More fun stuff from my forum!

You may recall a couple months ago, I took a week’s worth of words of the day from Merriam Webster’s website and matched them up with previous artwork of mine.  It’s quite fun to see how varied my work has been over the years, and that I can dig up something I drew in the past for just about any occasion.  I saw a new opportunity to do that last week when one of my board buddies Rafferbee posted part of a trivia contest her and her team were participating in.  Listed were what was considered to be by the trivia host’s source to be the ten most well-known lines of poetry in history.

I immediately went to work playing avatar matchup (Since I know little about poetry to begin with!), and here is what I came up with….

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Poet: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Sonnet 43… not to be confused with her later work, “Funk 49″)

Brother, can you spare a finger?

I originally drew this last summer to help promote a game by Vandal on the board called “TEN!”  ES can only count up to 8 on his paws, which is 6 fewer than he’d need to complete his sonnet…

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day

Poet: Billy Shakespeare (Sonnet 18… boy, poets are as bad with coming up with good titles as I am!)

It’s getting hot in herre…

This was also drawn last summer during the middle of that terrible heat wave we had during the month of July…… and August….. and early September….. blech!  Anyway, now we know what it looks like Sully there’s trying to say….

Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink

Poet: Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Rime of the Ancient Mariner)

Pure, refreshing Clean Linen scent!

Who knew I was so poetic last summer?  Yep, this one was originally drawn last June as a fusing of two events…. me having to siphon the water out of my washer after it wouldn’t drain, and poor Beebs suffering through a drought down in Houston.  Drink up!

All in the valley of Death/Rode the six hundred

Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Charge of the Light Brigade)

Torches and pitchforks and angry village mobs!

Matias is the son of one of Sprots’ friends who she would often post pictures of in her avatar, which I would often hijack to insert cute ES interacting with him.  She quit posting Matias avatars a year and a half ago to protest all of the “horrible” and “phonied up” avatars I drew of her and ES, which disappointed the many on the board who enjoyed seeing them.  That was the inspiration behind this avatar….. CHARGE!

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary

Poet: Edgar Allen Poe (The Raven…… NEVERMORE!)

(crickets)

I drew this just a few months ago in conjunction with numerous requests our resident author Vandal got for signed copies of his debut novel.  While ES is more upset that nobody is interested in signed merchandise from his shop, he does seem to be pondering weak and weary over just why nobody appreciates a hack like him….

One if by land, and two if by sea

Poet: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Paul Revere’s Ride)

Never insult the elderly

ES gets threatened by land, here by Kiki in her Jazzy after ES made yet another joke about her….. um, mature state.

You sunk my dinghy!

And by sea, as Sprots uses a little remote control nuclear weaponry here on ES’s little boat.

To err is human; to forgive, divine

Poet: Alexander Pope (An Essay on Criticism…. or, a critcism on criticism….)

Yarn it to heck!

I referred to this avatar in my Favorite Things post earlier this month.  Here poor Angel is erring quite horribly with her craft project.  Won’t you please forgive her?

But I have promises to keep/And miles to go before I sleep

Poet: Robert Frost (Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening)

I hope there is no extra charge for fleas

Hobo ES stopping by the gates of Kiki’s Stately Harris Manor was inspired by one of her unwanted houseguests a couple years ago.  ES, I imagine, is always an unwanted houseguest.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Poet: Dylan Thomas (The only line that is also the poem’s title!)

Sprots isn’t gonna be so gentle if she could just get out of that hypnotic trance ES has her in….

I displayed this one for My Favorite Things as well, and was damn well going to put “La Sprotsie Bella” in my tribute to poetry somewhere, and this is where it fir best….

I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree

Poet: Joyce Kilmer (Trees)

It’s raining fruit!

This is “The Appleocalypse”, a favorite avatar of many on the board, inspired by the seemingly never-ending series of cataclysmic events Oklahoma suffered through last year… with ES providing the icing on the cake with his own version of Revelations.

And thus completes today’s entry in visual poetry.  Had the classics been this much fun, I might have done better in my literature classes….

We have a guy on my message board who goes by the name of AlphaDummy, and one of the creative ways he entertains us is with an occasional Top Ten list, like those some gap-toothed former weatherman from the Hoosier State has made famous.  I played off of that schtick when I drew his portrait a few years ago.  Anyway, last night he treated us to his latest Top 10 segment, and I was quite honored to find out it was a tribute to my very own venture here!

