it's a waiting game

So busy! I may have to change my plan to only one drawing a week. Sorry, kids.

I am also going to write more condensed posts. As much as I love explaining the details of the entire composition of my work, I want to leave somethings to the imagination. Sound good?

The piece I am currently working on is almost done. I will probably post it sometime tomorrow or Monday night.

combat baby

I promised a Wednesday post, so here it is! I had some more scanner issues with this one. I also apologize for the fray of paper that makes a cameo.

This piece is a little slice of a story that I've had rolling around in my head for years. It is influenced by Japanese mecha (giant robot) anime, like the Gundam franchise or Full Metal Panic! I find this genre's post-modern war stories so intriguing.

I formatted this one like a propaganda poster because of the political undertones. The piece also represents "love as a battlefield," and "fighting for love." The songs, "Combat Baby", "Soldier," and "War" hold amazing lyrics that I made into a cohesive poem. I added the phrase, "What is it all for?" to ask a question that I often ponder about. The answer comes from The Beatles, "All you need is love. Love is all you need." I know that sounds like hippie-dippy, soapbox bull, and I am not going to preach to any choir. Just think about it for a little bit. Let it simmer.

Anyway...

Lettering is so cathartic. I did not mind that this task's completion took a large chunk of time. It is important to me to make the words stand out as much as the drawing, but not create a competition. In this case, the competitive nature of words and imagery became encouraged due to the piece's theme of combat.

This was my first attempt to draw a giant-robotic-fighting-machine. It was quite a challenge. Using memory, I combined elements from various anime mecha to construct this monster. The outcome looked a little cheesy. I opted to shadow the robot and cover the cheese. I think that the shading provides the dark and ominous air that I aim for.

The cherry blossom trees are my favorite aspect of this piece. I admire the legendary manga artist, Rumiko Takahashi. The most lovely cherry blossom trees appear in her work, and I thought of her style when it came time to draw them. I have mentioned before that I love the fragile beauty of cherry blossoms. They contrast the giant robotic figure that seeks to destroy. The blown-up blossoms were a last minute touch, and I feel that they completed the piece.

I made the character's position slightly provocative to reflect the sultry mood suggested by the lyrics. Her expression seems multifaceted. She wears a smile at first glance, but after staring for a second, she looks fearful. I enjoyed drawing a character that isn't a literal interpretation of myself. Showing up in all of these pieces becomes so exhausting.

Disclaimer: I give full credit for the lyrics used in this piece to the following artists: Metric ("Combat Baby"), Ingrid Michaelson ("Soldier"), The Cardigans ("War"), The Beatles ("All You Need Is Love").

don't wait up for me

I hope that people enjoy the pieces/synopses so far. I pour my entire heart into them, so it's nice to hear some feedback.

I am currently brainstorming on the fourth drawing. Expect a new post on Wednesday at the latest, but it's a waiting game on when I will be able to hunker down and get to work. The goal as of right now is to put up two new pieces a week.

Have a fun and safe weekend, everyone. I'm going to see Billy Joel and Elton John in concert tonight! It's going to be epic.

hear me out

"Hear Me Out" is a song from the 2002 album, Details, by Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth. I used the lyrics from the fourth verse and parts of the chorus in this comic. The metaphors of unrequited love in the song screamed, "Make me into a comic, please!" I could not ignore that desperate cry, so I obliged. I wrote a semi-haiku (traditional haiku use 17 syllables, whereas I used 22) to introduce the comic.

The panels are organized in a way that dramatizes the comic. Honestly, I did not plan to make the frames so bold or pointy, but I like the movement that they create. Forgive me for the poor alignment. I have to scan each piece in two parts since my scanner is too small for the paper. This one was especially tricky.

I'm a

The protagonist (does she look familiar? I am not a narcissist, I swear!) walks across the street while the "Do Not Walk" signal flashes. I personally avoid this danger as a result of my older sister's incident of being run over by her school bus when she was four. This character, however, feels so lost in her thoughts that she neglects to notice the sign or oncoming traffic.

slow

The character hears a honking car that wakes her from her daze. We see her eyes for the first time. I do not really know what to say about this other than I enjoy her surprised face.

motion

This panel shows the character looking up at the approaching vehicle. Roy Lichtenstein's Girl With Hair Ribbon is responsible for this facial expression. I almost scrapped the paper to start anew, but my inky pen loves mistakes. I enjoy how the chaotic lines portray the turbulent nature of the scene.

accident

I confess that I can not draw cars to save my own life (or the character's). To make up for the skills that I lack, I decided to emphasize the common usage of onomatopoeia in comics.

lost in coffee rings and fingerprints

This image seems pretty morbid, but please hear me out (heh) on this. My initial plan for this panel was to cut to the character sitting in a coffee shop, soaked in her own blood and surrounded by abstract looking fingerprints. It felt too literal and void of emotion, so I drew the blood as the "coffee rings" instead. In my middle school days, I conveyed my inner battles through images of broken and battered characters that resemble this one. Unreciprocated love often feels like slow bleeding, so forgive the macabre imagery and try to understand where I am coming from.

