To tide you over until I hopefully submit my next comic (I’m thinking of posting weekly on Thursdays, that might actually be doable!), here are ten of my favorite creations I’ve done over the years that I have yet to include here (as usual, all images can be viewed at full size by clicking on them)…..

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…..