Ladies and Gentlemen, from the Home Office in Squirrel Hill, PA (They have a great Baskin Robbins there!)… here are the Top Ten Reasons AD Is Endorsing Evil Squirrel’s Nest!

10) ES agrees not to use Where’s George stamp on unmarked $100 bills used to pay AD off

9) AD gets 10% commission on all sales of MBRS® condoms

8) Ratbastards at Nike never returned calls from AD’s agent

7) ES guarantees big-ass bonus if AD agrees to let his scalp be used as a billboard for evilsquirrelsnest.com

6) Promise to AD that he never has to appear with that little prick Buster

5) All disputes over endorsement fees to be submitted for arbitration by Michigan Bar Association

4) AD will agree to just about anything after a few bottles of Point Amber

3) ES promises to never give out AD’s daughter’s phone number to Clem. Ever. (Did we mention the part about “ever”?)

2) Three words: Nekkid Angel Pictures!

1) AD given rights to host the Evil Squirrel Home Shopping Hour on WGAS

Thanks AD!

I couldn’t resist.  Enjoy!

Alas, poor Buster.  ES’s girly characters may be rather cute and sexy, but they aren’t known for having large breasts….. or any breasts at all for that matter.  And with that long beak, mother’s milk is always going to be out of reach for him anyway.  Have some Pediasure, Junior…

Here is this week’s edition.  As always, you can click to enlarge…

Loving Her Was Easier:

Kristofferson’s been making squirrels fall in love for over four decades.

I showed an example from the lyrics game I ran on my forum before in the Purple Mange post (see February 2012 archives).  This was my favorite of the 26 drawings I made for that game, showing Devil Kitty’s submission of Kris Kristofferson’s song “Loving Her Was Easier”.  Not only is this a beautiful image in its own right, but DK’s absolute adoration of it, and that it reminded her of a happy moment in her life, shot it way up the list of my favorite drawings ever.  DK kindly asked for a copy to have in her home, and how could I turn her down?

Kristin’s Tattoo:

Awwww

There is someone on our forum who we call Heels, and it’s been a running joke for years that he badly wants his own ES drawing, yet he has yet to ever be rendered by me (Yeah, I’ll eventually let him off the hook….. maybe).  Anyway, back in August 2009, he got his girlfriend Kristen to join our group.  I teased him by adding her to my tattoo avatar collection after just one post.  Kristen lasted all of 19 posts on our board, but her tattoo is still my absolute favorite of the whole bunch.  She used a polar bear avatar, and I leaped on that as my inspiration for her “fursona”, and hit a homerun with the dark, arctic scene with northern lights a-blazing.  I should offer this up in my shop for any Kristins out there, I’ll bet it would hit…

Elin Loves Squirrels:

The best seat in the house!

This was created some time not long after the infamous falling out between Tiger Woods and his now ex-wife Elin Nordegren.  Someone posted a picture of Elin, and I jumped all over it adding ES poking out of the top of her top and giving Elin’s shirt a nice little message I’m sure she’d approve of.  One of my best photo-hijacking examples ever, and a little something sure to make Sprotsie jealous…

Knitwit:

Angel is not quite clear on the concept.

This was a gift I made for someone on our forum named christie, who is a quilter and was so happy with an avatar I drew of Angel’s unsuccessful attempt at yarnwork that she printed it out.  I thought she should have something better, so I redid the picture in full size with more detail, and it just serves as yet another example of how adoringly cute Angel can be all on her own, especially when she seems a bit out of her element.  Innocent but adventurous, you have to admire her spirit!

La Sprotsie Bella:

Dolce far niente!

I have drawn 373 avatars for personal use on my forum to date.  I’ve posted many of them here, and there are quite a few I think are excellent.  This one from October 2010 is still my favorite.  It is the only drawing of mine where Sprots is keenly aware of ES’s presence and doesn’t seem to be horrified by it.  I described her expression as “the sweet look of surrender”, as ES has finally found something romantic enough to win her heart.  Who would not be taken in my gondolier ES as he rows his true love down the canals of Venice, Italy?  That’s Amore!