I don't wanna feel anything but I do
and it all comes back to you...

Our heroine rises. She lost an arm and remains adorned with many injuries, but she is still standing. This shows that heartache is brutal, but survival is possible. I admit that this is my least favorite panel. That damn jacket was a constant issue in this comic, but it looks especially iffy here. I am over it. The next image makes up for it.

So listen up
this sun hasn't set

just hear me out
I'm not over you yet

My favorite. The character turns to the sea to seek solace. I mentioned earlier that the ocean is my place of peace, so I repeated that concept in this panel. I am really happy with the sunset and the wood grain on the dock's railing. I inserted a lighthouse in the background because I find them so aesthetic. It also symbolizes that small beacon of hope that associates with nonreciprocating love.

Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics from "Hear Me Out" by Imogen Heap and Guy Sigsworth ( a.k.a Frou Frou). The song influenced my original comic that holds the same title.

impressions

This idea sprouted from a verse that I came up with: "I am a Cezanne still life; my fruit almost spilling to the floor." From there, the rest of the poem basically wrote itself and I decided to interpret it in comic form.

Impressionism remains one of the most important artistic movements due to the artists' blatant disregard for the rules of academic painting. Like the radical impressionist, I sometimes ignore my classical training and just do whatever I want. Although the period focuses on the usage of light, I added chiaroscuro to the pieces to reflect tone of the poem and to represent my personal style. It feels a little contradictory to adapt these paintings into drawings since the artists used paint for very particular reasons, however, the purpose of my inky pen is to acknowledge the artists that inspire me with my favorite medium.

"An unexpected transformation takes place. I become one of Monet's water lilies, charming from a distance, yet distorted up close."

I almost picked Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise (since it marked the dawn of Impressionism), but I wanted to focus on the "messy" part of Monet's art so I chose Water-Lilies (1914). My plan was to have the character's face reflected in the water, but when the lily-pads formed a face, I just went with it. This panel depicts the common philosophy that one must examine something closely to gain a true understanding. We are all mysterious beings, and glamorous facades often shield the sordid secrets that lie beneath.

"This sudden disconnect alters my balance. I am a Cezanne still life; my fruit almost spilling to the floor."

I used Paul Cezanne's Apples and Oranges (1899) and Pyramid of Skulls (1901). This was by far the most difficult of the drawings, but I am pretty happy with the outcome. I love the way Cezanne's still life appears on the verge of falling off of the table, so I do not mind that my proportions seem a bit off. Drawing fabric is the bane of my existence, and it remains particularly arduous when using ink. Capturing the light and shadows on the skulls was another challenge. I felt like falling fruit lacked the impact that I wanted, so their presence signifies the looming despair of the piece.

"I walk these restless streets at night. Van Gogh's cafe terrace seems inviting, where I can lose myself in faceless strangers."

Vincent van Gogh is my favorite Post-Impressionist and The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles at Night (1888) was my first choice out of all of his iconic paintings. This is the only section that I attempted to draw fully (making a few changes here and there). I have painted this piece a couple of times when I worked at a paint-your-own-pottery studio, so this part of the comic seemed less daunting than the others. I imagine that most people experience similar feelings to mine when viewing the actual painting. On a lonely night, The Cafe Terrace looks so alluring and bright, and the people watching seems first rate.

"I break! I shatter! I burst in the air! Then, Seurat pointillizes the pieces that once belonged to my shape."

Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886) inspired the last part of the comic. For some reason when I see this painting I think of "the end of the world." I imagine an apocalyptic wave (like in Terminator 2) destroying the peace of the island, and causing Seurat's painstakingly planted dots to scatter. I know that seems little bit morbid, but Seurat painted this scene many times before he perfected his masterpiece. So even if the end of the world interrupted this island, Seurat would attempt to match the beauty of his piece again. Also, I am not sure if "pointillizes" is a word, but I trust poetic licence to back me up. I realize that the protagonist is not exactly a representation of true pointillism, but I wanted her to embody a middle-ground of my style and Seurat's. It basically reiterates the point of the piece (pun not intended).

Disclaimer: I do not own the following... Claude Monet's Water-Lilies, Paul Cezanne's Apples and Oranges and Pyramid of Skulls, Vincent van Gogh's The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles at Night, and Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. These artists and their masterworks were the muse for my original poem/comic titled Impressions.

love is love is love is love

This is a preface piece that reveals some of the symbolism and themes that I will use in future drawings. I created this after watching the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The Austin, Texas legend's comic book style and heart-wrenching story prompted me to start drawing again. His iconic artwork can be viewed at his official website, HiHowAreYou.com.

