I can haz Bryce Harper rookie card?

Topps was nice enough to announce on their Twitter feed that Bryce Harper will be in Series Two Topps. As a regular or short print, who knows. All I know is I don't need that jazz because I already have a 1/1 Harper sketch card.

DIY cardboard FTW

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.

Sketch Card #17 - Pony'd

I'm over 3 months behind on the sketch cards and I'm drawing like a fiend right now so I should probably get a postin'. A major theme in my pony-drawing portfolio is turning unsuspecting hapless schmoes into ponies again their will.

The Collective Troll got ponified back in September. I'm not sure at the moment but if he wasn't the first to get transmogrified by me into a man-horse he was dang close. Why would I do such a nefarious thing? I just think the "X is now pony. What do?" meme is friggin' hilarious. Seriously, I'm laughing at it right now and it's making it hard to tpye.  Marck isn't the only Mark to become Pony.

Mark over at Stats on the Back also got a blast from the Pony Ray.  I basically did a piss take on his blog header (an actual 1973 Topps cartoon) and turned him into a bubble blowing workhorse. Poor guy has a foal to feed and I've gone and made him a pony.  Oh well, gotta expect disaster to hit when you're a Met fan. As usual, I did a little preliminary sketch to try to figure things out:

Glasses on ponies ain't easy. Their eyes are half of their dang head which makes things awkward. After doing this, I did it again on the actual card and ended up erasing  way too much. This is important later. For some reason I'm obsessed with doing Sharpie Art on these glossy decoy cards people send me but I never quite like how it comes out. I'm not comfortable with my lines yet, I guess. Here's the black and white version:

Lettering is shaky as usual, I smudged up the bubble and the Sharpie decided it didn't want to cooperate on the bottom border and I had to dig up the Marks-a-Lot to get the bkack I wanted but the pony turned out pretty ok in my opinion. Even the glasses! I decided I wanted to color it with the '73 back ink colors but I wasn't entirely sure what color to use. After rummaging through my kids' marker box I found some candidates and did a test on a security decoy card:

I ended up using the color on the top right. The only problem is the color didn't really want to go down evenly so I ended up doing a couple of passes to try to smooth it out. Even then, drops of color globbed together whenever I picked up the marker so I tried to push them towards a border. This is why there's a dark spot at the tip of the hoof. Even worse, the parts where I erased had enough of the gloss removed so the ink soaked in through to the paper underneath when I took a second pass. This is why Pony Mark looks like he has acne on his chin. I couldn't figure out what the heck to put on the back so I found an old sports page in the basement and got some Mod Podge and...

Stats on the back, naturally. The Mets even won! That should take the sting of abruptly switching species away for a bit. (who am I kidding, everyone wants to be a pony) Oh, and Tom, it was about 11 hours before I posted a Met Pony, so the Under is a winner. What's the over/under of when someone posts the date of this box score?

REALLY REALLY WANT

Quite possibly the best sketch card ever created:

The only way this could be better is if Deadpool was brushing Pinkie Pie instead of Rarity. Of course it has been suggested that Deadpool is actually Pinkie Pie in disguise (or perhaps vice versa) so that might not even be a possibility. Here's the artist Peter Nguyen's DA page if you'e interested.

I also kinda sorta want one of these. Maybe I should skip work on June 29th and head down I-75.

Sketch Card #16 - 20% Cooler

OK! I've completely trainwrecked my Card Show posts, I have about 15 art projects to do, I'm blowing off some work I have to catch up on, and my wife is not going to be happy if I'm up until 3AM again on the internet. Let's do a sketch card post. Why not! Today's card went to The Cardboard Don whose blog is still called My Past Time... I Love It! on my blogroll because 411 blogs on one blogroll is apparently too many and it's gone all higglety pigglety. So I really need to work on transferring active blogs over to the new one too. More procrastination for me!

The Don often throws up trade bait on the blog to lure in trading partners. The man trades more than NASDAQ. A few months ago he offered up a pile of 70-71 Topps Game Inserts so I sent over some Marlins in exchange. Did I mention The Don loves his fishies? As a Braves fan I have less than favorable feelings toward the Florida Miami franchise, especially since they have two World Championships since we won our last one. Without winning the division even once! HOW?!