Fanny the Bull:

Ole!

This is essentially a picture that was pulled from my original zodiac series when Fanny asked to have the image of her and the bull for her own avatar.  Here is the original Taurus picture it came from.  As much as Fanny loves it, it is also my personal favorite image from the series., and that is no bull…

Sunrise Hottie:

This is what follows “The Age of Aquarius”

An image I drew as a gift for Hottie last December, it was the first picture ever uploaded to my CafePress store, and the one that made me confident I could make great images that people might actually want to buy.  Where to begin with this one?  It is colorful, cute, awesome, symmetrical, spellbinding, and most of all… happy!  It is everything that the real Hottie is and it is almost impossible not to get her contagious smile upon gazing at it.  And yes, it’s still available for purchase on all kinds of stuff in my store….

Cowardly Sunflower:

You can’t see me!

It’s almost impossible to explain the genesis behind this picture, which was originally drawn to serve as an avatar for an alter-ego account me and Hooly once conspired to create.  The key to this image for me, though, is not just the devilish playfulness of Hooly as she peeks out from behind a sunflower, but the fact that I drew this image in late May 2009, and save my use of dark gray outlining at the time, it looks like a picture I might have created just last week.  Very detailed and ahead of its time, I still get a kick out of looking at it three years later, and not just because it contains my favorite subject Hooly.  Which speaking of…

Hooligan!:

Beware the skunkette with perkitude!

This is where it all began, with this little image I drew on my OLD computer (which had a different screen resolution, which is why Hooly looks so skinny and stretched out) back on March 18, 2009.  Hooly was taken by it, thieved it for her own avatar, and the rest is history.  It was the first use of “Hooligan” as a nickname for her, and it was also where her trademark baseball bat made it’s first appearance.  ES would never have progressed to the next level without all of the digital art I drew for her, or was inspired to draw for her, over the next five months.  And without her or the two lovely ladies above, there would not have been the most significant drawing I ever did…..

Evil’s Angels:

Charlie is so jealous right now

This was the first large scale drawing I ever did exclusively in Paint.  Without it, the many, many other larger drawings I would do later would not exist.  The drawings I did for my store would not exist…

This was the first drawing I ever did not only in black outline, but also in double-pixel outline, both of which became a vital part of my style as I transitioned from trying to draw “realism” to accepting the fact that my calling was in cartoon-style art….

And it’s impossible for me not to look at this picture and remember the special bond the four of us had at that time.  I lost contact with Hooly over 2 years ago, and Hottie quite recently (both for different reasons which I will not go into), and it only makes this picture even more poignant.  That was a very special time for me, and I still treasure the special friendships I made with all three of them.

Did I mention this has been the desktop background on my computer and laptop since the day I drew it?  Yes, I knew it was a landmark picture in my ES career as soon as I finished it….

And these are a few of my favorite things…..

Click the comic to view it at its regular size (This one is 807X1000 pixels)

Don’t adjust your computer monitor.  If the above picture of MBRS looks a bit weird to you, there’s a good reason for it.  That isn’t any of my typical mouse-drawn artwork, I actually drew it on copy paper and colored it in Photoshop in a matter of about 30 minutes.  It’s part of a test I’m conducting, as I have long wanted to use this blog space to start my own Evil Squirrel comic series, but wasn’t sure what the best way to do it would be.  Drawing the panels on the computer itself is extremely painstaking.  Those old comics I showed off in my last blog post took DAYS to finish…. and you can see how crappy they look.  I could sketch them out much faster…. but unless I wanted to post them in black and white (ick, I am all about the COLOR!), it might be just as painstaking a job coloring them.  I’ll keep playing around during my upcoming days off this week, and we’ll see if I can give it a go.  It would be nice to have the series grow over here as well, and not just on the forum ES was born on, out of the view of ES’s (ahem, cough, gag!) adoring public who stops by this blog just to check him out….

As well as everyone who stops by looking for preverted porn.

Anyway, as you can see from the MBRS colorized drawing, I could use a little practice taking marker to paper.  OK, make that a lot of practice.  I didn’t want to trace with pencil first since that would leave eraser marks that would show up on the scan, and while I did a decent job with the linework despite the handicap of not getting any do-overs, it’s still not up to my lofty standards I can achieve via the wonderful Ctrl-Z eraser function of Paint and Photoshop.  Ah well, tune in during the coming days to see if ES does get his own web comic, or if the time-consuming obstacles to pulling it off make it yet another out of reach opportunity for my crazy critters….

