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For the past couple of weeks I've had some down time which enabled me to work on some personal artistic projects, like my " THE CHRIST CHRONICLES COMIC" Project. The work is based on the adventures of Jesus depicted in the Biblical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I find the Biblical accounts as dividing as any adventure story I've ever read. It's an epic story containing heroes and villains, it's loaded with action, intrigue, horror and humor. I've taken creative license on character designs, removing them from the traditional ancient, biblical, Middle Eastern vibe, and replacing them with a more campy contemporary look. (what can I say? I am a cartoonist!) I gotta admit, John The Baptist was the most fun to do, and since the Bible does give more of a physical description of him, I decided to leave him as is! The Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducces ,were a challenge to depict, until I heard Jesus refer to them as "blind guides" "teachers of the law" which made me decide to dress them in formal professor robes I'd recently seen at my sons college graduation. The cap covering their eyes, which adds to their inability to see. This is an open ended project that I will continue to work on as time permits. I'm really having a lot of fun with it
When Fame came knocking on the door of Alabama resident, Antoine Dodson he didn't just answer the knock, he flung the door wide open, and broke off the hinges. Huntsville Alabama native, Antoine Dodson, has become a member of an elite group of unlikely hometown celebrities whose fame and notoriety skyrocketed thanks to the phenomenon of YouTube. Antoine'sqq fame is the result of what could have been a tragic episode for his sister, Kelly Dodson, had Antoine not scared off a rapist who gained access to the 2nd floor bedroom if their Webster Drive apartment. Kelly's screams alerted her brother, Antoine, who managed to chase the intruder off, and had a few choice words to say to the intruder once the news reporters arrived on the scene with the cameras. Antoine's, angry yet animated demeanor caught the attention of a legion of fans who after seeing the broadcast on YouTube literally skyrocketed him to Internet stardom. I personally admire Dodson for coming to his sisters rescue like he did That took guts, and he obviously loves her. For me, as an artist, I found Antoine to be a perfect animated character. Clearly he has the personality! LOL! He's, vivacious, flamboyant, and "in your face", even though he was angry, you could still see that sense of humor peeking through. The first thing I noticed about Antoine was his eyes and mouth. Both very expressive, and very animated. He's a character that definitely calls for a lot of dialogue, and it's would be hard to conceive of him NOT getting the last word in any conversation he finds himself in. The next thing was his neck, which was unusually long.Again, visually, this is something, once animated than can add to his characters "in your face vibe" and make his dialogues even more entertaining. Finally, I love his "costume" if you're doing any type of sustained cartoon, whether it be comics, or animation, it helps if your character has a " signature look" that doesn't change. Imagine Charlie Brown minus his Yellow shirt with the jagged stripe. Antoine's red bandana with the pokadots combined with his Afro and black wife beater tee shirt are as recognizable as the late Steve Job's black turtleneck was. In an interview on the George Lopez show, I was a little disappointed to find out that he had......changed his look considerably, which I feel was a mistake. In order to "milk his celebrity status" Antoine would do better to appear in the attire "we first met him". Could you imagine seeing Mr. T in public without his trademark Mohawk, gold chains and feathered earrings? It's all about public branding. At the very least, he could've sold a line of tank tops or head scarfs! But I'll leave the marketing up to his agent. I hope if he somehow sees these cartoons that they will bring a smile to his face and adds another 15 minutes to his fame!
I got a really unexpected email the other day. It was from my 6th grade teacher who had found me due to the magic of this great Internet driven, social networking , find anyone at the click of a mouse, age we live in! I asked her how she remembered me after all these centuries and she recalled that I always liked to draw, and that I had an unusual name. I gotta admit, there ain't too many kids with the name. "Elgin" running around. She informed me that she was retiring from teaching, and was cleaning out some of her papers from her cases she'd accumulated over the years. She was delighted to find some pages from a class magazine I had illustrated, and asked me if I wanted them. Before I could the out a es, the pictures were sitting in my email box waiting to be downloaded, You gotta love this electronic age. The drawings I got were very revealing. It's a weird feeling going back in time and seeing yourself, and what impressed me the mst was that I had remained consistent to my dream of becoming an illustrator. Looking at this pictures, I can tell that objectively I wasn't the greatest artist. The figures are horribly dsproportioned, the anatomy isvmisaligned, the line quality is terrible, and the perspective is awful. And yet none of that mattered to e. Judging how I kept up with it obviously, it shows thst I had a commitment to improve, and I objectively did. I also see that even back in six grade I had a love for comics and story telling, and an interest in drawing faces and capturing personality. Today I'm still drawing comics and doing caricature. These drawings are inspiring and demonstrates that even the most talented artist, starts from humble beginnings. It's all about practice and not giving up folks.