I have to admit the franchise is entertaining, even though they only get about three dozen fans in attendance each game. I mean, just look at what they have planned for this upcoming season:

And you thought putting Ozzie Guillen, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Logan Morrison and Carlos Zambrano in the same clubhouse was going to be crazy. Not as crazy as whatever the hell that is up there. So what kind of sketch card do you draw for someone who lives in this world? Well, there's only one choice...

Rainbow Dash fits right in with the Miami scene. I drew this about the same time Miami released their new logo and uniforms. Which are terrible. Just AWFUL. Oh Mah Gawd, it looks like a minor league  Baseketball uniform. BUT... Since I have been sucked into the Cult of Pownay I've tried to look at things in a more positive light. It's very easy to run around yelling "EVERYTHING STINKS". No matter the subject, if you take that attitude, you will end up being correct most of the time. Trying to find the good in things is harder. Trying to find the good in something horrible is a challenge! Challenge accepted! I took a long hard look at the Miami franchise and looked for the good in it. Here's what I came up with:

The Marlins have never beat out my Braves for the Division title.
The LoMo/Ozzie Tweet War is going to be EPIC.
Big fishie looks pretty.
Did you know Jeffrey Loria wrote a book about Snoopy?
The Hanley/Jose on field fracas over who gets to play short is going to make the Thrilla in Manila look like a pillow fight.
And while the new Miami Marlins uniform is hideous, there's one pony who would really like them.

Heck, Dashie might have even had a hand in designing the things.



Here's some special bonus too much personal information about me. I have a soft spot for doing those stupid internet quizzes that tells you your Hobbit name (Drogo Fuzzybutt) Pirate name (Cap'n Chartreusebeard) What Reservior Dog are you (Mr. Pink), Where do you lie on the Political Spectrum (moderate anarchist facist libertarian communist discordian Republican). I've even let the interwebs determine my ultimate date of death (8/16/2032). So I saw a "Which Pony are you?" quiz up in the blogroll and decided to take it. You know, for Science!

I figured I'd probably be Fluttershy since I'm introverted and reserved when I'm not acting the fool online or maybe Pinkie Pie because I love comedy or possibly Twilight Sparkle because I'm a big ol' honkin' Nerd. To my surprise, I ended up being...

This I did not expect. It kinda fits though, in a vague generic horoscope/fortune cookie kinda way. I feel bad about calling her Rainbow Douche for most of Season two now. Speaking of competition, I will be involved in one this weekend. More details to come, assuming I can get Skype to work.

Sketch Card #15 - Gorgeous George

I am in very real danger of getting three months behind on these sketch cards so I'll be going full speed ahead with them this week. This one was drawn so long ago I don't even know what Napkin Doon sent me to warrant a return package with sketch within. Probably stickers from the time period involved. I do know that it was immediately obvious what kind of sketch card I would need to create for Napkin.

Here's a prototype 2012 Allen & Ginter card of George Will. Napkin Doon is on a crusade to get a George Will card in A&G so I obliged him. The front is loosely based on the N31 World's Dudes set, because George is a total Dude. I was still afraid of color at this point for anything other than cartoons, so George remained monochrome graphite. I haven't been paying that much attention, but I haven't seen any 2012 A&G previews yet. If they have already popped up and I missed them because ponies please let me know as I'd like to check them out. Napkin seemed pleased by my sketch card and is at this moment chasing an old lady down an alley demanding that she look at his awesome card of George Will.

Mr. Doon doesn't know just how close George came to being transmogrified into a pony. Behold the sketch page what I practiced upon before I drew the real shebang:

There's the beta version of George along with a ponified Will that just didn't quite look right to me for some reason. Young Republican Pony, yes. George Will Pony, not quite. So I gave up and did an A&G Will card instead and filled up the rest of the sketch page with the national symbol of Finland and Frankenstein's creature and his Bride apparently retiring from the monster rat race and opening up a pig farm. I'm not entirely sure what the juxtaposition of these things on the same sketch page is supposed to signify, but I'm sure future historians will figure it out in good time.

Can anyone figure out why I gave George card number 77? I tried to make the back as authentic as the front, even with my terrible handwriting. The thing with handwriting is, it's basically just drawing little symbols (letters) that symbolize other things. And the thing with drawing is, as long as you focus and take your time you can draw most anything you want with practice. And the thing with me is, I'm lazy and I don't care about lettering so my writing looks like the barn floor after the chickens threw a rave.  To save your eyes from the strain, I've typed out the text on the back below.

