Space Girl

Playing around with all the different grays in Photoshop.

Life Drawing Group - From A Galaxy Far, Far Away

I've caught some bug so no Life Drawing Group for me tonight (rats!) but I did finally work some more on my DrawerGeeks idea from last week (the theme was "alien," albeit in a more generic meaning). Not sure if I'm done with this yet but it's close enough I feel comfortable posting it. All feedback welcome (and appreciated!)



Before Vader was cinematically reduced to a whiny emo boy there's little doubt to me he'd wipe the floor with the whole alien franchise. Aliens may be the perfect killing machine from space but Vader can choke a dude from across the room! Here an Alien discovers why that's such a formidable weapon.

Riding In The Elevator - A True Story

Angelina Jolie Esquire Cover

I decided not to go to Disney/MGM and get Anthony Daniels' autograph. Why? Well, all day Saturday I did this. And last night I was up late doing this:



It's from the most recent Esquire cover:



Hopefully Anthony Daniels will make a return appearance at Star Wars Weekends next year. As for me, I just decided sleep was more important.

Another Star Wars Weekend (Possibly)

If I don't wimp out over getting up early, tomorrow or Sunday will probably involve another trip to Disney/MGM to try and get an autograph from Anthony Daniels (C3PO).

I'm also going to spend the weekend working up a DrawerGeeks picture - I have a fun idea for the Aliens theme - hopefully it'll play out as well as I want it to.

In the meantime, here's a batch of sketches I did at work, killing time while the computer thought, churned, or just flat out shut itself down (bad power unit):

Wednesday Night's Life Drawing Session

It's Wednesday night, which means another life drawing session! Best night of the week!

I've had it with this cheap paper in my sketchbook though - it's getting aggravating seeing both sides of the page all the time. Check out this first scan - totally ruined! Thankfully it was only a warm up one.


Going forward I'm only going to draw on one side - once I use up this sketchbook I'm going to do a little due diligence and get a better quality one to work in next.






For the non-life drawing fans, here is a little insight into the relationship between Keath & Hayley and the poor hats which have given their lives in the ongoing struggle.

Clarification For Those Wondering

Quick note of clarification for those who might be wondering what's going on with the blog situation.

Several of you have already noticed a new blog popped up on my Profile screen: Jen & Keath's Mighty Adventures.

This is the blog I started several months ago so my friends spread out across the US could keep up to date on Jen and I down in Florida. The original Jen & Keath's Mighty Adventures was maintained using iWeb at my .mac address. However the frustrations from not getting iWeb to do what I wanted it to do have taken their toll and I've moved the whole shebang over to Blogger.

Truth be told I wasn't expecting any Kitty Cat Jet Pack visitors to go see it so the first post can be confusing.

None of this has any impact on Kitty Cat Jet Pack, which will still publish right here and with the same frequency (roughly every other day).

Of course ALL Kitty Cat Jet Pack readers are welcome to go over and see the stories behind the art, such as they are. There won't be any artwork posted over there, but there will be lots of pictures, links, and recountings of the various mighty adventures Jen and I go through in this wonderous chaos called Floridian Life.

Meeting Peter Mayhew

Quick post this morning - Jen and I did make it to Disney MGM yesterday and we did get to meet Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) and get his signature on my poster. Word of advice: If you ever want to do Star Wars Weekends, get there early. Jen and I arrived a mere 20 minutes after the park had opened and we got one of the last four STANDBY passes - not even guaranteed to see Mr. Mayhew. I don't think we'd even have gotten that if the lady in charge of Mr. Mayhew's line wasn't telling everyone all the passes were gone - good thing for me my beautiful wife Jen thought we should double check for ourselves!

With the Standby passes you just have to wait around and hope for the best. Luckily everyone with confirmed passes were off riding Tower Of Terror and the ticket lady let us sneak in - it pays to stick around the signing area!

Here's the goods:



I'm the one who doesn't look like a (sorta) well shaved Wookie.

You might notice my cowboy hat and say "hey - how sharp!" You wouldn't be the only one - this encounter also happened to me Sunday



The hot tamale behind me is Jen. The t-shirt I was wearing also attracted a lot of attention - You can see it here! By the way, you can pick up one of those hats yourself for $8 at Target.

Kitty Cat Stormtrooper Hat

Those who know me will be surprised it's taken me this long to get Hayley into some form of Stormtrooper shenanigans, but here's the reason why: (a) I already did the Hat rhyme with Kitty Cat Gladiator Hat and (b) it's really more of a Stormtrooper helmet than hat.

First time through I decided to play on one of my favorite lines from the first film.



