Desktop Buddies!

     I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but the office I work in used to be the workshop of some crazy old inventor. As a result, I'll spot these little leftover robotic creations of his roaming around from time to time. They're not really a nuisance, so every time I see one, I just let them be. I took some photos in case anyone wanted to see.

     Sadly, the contents of the above paragraph are completely fictional. It's April Fool's Day, so I guess I just felt like lying... although poorly.

     The truth is these were just a fun little photoshop experiment, but my New Years Resolution this year was to draw and post 50 original characters! Therefore, I decided to give these guys some names and add them to the pile!

Rebooting Ruxpin - L.B. and the Bounders

     L.B. was the horrible little sidekick of Jack W. Tweeg. My version is a little more adorable than horrible. I think L.B. originally stood for Lead Bounder. I'd like this version to be a little more creative than that, but I can't decide. It could stand for something random... like Leonard Bernstein. Or maybe its a little more ambiguous, always standing for something different... like 'Let's Boogie' or 'Lazy Basta'...

Let's go with Leonard Bernstein!

     L.B. is part of a species known as bounders, which are basically little heads with legs. I went through several versions of L.B. before finally settling on the one you see above. I liked all my other tries so much that I decided to use them as the rest of the little guy's gang. I realize they all look pretty different from one another for being part of the same species, but there's no rule that says bounders can't be diverse in appearance.

The more I look at these guys, the more I'd rather see the little spinoff adventures of their own.

Rebooting Ruxpin - Jack W. Tweeg

     My "reboot" of Teddy Ruxpin continues with a little St. Patty's Day bloggin' of the green! Next in the lineup is the land of Grundo's resident green meanie, and my personal favorite, Jacqueline Willimena Tweeg!

     Jacqueline Willimena is, of course, my small change. Guys with girl names crack me up, I guess. Other than that, I can't really think of ways to change Tweeg much. I kind of like him the way he is... or was. 

     Tweeg is a sort of wannabe sorcerer who believes he can magically turn buttermilk into gold. His attempts to do so always fail, however, producing instead... buttermilk donuts. Hilarious, right?!? I thought Tweeg, or maybe his henchman L.B., could capitalize off of this misfortune and sell the donuts to help finance further experiments. Magic has to cost money, after all! You can't just get something from nothing! Equivalent exchange and all that jazz!

Rebooting Ruxpin - The Patchwork

     Reboots seem to be all the rage right now! Sometimes I think this is good, other times... not so much. Disney recently announced that they're officially rebooting DuckTales for the 30th anniversary of the series! This, to me, is an example of the good! 

     But anyways, a while back, just for fun, I started a little reboot of my own with the characters from the late Ken Forsse's The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin! I thought I'd keep it going, but FIRST... a recap of the ones I've done so far.

     Of course, there's Teddy, a spunky young illiop who travels to the land of Grundo in search of adventure. An illiop being sort of like a bear... only with clothes, I guess.

     Grubby is an octopede, and the clumsy yet loyal companion to our hero, Teddy. Grubby doesn't share Teddy's enthusiasm for adventure, but follows him to Grundo anyway, partly because he can pretty much be talked into anything and also because he just didn't have anything else to do.

     Next up is Newton Gimmick, a burly old inventor that used to serve as engineer on a royal airship before retiring. Gimmick now runs a junk yard in the small town of Bounder Pass, where he hires Teddy and Grubby as garbage... men.

     Leota the Woodsprite is a guardian, of sorts, of the forest. She's about two inches tall and doesn't have much in the way of magic, but what she does have IN SPADES is smarts! Leota can outwit the brightest of the bright and makes a pretty formidable foe for anyone daring to bring her forest any harm.

     Princess Erin is the headstrong heir to the throne of Grundo. She meets up with the rest of the gang on her quest to rescue her younger sister Eruzia from treacherous kidnappers. Epic stuff.

     The newest character I have to introduce isn't technically a character at all, but it is still a vital part of Teddy and his friends' adventure. It's the rickety but reliable airship that I'm dubbing, the A.S. Patchwork!

     It's like the old saying goes, you can take the grizzled old engineer out of the airship, but you can't stop him from just building another one out of spare parts found in a junkyard! ...okay. That's not a saying... It's not even that catchy... but it is what happened.

     Gimmick's ship, as you can see, is made from all sorts of different objects and was a ton of fun to draw! Who knows how Gimmick is able to get this heap of junk off the ground with just a big balloon, but in a world of talking teddy bears and 5 foot insects, a little suspension of disbelief is required, to say the least!

You Failed Art School! BOOM! Roasted.

     Here's another batch of characters from The Office. Drawing... I guess you could call them caricatures(?)... isn't something I've done much of and I feel like it's pretty hit and miss when it comes to capturing the likenesses of these characters. For some, like Stanley, I feel like I nailed it on the first try. But with others, I must have trashed half a thing of post-its trying to get it right. My depiction of Pam resembled everything from Jake the Dog to Audrey Hepburn, but never really looked like Jenna Fischer. I finally settled with the one below. 

     Really, my goal was to capture the general feel of the character for something like an animated version rather than do an accurately detailed depiction. 

That's a pretty flimsy excuse, but I'm sticking with it.

World's Best Boss

      I once heard Steve Carrell say early on in the run of The Office that if you don't know a Michael Scott, then you probably ARE a Michael Scott. Being a 'Michael Scott' was implied as a negative since, during the first several episodes of the show, he's nothing but a slimy jerk. As the series went on, however, I grew to really like the character and started to actually root for the guy.

     It's fun to watch as a character gradually develops into an almost completely different character. I don't think I'd like to be referred to as a 'Michael Scott' if you were talking about Season One, but Season Seven? ...well... Probably no... Still no.

I've always considered myself more of a Darryl.

   

I've Always Been Their Biggest Flan

     Some people use those little yellow post-it notes to write down little reminders and what not. Myself? I like to draw characters from The Office on them!

More to come!

Cupid Was Dead To Begin With

     So we all know how Charles Dickens gave us the Spirits of Christmas... well Silly Nate is giving you the Spirits of Valentine's Day! You're welcome, Earth!

Say hello to Single and Mingle!

     Single represents the more anti-social aspect of the holiday that just wants to curl up in a sugar induced coma until February 15th!

    Whereas Mingle here is all about socializing! Her philosophy on life can pretty much be summed up in three little words... BLING BLING Y'ALL!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'd Like To See Them TRY!

Radagast the Brown

    Here's my take on a couple of characters that I would like to have seen better developed in the Hobbit movies. It seems like if they absolutely HAD to stretch the book into three movies, then they could have used some of that extra time to expand upon these interesting, yet very minor, characters and give them a bigger part to play. 

Beorn

     Take Beorn, for example. Here's a character that was actually in the book, as opposed to the character, Legolas, who was not. Yet, Legolas ends up with the most screen time and character development, even though the dude already had his trilogy! I suppose the filmmakers felt that it was a safer bet to give us something familiar rather than throw a bunch of new stuff at us. But (and I can't believe I'm even asking this), what's the point of introducing a character that can turn into a giant bear and then hardly spend any time at all showing him turn into said bear?!? 

     On the other hand, Peter Jackson has never critiqued my drawing abilities, so I probably shouldn't tell him how to make movies.