THE WORLD'S CHAMPIONS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pulitzler Prize Winner

--77--

GEORGE F. WILL

~*~

Journalist, author and lifelong baseball fan, George Will has never gotten his picture on a bubblegum card. As Lucy Van Pelt famously said: "how can you say someone is great who's never had his picture on bubble-gum cards?" Blogger Napkin Doon is attempting to rectify this travesty by campaigning to get George Will in 2012 Allen & Ginter. Dayf from Cardboard Junkie has no faith in Topps to listen to its customers, so this 1/1 sketch card was created. George Will can now be called Great. Besides, Lucy's a Bitch. 

DC 11/18/11

Speaking of that beeyotch Lucy Van Pelt, here's that football cartoon I found in the Peanuts book I posted on Super Bowl Sunday.

This raises an interesting question however... DID Charlie Brown actually get to kick a football? Or is that just a generic neighborhood kid? Think of the implications! The entire world mourning Charlie Brown's complete inability to ever kick a football thanks to Lucy, and Charlie actually kicked the ball regularly on his Pop Warner team. Seriously, this could ruin Charlie Brown as badly as a World Series Championship would ruin the Red Sox. Everyone would hate them if they actually won one! Imagine if they won two?? Thank goodness the Cubs never have to worry about that. There's not a zig-zag on the uniform so to protect my fragile world-view, I'm gonna say that's Shermy kicking the ball. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sketch Card #14 - 1954 Jumbo

While I feel bad about being two weeks behind on my self-imposed Card Show post schedule, I am more than two months behind in posting my sketch cards. So tonight I'll procrastinate on one by catching up on another. I could have posted one of two cards tonight, because I've been trying to post these things in chronological order but I forgot to note the date I did one of them. I went with this one just because. Here's a jumbo sized pastel sketch of a 1954 Topps Al Kaline rookie card.

This one went to Sewing Machine Guy as part of a blockbuster trade we pulled off. And this one was big. Bigger than Renteria for Jurrjens even. Bigger than the card itself, which is 8 inches by 6 inches, a tad larger than the real '54 Kaline. This is to date the biggest thing I've created to send off to another collector although I'm in the middle of a project that will beat it. So how did this sucker get so big? Like this:

Most of the time when I'm doing a sketch card for someone I'll to a practice sketch first to figure out what the heck I'm doing before I try to do it for reals. So I pulled out the sketch book, started drawing and really liked what I did on the first go. It wasn't exactly perfect. Al is leaning to his right a tad and the Tiger logo (somehow I've managed to draw that thing twice so far) is a little derped. But it looked pretty darn good and was big enough for me to do a little experimenting with my soft pastels. So, even though I had already pulled out my ruler and made a page full of '50s Topps sized blanks to draw the final product upon, I ripped out the page instead and started scratching away with the pastels.

Did I mention pastels are messy as hell? Colored dust EVERYWHERE. My blue jeans became purple from all the red dust from that background. I wasn't finished though, there's more work to be done.

Even though it was now practically a painting, I still wanted to create a sketch card, so the whole shebang got glued to the card stock I was going to use for the standard sized card. While letting it dry it got slightly smudged sooooo:

I touched up the details a bit, spritzed it with some fixer and pulled out the X-Acto knife and did a little trimming. Once completely dry, I put it in an oversized top loader. This way it would be protected and hopefully thwart some of the curling that was going on. Soon after I tackled this, I started messing with acrylics, so I haven't done a whole lot more with pastels, although I have one project in mind.

All righty then. There's the sketch portion of the blockbuster trade. What about the cards? SMG requested some Tigers from the '50s in his original offer so I pulled these out of my binders and sent them his way.

In order: 1950 Bowman Aaron Robinson, 1951  Bowman  Bob Cain, 1952  Bowman  Bob Swift, 1955 Bowman Bill Tuttle, 1956 Topps Duke Maas, 1955 Bowman Dick Stanfel, 1954 Bowman Fred Hatfield, 1954 Topps Ray Boone.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

1955 Topps Bob Miller, 1958 Topps Tigers Team, 1952 Topps Marlin Stewart and 1957 Topps Billy Hoeft. I scanned all the backs of the cards to record the card numbers so I could add them back to my want lists.

You read that right, I pulled these out of my sets to send to SMG for the stuff he had to offer. Oh yeah, I also sent along cash in the deal. Good Grief! Did I get Edgar Renteria for all this? Rest assured, I got Jurrjens. So what did I end up with in exchange for all this stuff? You'll find out later this weekend...

