from 101 Dalmatians (okay I'm like his brown twin), it was an easy choice.
There are still a handful of things that I'd change about this animation, but here it stands for now.
Hope the sound isn't loud and scary like previous animation posts.

The Tale of Sawyer-saurus: a comic in photographs

Halloween Extra

I couldn't go to sleep, because this idea kept me awake.
Now I bed.

Some vampires can be outside during the day time, but only on the day after Halloween.

Halloweeniness

Happy Halloween, everybody! I had a pretty excellent sketch adventure day, and I hope you did too. Pictured below is a wandering pack of wild Sawyer-sauruses in their natural environment--scavenging for candy.


Also, incidentally we live half a block away from an auto glass shop. When I rode my bike home from school today, what happened to enter my field of vision but this beautiful creature. However, by the time I dropped my stuff off at home and came back to sketch it--travesty of travesties--it was gone. Luckily, it had only been moved into the garage. I talked the owners into letting me into the garage to sketch it. We talked about guy stuff (that I have no idea about) like cool cars--this is a 1963 Thunderbird. They don't make 'em like this no more though, I can tell you that much.

In other news: baby oil.

A freaky green dude

So, Halloween is nearly upon us, and here are some recent sketches.
I love the trumpet--it's just an awesome instrument with so much soul. I had lotsa fun with this sketch, so I'm hoping to make some time to do a little more with it later on. We'll see. With any luck I can make some time this weekend.

Today, we watched Charlie Chaplin's City Lights in our character animation class. After watching the boxing scene, I couldn't quit thinking about how tough-looking those dudes in the ring were, so I spent my next class period doodling this:


And (in case you thought I'd forgotten), I've upped the ante once more in our pre-halloween freak out fest. Feast your peepers on this beauty:
Yep. "Shrek the Halls limited edition shampoo." Okay, we all know that straight to video/dvd releases are lower in quality, so I'm not here to tell you about how horrifying I think that cinematic trainwreck will be. After all, straight to video releases are about making money for studios so they can produce more cinematic releases later on--and we've all probably done paid work that wasn't up to our artistic standards to help make ends meet.
What's really scary (and nonsensical) to me is the idea of Shrek selling shampoo. Shrek is a bald ogre, and the most hair we ever see on him (thankfully) is his eyebrows...which are admittedly kind of bushy, but hardly warrant the use of a buble gum scented shampoo/conditioner combo. Anyway, here's to Suave for cooking up this pre-halloween's weirdest surprise.
I hope you're all excited for Halloween, and that you get a ton of candy! May strange, inexplicable and sugary things happen to you and your loved ones this year!

T'is the Season

Yup. From our friends at Man Groomer.com--everything you've been waiting for. So, I don't know that this is necessarily any scarier than a home paternity test, but the idea that an adjustable-armed back hair trimmer is available for purchase to the general public kind of frightens me. There are some jobs that only a professional should attempt. And even then, I feel sorta sorry for the professional whose job it is to take care of the hairy back of society.

On a related note, today our little family happened to travel up north to visit some close family friends (who are practically family) for a dinner get together. On the way there we counted a number of billboards that advertised either laser hair removal or liposuction--I can't believe how obsessed we are with our bodies; it's unhealthy.

But, I digress--now, onto the funny pictures!


Here are some recent sketches from around church and school.
The look on this kid (the one on the right hand page)'s face was priceless. His parents walked away and he had no idea what to do with himself. Of course, instead of helping him I drew him.

And speaking of helpless children. Here's one of Sawyer at dinner time...which is another instance of me drawing instead of helping. I'd better be careful before this becomes a habit.

On Thursday of last week, Disney story artist Mark Walton (who is also the voice of the hamster Rhino in the upcoming Disney feature animation Bolt) came to lecture at our school. He sort of looks a little bit like Sigmund Freud, but Mark is Mormon so I'm pretty sure he doesn't smoke--let's pretend it's a bubble pipe.

A sketch of somethin' brewin' in m'brain.


Some dudes from church today. After not drawing with this pen for so long, I forgot how much fun it is, but I really like my Uniball Jetstream 0.7 mm ball point. Unlike other Uniball pens, the ink doesn't come pouring out the minute you touch the pen to the page. Groovy.

Upping the Stakes

As promised, more scary stuff for Halloween month. This week's offering (slightly scarier than imitation pasteurized process cheese food): a home DNA paternity testing kit.
Do we seriously live in a time and place where this type of kit is commonly needed around the house?
Freaky.

In other news, monkeys are awesome.

And in further additional news, I am (making an attempt at) animating Roger from 101 Dalmatians. I know treading where Brother Kahl carved the definitive path is risky business, but I figured it will be an intense challenge that I stand to learn a lot from. Here are some thumbnails of Roger dancing, and below, a key frame from an upcoming animation.

Also, here's the mom design from the children's story that I'm currently illustrating. Matronly, don't you think?

Up playing way too late

For a guy that has class in 6 hours, this may not have been the wisest decision.

Dairy Scary: and other offerings

In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday (hooray!), I am making a scary post...of sorts. The other day, while flipping through the paper for coupons, my dear wife, Allison found the image noted below:

Yep. You read right. "Imitation Pasteurized Process Cheese Food." You know, there's a reason that imitation food-like items such as this are only 89 cents a go. I hope none of us have to be brave enough to find out exactly why that is.

I'm just trying to get you warmed up for Halloween. This is only a little bit scary, I'll admit--but hey, it's still early in the month.

Anyhow, here are some recent sketches from my school notebooks.

There is this totally radical (replica of a) traditional Chinese horse sculpture in the Asian and Near Eastern Languages department office at BYU. I took a moment to sketch it before a meeting with the professor that I work with (I'm a TA for Japanese 201 in my spare time).
More fun faces from classes.
My favorite part about this is that the fellow pictured on the left-hand side of the page below had such floofy hair and a great jersey on (which I didn't get, since I was taking notes beneath the drawring). He looked like a baseball star from the 1970s...I don't know what to tell you about the lady to his left.
This is a sketch I did a little while ago--a design for an upcoming personal project. I have so many things brewing on back burners that my creative stove top sometimes feels 17 feet deep...I can't even reach some of the ideas that I put on the back burners ages ago. On the other hand, though, maybe it's best to let some ideas stew for awhile--like a delicious curry--then hopefully it'll get tastier with time.

And here are a couple of concept character sketches from an illustration project for work that I've got due at the end of this month. It's about a family, but so far I've only really gotten a feel for the boy and the father. More to come as it becomes presentable!