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the day I created my Evil Squirrel alter ego over on my longtime internet home, and the day I consider to be the birthday of my most popular character.  ES debuted on the message board by offering to babysit Annie and Lizbit while their mother Ms. Camaro was away attending an audition for the game show Jeopardy!  Evil’s first post was:

Me and my buddies would be happy to do some dogsitting for Ms. Camaro so she can go to the audition. We’ll have a grand old time…. BWAHAHAHA!!!!

To which Annie replied:

You, Mr. Evil, are a badbadbad squirrel! Go put some more duct tape in your nest and sit on it, sticky side up.

Now, don’t be bothering us any more, because I will be very busy teaching Important Stuff to my mom.

/:x\

ES was created to pester Annie, who always seemed to be vexed by the “evil squirrels” hanging around her backyard.  The interesting thing about this alter ego (We call them “Merry Men” on the board) is that it was never intended to have anything to do with my artwork, and I never dreamed he would soon inspire his very own character who would be the leader of a whole pack of digital critters that would keep me occupied for years to come.

That's the way things go when you have no life.

So how did Evil Squirrel the message board Merry Man end up becoming Evil Squirrel the message board cartoon?  Well, I was getting antsy to show off my newly acquired artistic skills to my friends, but didn’t intend to unveil the portraits I had been secretly drawing until our board’s own anniversary on November 23rd.  And springing off of the very first circumstance that led to ES’s creation, I decided to attempt to make a comic portraying ES and Annie, with the troublemaking squirrel stealing her World Almanac.

And my warning from the other day is even more relevant here.  These comics panels were the VERY FIRST thing I even tried to draw from scratch in Paint.  My mouse control left a lot to be desired still without pre-drawn lines to guide me.  They look very primitive…

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

For more terrible artwork, here's a picture of ES I drew with my left hand guiding the mouse.

Though very raw in nature, you can see that ES was drawn in his current form.  I took my recurring little grey squirrel from the portrait series and gave him a slight makeover, never realizing at the time I was designing my flagship character.

It’s also worth noting that ES got a hand by another forum member who created the “NSAS” alter ego (National Squirrel Appreciation Society) shortly after I registered Evil Squirrel, who would often come to ES’ defense.  NSAS’s often served as ES’s “attorney”, and his coming to the squirrel’s rescue in the comic paid tribute to that persona.  Without NSAS, there would have been no comic.  Without that comic, who knows if I would have developed the character at all, which allowed me to further use him to create humorous artwork in which he starred….

Like

This

Later

Comic

Where ES appears on the syndicated version of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.

Sandy has a point...

The above picture was pulled out of the alphabet series I did for the forum on August 7, 2008.  You may remember I used a picture from this series in a previous post.  Unfortunately, several of the projects I created during the summer of 2008 were lost when Geocities was shuttered and I never bothered to collect what I had over there since I stupidly thought I had already archived most of it elsewhere.

And to solidify ES’s place in message board art history, there was this:

This is why pirates preferred to carry parrots on their shoulders.

On July 20, 2008, this became my very first computer drawn avatar.  While I was still about 9 months away from using my avatar spot as a way to bring ES to life on the board by drawing a series of relevant avatars (I’m up to 369 and counting since that day), it indelibly identified me as ES’s creator and the mad genius behind the wacky artwork that was being posted as (and starred) Evil Squirrel.  And yes, if you’re wondering, that’s me at the computer.  Before ES came to dominate my artwork, I always considered myself as a raccoon…

Storylines and gags have come and gone over the years, but little has really changed about Evil Squirrel since his humble beginnings… whether you consider those beginnings as a supporting character in a blotchy old JPG portrait, or as a awkwardly rendered central character in a mouse-drawn comic.  He still looks the same, he still acts the same, and he’s still a part of me I can only express through a mishmash of pixelated artwork.

When I can get the mouse to cooperate, that is.

Happy birthday Evil Squirrel!  Thanks for this joy you have brought into my dull life, and may I be able to help you celebrate many more….