Sketch Card #18 - Mascot Edition

Ok, time for more sketch cards. I'd like to get into 2012 before Opening day (the real one, not the thing going on in Japan) at least. PROBLEM: I still need to get more packages out and to do so I need to draw more sketch cards and right now I don't feel like drawing anything so thing are getting backed up in here so I'm procrastinating by actually writing a post for my now completely-off-the-rails blog. Must be something about February and March. As I recall the blog went off the rails at this time last year too. I'm hitting the Braves Open House this weekend so maybe that'll snap me out of my baseball doldrums.

Ok, so onto the sketch card. One thing I like doing now that I'm all artistic and sh!t is experimenting with stuff I haven't done before. Sometimes it works out well, like this future sketch card post I did for Long Fly Ball to Because. Sometimes it's an abject disaster like when I tried using oil pastels for the first time. Note that both pieces have a black background. I'm somewhat obsessed with black right now for some reason. I've switched from graphite to charcoal for quick sketches recently. I really like the deep black color of the charcoal and it forces me to be very decisive where I put a line. With graphite (that's pencils for the non-pretentious) I get all fiddly and uncertain and I erase things 27 times and try to make things perfect and get frustrated when it isn't. Charcoal lines? You draw it and it's there. Ain't no getting rid of it. You screw it up, you work around it.

Sometimes it's a trainwreck,

Sometimes it turns out pretty ok.

Either way I can knock out a quick drawing or sketch without having to sweep away a pile of eraser crumbs.

So now that I've established that I am obsessed with the color black (and Pinkie Pie, but you already knew that) and like to experiment we can discuss today's sketch card. This nightmare version of the '60's style Mr. Met that heads up this post.

Dem eyes just burn away your soul, don't they? So basically what happened is between the last Sharpie Sketch card and this one I finally got brave enough to start painting with acrylics. Like everything else I've ever done while learning art, I didn't just check out a nice "how to paint with acrylics" book from the library and do a nice simple painting of a vase or some strawberries or something, I have to do something weird like paint ponies into baseball cards and spraypaint decoy cards black to use as a canvas. Important safety tip: Painting on glossy cards with acrylic is a gigantic pain in the butt. The paint slides around and doesn't cover properly and you have to use a ton of coats to make it look even kinda right. So what happened when I spraypainted a bunch of decoy cards black so I could paint on them?

That's right, I used glossy paint.

I have since bought a can of flat black spraypaint for spritzing decoy cards. I also bought the crappy cheap paint so I have to use 7 coats just to make the card grayish but every failure is a learning experience and at this rate I'll be Albert Einsten by the end of the year.

Ok, so onto this sketch card right here. This was painted for Jacobmrly. I have a second project in mind for him but I'm having trouble getting it down onto paper. A little fear combined with a lot of lazy. Just need to do it. Digressing again. So, Mr. Marley has a habit of sending me Chippers unannounced so I wanted to repay the Met fan with something nice.  He got this. Seeing as how this was my third painting since I started back up again all I can see is where I screwed up. Lines are really uneven. Paint sliding everywhere on the glossy surface. The stitches on Mr. Met's head look like a giant flesh wound. There's a definite creepiness in the face that was actually a lot worse before I repainted it almost completely. Not happy with the bat. The body is kinda cartoonish, but I actually kinda like how that turned out. In other words I see this work as a hot mess.

So, I think it's a disaster. What does Jacobmrly, the guy who actually received the card, think about it? Well, it's now on his Mets binder and has become the header and favicon of his new blog.

I really need to relax, quit being so critical and just draw.

Apparently Michael Eisner is a small, fluffy animal

Because I want to torturously massacre them!*

(I was going to embed a Happy Tree Friends video here but seriously they are disgusting. blugh)

Ok, so the Chipper Ruth card was based on an actual picture of Babe Ruth (and a rather famous one at that). It still doesn't look like Ruth. The eyes are wrong, the mouth is really wrong but the nose is actually a lot closer than I thought. I'm used to the older Ruth's Roman nose where it started roamin' all over his face. The younger Ruth nose is more in line with the original photo. Now, I don't want to bust on the artist, I wish I could paint like that. Art doesn't have to be perfect (hell, I said as much in my original rant) but in portrait painting the painting of your subject really needs to be recognizable as that person. That portrait is not instantly recognizable as Ruth. If Ruth was in a Yankees uni, yeah, that would be a decent portrait of Ruth. But in a 2009 Braves alternate home jersey it's just too confusing because that face does not instantly scream "Ruth". Babe Ruth is the most recognizable ballplayer on the planet, people KNOW what Babe Ruth looks like. Good idea, poor execution.

The vast majority of first reactions to this card is that it's Chipper Jones and not Ruth. I tried to explain in my post why we are reacting that way because the author seemed to be honestly surprised at this obvious reaction. I also explained very succinctly why the reaction is so negative, mainly because we're all tired of Topps jerking us around with nonsense. After all the gimmicks of the past few years, when we see what appears to be a Chipper Jones card with Babe Ruth's name on it warning bells start ringing, alerting SHENANIGANS. And why not? Since 2006 Topps has given us a steady diet of ridiculous chase cards that are designed to promote sales of the product but only serve to devalue the base product. And judging from all the deeply discounted boxes of gimmicked up Topps product out there, it hasn't even boosted the sales. Oh well.

That's enough Chicle for me (well, except for maybe the contest!) right now. I made my point. If you couldn't find the point in that long rambling torturous mess of a post, here it is:

1. Don't freak out about National Chicle
2. If all the base cards look like that Jackie Robinson it will be kickass
3. Some of the subset cards are goofy and/or ugly but they could be fun
4. You wanted an art set after Upper Deck killed Masterpieces well here ya go
5. I don't care what they say that is Chipper Jones not Babe Ruth

And remember kids:

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it must be a penguin

Two and two always makes five

Chipper Jones is Babe Ruth

And THE BUMS ALWAYS LOSE.

*metaphorically, of course.**
** I don't really have bad feelings against Eisner, he's just the main face to a company that has been constantly infuriating me the past few years and I am merely burning him in effigy in a literary fashion so to speak in order to vent my frustrations and experience the catharsis of such an act.***
*** Oh who am I kidding, this is all admissible in court and I'm utterly screwed aren't I?