"Hey Mr. Martini!! How 'bout some Wine?"

     Next up, from Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life," the film's female lead, Mary Bailey, wonderfully played by Donna Reed.

     This Mary I chose to draw is from the scene where she and George are presenting the Martini family the keys to their new house in Bailey Park. Mary gives them bread, so their house will never know hunger. Salt, so their life will always have flavor. And wine, so joy and prosperity may reign forever.

Sweet stuff.

     I didn't get any of this when I bought my first home... just a bunch of paper work. I remember asking the lady at the Mortgage Office, "Where's my SALT, woman?!?"

"Hot Dog!!!"

     Last December, I drew some characters from my favorite film of all time, "It's a Wonderful Life." This year, I thought it'd be fun to go ahead and draw some more. First up, the town druggist, Old Man Gower.

     Mr. Gower doesn't have just a whole lot of screen time in the film, and most of the time that we do see him, he's not very happy. I didn't think drawing a drunk and depressed Mr. Gower would really have the same spirit as the rest of these drawings, so I gave him a more cheerful disposition. Who knows, maybe this is how he looked before he received the earth-shattering news that his son had died, causing him to physically abuse his underage employee. 

     By the way, if I'm ever referred to as "Old Man Nate," I will be 100% okay with it.

Number One or Number Two?

This one's kind of random, but I have this blog, so I might as well post something!

These are some bathroom passes my grandpa and I made for my aunt's class of first graders. My aunt really likes the "Peanuts" gang, so she wanted Charlie Brown and friends to be on them. My grandpa really likes woodworking, so he made them. I really like to draw, and so I drew them.

And that, my friends, is as interesting as this story gets.

And Then Shawarma After

     I guess it's kind of weird feeling all nostalgic for a message board, but that seems to be the case with me at the moment. Artist Ben Caldwell used to have a forum on his website that several aspiring artists such as myself would frequent. I had a lot of fun posting art, looking at the art of others, and conversing with everyone on the various message boards. Alas, the number of visitors to the forums steadily dwindled and now the site no longer exists. *sniffle*

But enough wining! Back in 2007, the forum had one of its "Weekly Challenges" where everyone was supposed to put their own spin on Iron Man. To the left here is my entry for the contest. I can't help but cringe every time I look at it. Aside from the messed up proportions, there's a whole wannabe "Metropolis" thing going on. That's not really Iron Man's style.

     I've never been the biggest comic book fan and this was back before the first Iron Man movie hit theaters so, at the time, I really couldn't have cared less about the character. I've since seen the movie, of course, as well as the rest of the Avengers blockbusters and I now can't get enough of the guy! After stumbling upon my old contest entry, I thought it would be fun to give it another try. I know there's definitely no shortage of Iron Man fan art out there today, but I don't tend to draw a whole lot of super heroes, so this is a big deal for me and my little world of Care Bears and Disney Ducks.

     Oh! And on a side note: I'm not really a fan of "Iron Man 2." Really, Mickey Rourke?!? Giant Laser Whips?!? That was your master plan?!?

That would have been a fun little rant for the message boards.

Mickey's Not-So Scary Halloween

My emotions are mixed when it comes to the subject of Halloween. I don't have much of a tolerance for things that are scary... but I really love dressing up!

Here, in the spirit of just fun cosplay, are Disney characters dressed... as Disney characters!

Mickey Mouse as Peter Pan

Chip 'n' Dale as Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum

Daisy Duck as Ursula

Donald Duck as Jack Sparrow

Minnie Mouse as Belle

Pluto as Tigger

Goofy as Woody

Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween!

Rebooting Ruxpin - Newton Gimmick

     Time for me to go back and give some more of the Teddy Ruxpin characters a reboot! So far, I've done Teddy and Grubby. Here's the third in the bunch... Newton Gimmick!

     I decided that instead of the absent-minded inventor, I would re-imagine Gimmick as more of a gruff old mechanic. Maybe he used to serve on an airship in the Royal Fleet and now he spends his retirement years tottering away in his junk yard. Oh sure, he's still all about the inventions! There's just a lot less, "Eee, Err, Ehh" and a lot more "Just rub some dirt in it, ya buncha Panzies!"

Hey, Disney! Shut Up and TAKE MY MONEY!!

