From the sketchbook

I'll admit that I've never been that interested in female boxing. The closest I came was loving F. X. Toole's novella Million Dollar Baby from the Rope Burns collection (and the Eastwood film based on it that I waited forever to see out of fear that it wouldn't live up to the story).

Watching the documentary "T-Rex" about Claressa Shields was an eye opener. It is excellent to see this girl navigate the typical demands of a teenager, family and push for an attempt to win Olympic gold and troubling to watch some of the double standards that exist. The film made me a believer and she has my respect. Highly recommended.

I had to say it.

FI-nal- LY

I'm not even going to make excuses.
I'm nowhere near as fast as I'd like to be with my comics.
I like to post them as a whole if I can.
My kids are job one in the summer.
Yes, I find it discouraging that it takes me two months to do something that I could do easily in a week when they're in school.
They're worth it.

It still got done.

Diversion

While I crawl even more slowly to the comic finish line now that school is out for our monkeys, I'll post a bit of silliness. I don't think I've posted anything of this sort since the puppets but I end up doing these sort of decorations at both kids' birthdays.

Totoro was the requested character this year. My wife takes on the thankless job of constructing the body of the pinatas while I decorate them after it dries. 

What do you do when nearly all of the party attendees (sadly) aren't familiar with Totoro? Why, you take a cue from the old interwebs and do character mash-ups!

Below is a Totoro Clayface, Spider-Man and Iron Man.

Followed by a Totoro Batman, Hulk and scientist wearing a birthday hat (as requested by the birthday girl)

Working on it

Another phone photo of next comic in the works...

Studies

Some quickies and a slower finished sketch taken with a phone camera.

Team logo

Did this one for my wife's bocce ball tournament at work. Their team name- The Toe Cutters.

Live zoo sketches

As mentioned earlier, here are the the zoo sketches I did:

No surprises that most of the animals were busy going about their business and didn't make it easy. The bald eagle seemed especially agitated that day and in no mood to pose.

Tribute

I began trying to work this one out before I got news of my Grandmother's passing. Then I was asked to say some words at her service and opted to paint the portrait below instead. I almost completely scrapped this one after the one, two punch of listening to my sister's and cousin's excellent speeches at her service and never being able to fully realize it visually the way I wanted to.

In the end, I decided I still liked the sentiment of it and I would cope with the fact that I am no where near where I want to be on my comics and just make it anyway.

Dorothy Keith

Thanks for everything, Grandma. 

Animal posts

Some photo referenced sketching of animals. Did some live sketching of animals last week at the zoo, but haven't scanned them yet.

A little hope

Got some not wholly unexpected, but still unwanted news today. How about a little Curtis to brighten the day? Some warm ups for the "Better" comic I posted a while back.

Plus a Curtis Classic that even Rod Stewart's misguided efforts cannot diminish.

Boxing Break

No comics today. How about some more boxing sketches?

2 pager

Not so Super Tuesday blues?

The Bambi Moment

Sneaking back in the classroom... Better

 

 As my posts have become almost as frequent as February 29th. Why not use the day to celebrate with a new comic? Happy Leap Year, internet!