It worked okay, but I wasn't happy with how the helmet rested on Hayley's head - I mean, it'd be a lot larger right? So it'd slip around, not sit straight. I re-sketched the scene and had her playing with the helmet more.



So why did I decide to do Kitty Cat Stormtrooper Hat? Because tomorrow I'm going to Disney-MGM Studios for Star Wars Weekends to (hopefully) meet Peter Mayhew (a.k.a. Chewbacca) and get him to sign my Star Wars poster. Said poster already has signatures from George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Dave Prowse (a.k.a. Darth Vader) and Garrick Hagon (a.k.a. Biggs). Hopefully by end of day tomorrow it'll have Peter Mayhew as well, and next week Anthony Daniels (a.k.a. C3-P0). Here's Hayley and I on the way to see Chewie!



Speaking of Chewie, go check out my man Michael's hilarious take on him! That's funny stuff ...

Reason Enough To Become A Jedi

Not that you really need to justify the desire to become a Jedi to anyone - it's unquestionably the coolest profession from a galaxy far, far away.

This one is for Mike, who requested more colored pieces. I tried to get outside my comfort zone with the shading this time - it's a little aggressive but overall I'm pleased with the result.



Everyone go have a Happy Father's Day - see you Sunday!

Life Drawing Group

Finally got my schedule rearranged so I can go back to attending a life drawing group Wednesday nights here in Tampa. 8 bucks each - can't beat that! But no air conditioning in the studio tonight - definitely CAN beat that.

Maybe some of you cats can start sketching masterpieces right out of the gate, but I have to do a little warm up lap first.



I was so busy getting some Pete Tong bangin' on my iPod that I started this sketch late and didn't have time to finish before the model moved on. Doh!



I tend to draw fast. Which means I sometimes have the chance to do the same pose ...



From two different angles.



The below is my favorite from the session.



I'm already excited about going again next week!

Unsolicited Sketch Dump II

Cleaning out more old sketches which have been piling up, this time out of the moleskine.



Here's an early sketch of Hayley - I draw her smaller and rounder now:



I'm still practicing on capturing realistic portraits - Google's image search is invaluable for this. I realized afterwards I totally missed the tilt to Noel's head. *sigh* so far to go ...



I'd still love to do a little private eye/noir/Raymond Chandler type graphic novel. Maybe one day I'll have the time to get around to it ...



The way people react to each other is so cool - here's a little flirting I caught two people doing during the lunch hour ...

Kitty Cat In A Back Pack (The Honeymoon Stowaway)

I did surprisingly little sketching on my marriage/honeymoon trip to Maui, but that wasn't nearly as shocking as the surprise I got when, at the airport, I stopped to see why my backpack was so heavy:



A stowaway! Worst part was it was too close to flight time to take her back home. For punishment I made her carry the bags while I went to get another ticket for the plane ride. She's so pleased with herself because her little kitty plan worked - ooo that burns me up!



To even things out I told the security guys she was acting in a suspicious manner. Ha ha - extra screening!



I guess I shouldn't have bothered - Hayley paid for her little stunt by discovering that modern day air travel isn't exactly the cushy fantasy airline commercials make it out to be:



That first morning in Maui everyone was up at 4 AM thanks to the time changes. Luckily we didn't have to wait long for room service to open and, in true Hawaiian fashion, we had breakfast on the balcony. We soon discovered why you don't see many locals doing this:



Thankfully Hayley was pretty easy to amuse for the whole trip:











And, of course, she was there for the big day:

Cinderella Monroe

This week's Drawer Geeks topic is Cinderella. I'm a little sleep deprived today but I took a shot:



Ohhhh I'm so getting arrested by the Mouse Police as soon as I walk into Walt Disney World next time. Shading is a little lame but I was trying for the animated film feel, which was fairly flat.

Bonus sketch: The below was my original idea but I didn't like it enough to finish, which lead to the above.

Unsolicited Sketch Dump

Back from Hawaii and my sleep schedule is totally screwed up. Since I've been wide awake since 3 AM Florida time, I figured I'd might as well do a bonus post.

Rather than scanning sketches I did on the honeymoon, which would make entirely too much sense, I instead scanned some doodles from my bedside notepad. Said notepad is for purposes of scripting my all ages graphic novel currently in development but often ends up holding scores of falling asleep sketches, most of highly questionable quality. Here are a couple of the better ones (being of relative measurement)







This is the real life Hayley, snoozing on a pillow. I tried to get her to turn around so I could sketch her from the front, but, in typical feline fashion, she decided being contrary was more rewarding:



I actually inked this one:



Okay, last one:



Maybe now that I've been productive I can get some sleep ...