“Save” or the failure to -”to keep safe, intact, or unhurt; safeguard; preserve” (Dictionary.com). In lieu of actually doing a real drawing for Illustration Friday this week (after one failed attempt), I thought I might pull an old sketch out of the archives.

So, a train wreck. I seriously doubt any train would every crash in quite this manner. I had it in mind that it was snaking through the air after coming off a broken bridge. A moment of freefall just before it hits the ground and everything goes to hell.

(Click image to enlarge)

This weeks Illustration Friday topic was “homage”, so here as a homage to one of my favourite authors, Kelly Link. The illustration is based on “Catskins”¹. However, I did take a few privileges with the illustration and it isn’t completely true to the story nor does it illustrate any particular scene in it. The aberration is mostly the cat costume, and that two of the characters in it are one and the same, but I wanted to show both aspects of the character. Anyway, go buy the book and read it. Especially if you like zombies.

I actually quite like this sketch and plan on making it into a painting when I have the time. So highly unlikely to occur in the next couple of months.

1. In “Magic For Beginners”, Small Beer Press, 2005 Harper Perennial, 2007 [↩]

The Illustration Friday topic this week is/was “Pet Peeves”. I saw it as an opportunity to develop a sketch for the Vulgar Army project. It just happened the Illustration Friday topic was ideal.

My pet peeves are too numerous to recount. At the moment, it is generic by-numbers-octopus-propaganda and political cartoons. Not that I object to octopuses being used in propaganda/political cartoons. There have been some very imaginitive ones such as: L. D. Bradley, “Before the Trojan Horse is admitted, The Puzzled Citizen will have to be shown a little more fully, . .” Chicago Daily News, 3 February 1909 and the Harper’s Weekly cover Oct 6, 1900 showing the “Hunting of the Octopus” (Edit: “Hunting of the Octopus” by William Allen Rogers).

It is just, they are typically:

1) Write names of issues, organisations etc on limbs

2) Put head (or hat) of whomever you are trying to lampoon on octopus. Alternatively, tattoo their name across octopus forehead

3) Involve maps or globes.

Which isn’t to say these techniques don’t work. Take the Trojan Horse and the Hunting the Octopus. Both use labels to show what they are trying to represent. But they don’t just dump the octopus in the middle of the page, on a map or globe and stick someones head on it.

Edit (23rd March 3.30pm):

Links
David Hardy (April 2007) Octopuses and the NRA
TONMO.com (2003-2008) Octopuses & Propaganda
Quotidian Hell (May 2007) Quotidian Hell

Quick sketch for Illustration Friday. This weeks topic is/was “Heavy”. Mixed technical pens and ball point.

Needed to do some illustration as it is desperately neglected at the moment as I try to finish up my thesis. The Illustration Friday topic this week provided an excuse. For some reason this is what the topic “Tales and Legends” conjured in my head. Playing with a different style too, compared to my usual stuff. Not sure what the story is: Is the rat stealing the egg? Is the death-skull koi aiding the rat or trying to eat it or steal the egg too? Pretty quick illustration (for me, I am a slow drawer), maybe 30min on the sketch, and 30 min in Photoshop to colour it. Kind of like this style, though I think the method will require a lot more refining.