Sketch Card #13 - GODZILLA

I am now over two months behind in posting sketch cards. I'm also blowing off posting the Top 20  Card Show #17 with this post. Procrastination leads to procrastination! In my defense, I couldn't post this one earlier because most of the images were stuck on my phone. I have no excuse for the Top 20 post. This card went to Edgar. Far as I know, Edgar doesn't have a blog, and he traded me a bunch of Sparkly parallels for... uh, I don't even remember anymore it's been so long. As you can see from the back, I was a bit bewildered as to what I should draw for him . So I went with Godzilla. Good choice, no?

After playing around with the colored pencils for Twilight Starlin, Maddux Pie and Cartoon Dirk, I just went balls out with this one.  I also decided to record the process of making the thing. Here's how Gojira came to be:

First I sketched out the basic shape of Godzilla and the menacing helicopter. Once that was in place I started layering on the color, starting with some purple for a foreboding sky.

Godzilla is attacking at night, so lots of dark blue joins the fun.

Tokyo is on FIRE, so let's add some red, orange and brown.

Darkness falls. Let's add some black to finish up the sky. And over here is where a happy little helicopter lives. At least until Godzilla swats it to oblivion.

Time to grab every green pencil in the box. I started out by coloring in the outline of Godzilla and filling in with the lightest shade of green and then working progressively darker. I have no idea if this is how it should normally be done, I was pretty much winging it the whole time.

A tiny bit of darker green was added and I colored in the mouth and radioactive funk breath at this point. I think I futzed with the sky a little bit too.

A couple more layers of green were added. The big guy is filling in nicely.

Finally I added the darkest green, touched up with a few of the other colors of green, added some brown highlights here and there and did the eye. Godzilla is ready for action.

Here's the reference photo I used to make this thing. A good chunk of the stuff I've been drawing is random crap I found on the interwebs and Edgar just got lucky I stumbled across a cool monster that day. Considering some of the horrible disgusting sites I frequent, he got DAMN lucky. He could have gotten a sketch of Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid!

(why oh why can't I get away from politics???)

Sketch card 12 - Lazy Pinkie

I haven't posted a sketch card in almost a MONTH. Jeez, I'm falling behind. Better catch up quick because I ain't getting any younger. Case in point:

GUESS WHAT I REALIZED TODAY?

If the gestation period of the human female is 9 months, and life begins at conception, then technically I'm 40 years old.

Eff everything about that. Screw it, for the next nine months I'm a secular humanist. No dogma is gonna make ME old as dirt any sooner than I have to be! Jesus will understand, He knows He's my bro. After nine months from today I'mma have to bluff like a mickeyfickey though. Go full Jack Benny on y'all. Because OF COURSE my wonderful and understanding family won't rub my ancientness in my face or anything. NAAAAAAH.*

Speaking of my panicky freakout over my ever impending mortality, my resolution to exercise every day is going well! I haven't missed a day yet! Unfortunately, I haven't quite hit the 30 minutes a day mark and I'm already 65 minutes behind. This is not entirely my fault as it has been freaking thunderstorming in Atlanta all week before turning colder than a witch's mammary protuberance the past couple of days. At least I'm tryin'.

Ok, I've dawdled long enough. Here's the sketch card I sent to Jack Plumstead over at The Pursuit of Red Sox. You know, the guy who's crazy about Jacoby Ellsbury? Obviously, I drew a sketch card of Jacoby. Right?

Not as such...

PINKIE'D

(c'mon, I had to post Pinkie Pie the night before her episode airs!)

Ok, so I got a bit lazy and drew a Sharpie version of Pinkamina Diane Pie looking a bit miffed that I would risk an international incident over a sketch card. Jack has a sense of humour (note the superfluous 'U' as a gesture of goodwill!) and took it well enough. We still have a baseball for football hostage release program active so he'll get Jacoby eventually. By the time I draw it I might even know what I'm doing!