     There's no real point to this blog post. It was just one of those instances that I thought was really cool and decided to yammer on about it in my little corner of the internet.

Fun word.

     First off, a little backstory. A few years ago, my wife and I were lucky enough to visit Walt Disney World in Florida. I could go on and on about how awesome it was, but I'll spare you that novel only to say that one of the many things I loved about that place is how the meet-and-greet characters have their own collectively unique style. This is, of course, due to the fact that the characters at the park are in fact, real human beings and the original stylized look of the characters has to be altered to make a practical costume for these beings with human proportions to wear. But that's the pragmatical way of looking at it. If you want to look at it through my magical rose-colored Disney glasses, you would see it as a consistent style applied to a variety of characters so that they may all coexist in our reality. 

Otherwise, this is just Joyce from Hoboken

     On the flight home, I conjured up in my little nerd brain some form of collectors figures depicting the characters as they appear in the parks. As soon as we got home, I started drawing what I decided to call, "Disney Park Pals." I'll admit, I'm pretty lousy when it comes to titles.

It's at least catchier than "Hind-Legged Pluto and Friends"

     I had a ton of fun drawing these guys! I discovered the wonderful website, CharacterCentral.net and was inspired to draw these six characters.  I imagined them as toys and I also wanted to take a stab at package design, so I thought this would be a fun way to do that!

     I posted the finished product back in 2011, but eventually, I started to rethink how they should look, so I worked up a "cleaner" version.

     I loved the idea of there being figures with this realistic style, but I finally decided that I would have more fun drawing the characters in a completely different way… and this, like everything else on this blog, is for the sole purpose of ME having FUN! So I scrapped the idea of them being toys and just focused on drawing the characters in my own style… whatever THAT is. Here's a glimpse of where I am now in this process.

     It's a completely different idea than what I was imagining on that plane ride, all of those years ago, but that's how it goes, I guess. Flash forward to this year! Here's the aforementioned "cool" part of my story! I recently took a trip to my beloved Disney Store. I was busy debating whether or not it would be appropriate to buy a giant stuffed Vanellope von Schweetz, when my eyes wandered over and spotted THIS! 

     I was like Dr. Grant looking at a dinosaur for the first time! They actually did it! Now, instead of just imagining owning these things, I could actually buy them! Which, by the way, is great for Disney since they would much rather have my actual money instead of my imagination money… the little dears. 

Goofy sends his gawrshes with luv.

     I should add that I realize this idea of mine wasn't the most original and I'm sure the very talented people at Disney thought of this all on their own… BUT if there is a slim chance that someone from Disney Parks is getting ideas from this blog, how 'bout sending a couple of Disney World 'thank you' tickets my way? Oh! Also… when will Penguin Suits be hitting the shelves? 

That last part was a joke.

Snork Week presents... Tooter Shellby

     Well, Snork Week 2013 is officially winding down. Last Snork of the Week: the Silent but Spectacular Tooter Shellby.

   

     When I was a kid, we had one episode of Snorks on VHS that I watched over and over. In fact, that ONE episode is really what I base most of my Snork knowledge off of. This fact is probably the reason I keep getting booted off all of the "snork dork" fan forums. Oh well.

     That one episode focused on the beloved Tooter and his inability to speak. While I've always been able to speak, I still dealt with my fair share of bullying as a child. I really felt for Tooter and his plight. It was inspiring to see that even though some of us may have little quirks that keep us from fitting in with the rest of the crowd, we'll still have our moment to... honk loudly and scare off the giant Snorkeater... no wait. That's not right. Is it? ...aww man. I really felt like I was going somewhere with all of that. Nuts.

     Anywho! I hope all of you have enjoyed my reinterpretations of the Snorks, this week. Thanks for taking the time to check them out each day. And here's a special treat! Each Snork pic connects to make one bigger pic! That's right, kiddies! Get an adult to print each one out and just slide them together!

How's that for fun?

Snork Week presents... Junior Wetworth

     I guess every successful cartoon group of good guys needs a jerk somewhere in the mix (Grumpy Bear, Raphael, etc.) In the case of the Snorks, Wellington Wetworth, Jr. is that JERK.

   

     With the Snorks sharing a lot of the same traits, such as friendliness and good sportsmanship, I personally find Junior's elitism and overall douchey-ness somewhat... refreshing.