Call me self-indulgent, but I like to insert a caricature of myself in my work to show that the content is a result of my own feelings and thoughts. I was actually wearing the same jacket as the character while I was drawing the picture. The title, "Love is love is love is love," are the words of Garbage front-woman, Shirley Manson. The themes of this piece are unrequited love and moving on.

The gravestones represent "laying love to rest." The names on the stones are actually characters from a script that I am working on. Fun fact: One of the names pays tribute to graphic novels. Johan is the antagonist from Monster by Naoki Urasawa and Dreiberg is Nite Owl's last name in Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Fallen Caelum just sounds cool. Fresh flowers decorate a new grave , while the older grave's flowers are as dead as the buried lover. The girl walks away from the cemetery unable to place her flowers on either grave, showing that she remains unable to move on.

The wings below the graveyard (sort of ironic, eh?) are taken from my favorite black hoodie. It has those wings on the back, and written in barely legible cursive is "The worst moment for any atheist is when he is feeling thankful and there is no one to thank." For the record, I think the quote completely untrue and if anything it is just a joke to me. I mainly bought the jacket for the wings and the fluer de lis zipper (which is now broken and kind of resembles a dagger).

Confession time: I have an enormous love for cats and leopard print. While wanting to portray my love for those things, I admit that I also needed to take up space on the page.

I have been drawing wilting flowers for a while. When I was ten, I saw a beautiful drawing of a daisy and have been trying to recreate it ever since. I drew the bee in reference to Charlie Kaufman's film, Adaptation, when John Laroche (played by Chris Cooper) says, "Point is, what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. There's a certain orchid look exactly like a certain insect so the insect is drawn to this flower, its double, its soul mate, and wants nothing more than to make love to it. And after the insect flies off, spots another soul-mate flower and makes love to it, thus pollinating it. And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. I mean, how could they know that because of their little dance the world lives? But it does. By simply doing what they're designed to do, something large and magnificent happens. In this sense they show us how to live - how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way." Yes, all of that went into one little bee becoming broken hearted over their withering lover.

When I doodle, I tend to draw sets of eyes. Eyes are so revealing. The flames were inspired by the Fiona Apple lyric, "Once my flame, twice my burn." I also think that it would be the most painful thing imaginable if your eyes suddenly became engulfed in flames.

The letter "M" is a reference to my name, but right now you can call me Captain Obvious. Anchors and cherry blossoms are very symbolic to me. Anchors keep something grounded. Cherry blossoms are lovely, fragile, and impermanent. Ayumi Hamasaki's lyric "Beautiful things are sometimes sad things" describes the concept that some of the most beautiful experiences in life are sometimes wistful, and learning from those things creates another beauty. It is pretty much my mantra.

I drew some waves in a similar style to Ando Hiroshige to exemplify my passion for the ocean. This image is my desktop background, but I drew this from memory. I am going to be cliche and say that I find the most peace when staring at the sea. I decided to draw Hiroshige waves to show that even the most serene things can become disturbed (keeping with my mantra).

Butterflies are so aesthetic. I drew them to show change; from larva to butterfly, as well as the act of moving forward.

Disclaimer: I use quotations and song lyrics that belong to various artists. I do not claim to own the words, I only wish to pay homage to the songwriters for their inspiration. Some of the lyrics may be wrong because I wrote them down by memory. I used lyrics from the following: Imogen Heap ("The Walk"), Fiona Apple ("Sleep To Dream" and "Shadow Boxer"), The Carpenters ("Goodbye To Love"), Ayumi Hamasaki ("Ever Free"), Garbage ("You Look So Fine").

inky pens are the best pens

This is my virtual sketchbook. I use black ink on a Strathmore spiral bound sketchpad as my medium. My personal style is influenced by comic books (particularly Japanese manga), and I incorporate song lyrics, personal poetry and works by other artists into my pieces. My goal is to create artistic unity through combining different art forms as I portray what comes out of my head.

Some of the content is planned, but most of my work just happens. I only use one piece of paper per project. If I make mistakes, I try to make it work by transforming it into something new. Raw, emotional presence exists in every pen mark, uneven line, and frustrated scribble. Imperfections are beautiful to me.

I will start scanning images in the next few days. So far, I have completed two drawings and one work in progress. It typically takes me two nights to finish a piece, but that may vary. The plan is to fill the entire sketchbook, but we shall see what happens with that.

my inky pen is dedicated artists and art aficionados. I created this blog so that I can grow as an artist (and witness that progression), so comments are appreciated.