At the time of this drawing, I had three colors of Sharpies. Black, Blue and Magenta. I actually had a Red too, but I didn't know where it was. Those three Sharpies were just enough to draw Pinkie, so I did. I liked it so much I snagged a few more colors so now I have enough to draw all six of the Main (I refuse to use the word Mane in this context) Ponies In Sharpie. Well, almost. I neglected to buy a Yellow Sharpie so I had to use a Highlighter and now Fluttershy looks a bit radioactive. I swear I had a Yellow Sharpie in the house somewhere because I specifically thought to myself "What the hell could anybody use a Yellow Sharpie for?!?" Now I know. I recently drew another Sharpie Pony Sketch card for someone who will remain nameless. All I'm gonna say is while my sketching has improved the past couple of months, my Sharpieing has not. Gonna have to practice some more. By the way, two more sketch cards were posted in the mail today and two more will go out tomorrow if I can get the packages together tonight. Thanks to everyone who has sent me some blanks, they are going to *ahem* good use. Mostly.

*Actually I am pretty certain that my family has already reserved the hearse that will drive me to my special birthday dinner. At Piccadilly cafeteria. At 3:00 PM.

Only took about three years

Back in 2009 I bought a pad of canvas paper and some paintbrushes. I got an idea in my head to paint a picture of Al Hrabosky based on his 1981 Topps card. I only spent about 10 bucks total, but considering my financial situation at the time I didn't really need to spend it. I procrastinated for a while, then the paints I was counting on using got used up or disappeared somewhere, more procrastination, economic indices suddenly went up and I became real busy and my dream of Artsy Fartsy Hungarians was deferred. Tonight it was realized. I used a standard card sized decoy card instead of a full size canvas sheet so it's 2 1/2" by 3 1/2" but it's a painting and I did it and a huge mental block has been lifted. Al has been immortalized in acrylic.

Things learned from this exercise:

• Paint is friggin cheap. Especially the stuff I pick up in little bottles from Michael's and Wally World. 
• It is much much less painful to wash away a few unused drops of paint off the palette than it is to spend a half hour and three times the paint to try to remix that color you used on half the painting and just ran out of.
• Interesting things happen when you mix paints right on the canvas (or card in this case), especially when you keep tinkering around trying to get part of the painting juuuuuuuust right.
• It's more important to capture the feel of the subject than to recreate it exactly. 
• I don't think I did either one perfectly in this case. 
• Eh, I still like how it came out. Perfection is overrated. 
• Music Has The Right To Children is damn good painting music.
• I really need to stop being intimidated by blank canvases, especially when I've got ideas in my head.
• I will never, ever make fun of Topps Airbrushers who butchered team logos on cards in the '60's '70s and '80s ever again. EVER. Logos are damn hard. 

One of these days I'll do this sucka full sized. It took me at least 6 months to go from the sketch card to the painted card though so it might take a while.

Ok, let's try this again. The best card I got in 2011

This was supposed to be posted last night - and it was - but due to a scheduling screwup it posted with a date of late December so let's try this again with some extra content.

This one came from Jeremy over at No One's Going to Read this Blog. This card probably impacted the eventual course of my life more than anything else last year other than actual important things like family and work and such. Emothions went a little haywire over this card, which I received in the middle of my 'not posting' period early last year. I went from amazed by the card, to impressed by the talent to create it, to jealous of that talent, to depressed because I couldn't do something like this, to defiant against the idea that I couldn't do something like this, to inspired to draw Al Hrabosky, then some doodles, then Woody Allen and Larry David looking at badly drawn naked women (don't ask) then... ponies. Not sure what (if anything) I traded for this, but Jeremy is on the sketch card list, just as soon as I figure out something to draw that comes close to this.


Jeremy saw the post and commented. In it he said " I still can't draw Larry David and I've spent hours trying to get him right." Well Jeremy, don't feel bad, I can't draw him either! Since it was mentioned (I told you not to ask) I scanned my first ever sketch page drawn in the wee hours of the morning after having imbibed in several brewed beverages. Basically I was wasting some time in the interwebs and found some interesting pictures on (NSFW!) ffffound! (I just told you there were pictures of naked girls on that site so be careful clicking it!) and decided it would be neat to try to draw copies of a few of them. This was sometime after the Al Hrabosky sketch card but before I started watching ponies so Juney-Julyish I guess. I MSPainted some bikinis on the girls so now it's no worse than some of the stuff you'll see on some of the more disreputable blogs out there. Look if you dare.

I drew this stuff in this order: Creepy Woody Allen, nekkid girl on the right, topless girl on the left, Horrified Larry David. Now what can we learn from this picture?

