Birds of New Zealand

New Zealand birds are confusing!  Both the Maori and Western names are commonly used, so you typically have to learn two common names for every species.  Not to mention knowing the scientific names if you have to write a paper about them.  Furthermore the Maori names all sound the same to me!  Don't get me wrong, it is pretty impressive that the New Zealand people still commonly use the Maori names (because we all know that the first people to exploit a species should traditionally have the honor of naming them), but I do wish that most of the bird names didn't start with the letter "K". 

Case in point - the birds featured in this illustration are the: Kakapo, Kakarikis, Kokako, Kaka, Kaki, Kiwi, Kea, Karearea, and Kereru.  Try saying that three times fast!

I've been joking for a while that I should make an ABC's of native New Zealand birds.  The book would consist of one blank page labeled A-J, then an overpopulated K page, and finally another blank page labeled L-Z.  "New Zealand birding made easy!" 

PS.  There are even more K birds that I didn't include in this illustration: Kotare (Kingfisher), Kotuku (White Heron), Korora (Little Blue Penguin), and Korimako (Bellbird).  Just to name a few!

DeVito's Spidey Jammies

I recently joined the Caricaturama Showdown 3000 group on Facebook and this week's celebrity was Danny DeVito.

The first thing that popped into my head was a picture that DeVito posted on Twitter of himself in Spider-man pajamas.  Ta-daaa!

Noir Martian Manhunter

My version of Martian Manhunter.

I think this character has a lot of potential, but DC keeps handicapping him with a horrible costume and a supporting role in the JLA.  What the hell is the deal with his costume?  He looks like a green simian Chippendales dancer.  He just needs a bow-tie.  Observe:

"Everybody's working for the weekend."

For my version of J'onn J'onzz I wanted to place him back in the role of detective John Jones, and for him to have a more restrained set of superhuman abilities: just telepathy, telekinesis and intangibility.  With those abilities he could still make himself seem invisible, or shape-shift, but he wouldn't have all of that other Superman-esque malarky.  Those abilities would also make him an excellent detective, because almost no clue would be outside of his grasp.  There's something about detectives that seems so detached and lonely that I also think is very fitting for J'onn.

I like the idea of him existing outside of the mainstream DC universe as well.  The tendency of DC to stick heroes in the JLA seems to really smooth out interesting character traits, and makes everybody really cheesy.

Someone on Devart pointed out that it would be really cool to put him back in the 40's, and do an Area 51/Men in Black kind of story arch.  I really love that idea! 

Tom Hanks

I was watching Green Mile today, and I was inspired to do a quick caricature of Tom Hanks.  

He has such a columnar head!  I was tempted to overlay this on a toilet paper roll, but I didn't want that to seem like my assessment of his acting.  He's one of my favorites!

Garrus

I took a couple of hours off from my research proposal tonight, and drew up this picture of Garrus from the Mass Effect series.

After watching the trailers for the new game, I'm suffering from a bit of X-Box withdrawl.  "Curse you red ring of doom!"

Ouch!

A quicky sketch I did of ET a couple of weeks ago.  There aren't enough ET farts out there.

I revisited this one later and added a background and a bit of texture. I like it much better now!

Pachycephalosaurus

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Phew.  I hope I spelled that right.

When I was a kid the pachycephalosaurus was one of my favorite dinosaurs.  I think it was due to my love of headbutting things.  Unfortunately I was never able to pronounce the name, so my parents never bought me any sweet pachycephalosaurus swag.  Curses!

My top three dinosaurs are as follows (in order of name length):
1. Ankylosaurus
2. Parasauralophus
3. Pachycephalosaurus

A few computer sketches

Here are a few random sketches that I did on the computer since I got home from the states. From the top left to the bottom:  An unsuccessful caricature of Graham Norton, an angry white chimp, and Anna and I warped by Photobooth.

Raquel Welch

Another caricature for the e-caricature challenges.  This month the subject was Raquel Welch.

Honestly, I know next to nothing about Raquel Welch other than her inhuman amount of hair, so I decided to focus on that for the drawing.  That and she always seems to be snarling a little.

Winston Churchill

About two years ago (Summer 2010) Anna and I were visiting Toronto and saw a great statue of Winston Churchill in front of their city hall.  He was looking all hunched and curmudgeonly with his hands clenching his hips, but the best part - his head was absolutely drenched in seagull poop, and he even had one perched on top of his head.

The mixture of his expression, and the stupid seagull were hilarious.  I could almost hear the statue grumbling.

I took a picture at the time, intending to draw the scene, which I finally got around to tonight.  I thought it would be super easy to draw Churchill, but I struggled with his face to no end.  I'm still not entirely happy with the likeness, but I think I got the right expression.

And here's the picture I took, all of those years ago.  I originally had the building in the background, but Anna pointed out (rightly) that the tall building overshadowing him, made him look a little less regal and powerful.

This also gives you a comparison between how I see things, and the actual reality.

The Hidden People

A quick fanart of The Hidden People invented by Graham Annable.  I probably spent about two hours on this last night.  There is something about these little red gnomes that I absolutely cannot get enough of.

If you haven't seen his Hidden People animation I definitely recommend it:




And then you should probably check out the rest of his animations as well.

Lonely Blue Troll

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"I killed the bunny George."

This started as a sasquatch drawing, but I felt like drawing shoulder hair, so he turned into a troll.

Illustration Friday: Intention

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My submission for this week's Illustration Friday is autobiographical.

Lately I've been trying to work on my masters research.  I'm looking at a little critter called the "velvet worm";  a really interesting relic from the Cambrian geological period (~450 million years old).  I'm planning on doing a habitat selection study on the little worm so I have about six statistics and wildlife textbooks on my desk right now, and I've been buried in scientific journals.  Aside from my good intentions, I still find myself getting distracted from my research.  Case in point.

PS.  Check out this video of the velvet worm hunting.  Very cool! - (Disclaimer: This video contains a high degree of creepy and crawly.

Update: I finally found one!  I've been really concerned lately that there won't be any peripatus in my study area, but I visited the location today and found two of them within about an hour and a half.  Not bad odds!
And here it is.  You can see that glisten on the right where it tried to spit at me.