1. I can't draw hands for crap
2. I love pretty girls and cranky Jewish comedians
3. Six months ago I had have no idea what I was am doing
4. I cannot draw hands
5. I like drawing men's faces and girl's bodies
6. This makes me a sexist pig and Dinged Corners, A Cardboard Problem, Things are Funner Here and McCann Can Triple probably just totally stopped following me and I don't blame them 
7. SALAD FINGERS!
8. I don't know what the hell happened to those shoulders
9. JESUS CRHIST DEM HANDS

Since this picture I've drawn a hell of a lot more ponies than girls and gotten marginally better at both. Ponies are way easier to draw than girls. Not as lumpy for one thing. I don't feel creepy drawing cartoons either, even though the big joke right now is that Bronies are a bunch of gay autistic loser rule 34 loving manchildren*. Which is just ridiculous, because EVERYONE on the internet is a bunch of gay autistic loser rule 34  loving manchildren. It's no big thing. But wait... HERE COMES THE IRONY. Now that I inexplicably feel kinda squicky about drawing nekkid wimmen (which probably is the sole reason about 90% of artists even get in to this business) my wife has actually found a local museum with a program where artists can come and sketch live models. Live nude models. Live nude female models. Live nude female models what are not my wife. And my wife - specifically the one I'm married to right now - suggested I go to this. She's practically encouraging it. God as my witness I have no idea what to do. I think I'mma go draw Larry David as a pony.

*yes, I've seen the New York Times thing over 9000 times.

Best card I got in 2011

This one came from Jeremy over at No One's Going to Read this Blog. This card probably impacted the eventual course of my life more than anything else last year other than actual important things like family and work and such. Emothions went a little haywire over this card, which I received in the middle of my 'not posting' period early last year. I went from amazed by the card, to impressed by the talent to create it, to jealous of that talent, to depressed because I couldn't do something like this, to defiant against the idea that I couldn't do something like this, to inspired to draw Al Hrabosky, then some doodles, then Woody Allen and Larry David looking at badly drawn naked women (don't ask) then... ponies. Not sure what (if anything) I traded for this, but Jeremy is on the sketch card list, just as soon as I figure out something to draw that comes close to this.

Sketch Card #11 - Basketball time

Nope, I didn't draw this card of Sir Charles. This was an actual card in an actual licensed product, 1999 Upper deck MVP Basketball. I found this thing looking for some Mavs cards for Big D over at Hey, That's Mine! Jason James Kline drew this masterpiece and it was selected as a winner for Upper Deck's Draw Your Own Card contest. How fabulous is this card? Let us count the ways.

Louis XVI Chair - Check.
Butler - Check.
Basketball on a Silver Platter - Check.
Monocle - Check.
Ruffled Cuffs - Check.
With no sleeves - Check.
Legs crossed English style - Check.
Might be a walking stick, might be a Wizard's wand - Check.
Daintily sipping tea - Check.
PINKIE MOTHAF@$%#ING EXTENDED - Now that's class right there.

Now this is how a sketch card is done.

Since Big D is a Mavs fan and they just won a Championship, I figured a basketball subject might be a good one for his sketch card. I don't remember any of these trades anymore, I think he sent me some stickers. Who's the face of the Mavs? Why, Dirk Nowitzki of course. Here was my attempt:

Not bad, but it ain't no Sir Charles. I was thinking of these old Topps inserts when I originally came up with the idea. I regret now not doing this one on sketch paper and pasting it on card stock to copy the original dimensions. I think this would have worked better if Dirk was a little more lanky and noodley. Dirk is a little short on the standard sized card. The final sketch looks more like the the Dallas Mavs made a guest appearance on A Pup Named Scooby Doo after the Harlem Globetrotters cancelled. Dirk could be Shaggy's long-lost older brother. Which could work because...

Just look at that face. That's an awesome face! I didn't just dive into this one, I did a little planning beforehand.

Let's block everything out, figure out a pose...

Let's take that pose on a test run. Uh oh! Watch those hands, Dirk! The face isn't quite right. Time to experiment.

Hey, art isn't always pretty. This is kinda horrifying actually. Once I decided I couldn't draw another eye without gouging my own out I figured out the color pallette and dove right in. I shoulda practiced some more.

Ways Dirk is not as fabulous as Charles:

Dirk is 12.
With a full goatee.
Soft, gentle eyes instead of crazy caveman eyes like I wanted.
Still can't draw hands.
Totally ran out of room for the legs and it shows.
KNEES DO NOT GO THERE.

I am however, proud of that hair. Sir Charles wishes he had hair like that.