Krushervision Art Industries

What Moebius taught me.

So it's 1990, I'm 15 or 16. I've decided that I wanna be a comic book artist someday. I'm pretty good at drawing superheroes, I've learned a lot from the classic tome How To Draw Comics the Marvel Way. I'm getting the hang of anatomy, pencilling and inking, line weight, composition, stuff like that. By this age, I've gotten a taste of some of some of the more bold and stylish artists like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz, and my mind is open to new things. I just got the latest issue of a magazine about comics, I think it was called Comics Scene or something like that. Then I open it up, and the first thing I see, printed full-page, is this:

What the hell IS this, I thought? Who drew it? Why is Iron Man so...organic? Asymmetrical? Why is his costume not quite right, kind of ugly, and yet I can't stop looking at it?

The magazine quickly told me that the French artist Moebius was about to release a new series of posters of Marvel superheroes. Up until then, I was only vaguely aware of the name. I knew he had a series of large-format graphic novel collections put out by Epic/Marvel. But, considering that I couldn't stop studying and staring at that image of Iron Man, Moebius was immediately and permanently stamped on my radar.

At the next opportunity, I picked up the first collection, Upon A Star. It was amazing.

The first thing that struck me was that his comic art, though stylistically similar to his paintings of the Marvel heroes, was much simpler. His linework was simple, but he could tell you so much with a minimum number of lines. There was detail, but not too much; you could fill in the blanks effortlessly yourself just based on what little information he gave you. If he drew a scene of a vast planetscape or an alien metropolis packed with organically-shaped skyscrapers, his line weight was almost uniform throughout, yet there was no question how near or far each object was to your eye.

The revelation: I finally understood what "less is more" meant, and realized that you don't need to draw a lot of lines as long as you make each line mean something.

Of course, over time I learned more about his past work with Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal magazine, his work on films such as Tron, and when the two-issue Silver Surfer miniseries (drawn by Moebius and written by Stan Lee) came out, I was on top of it. Regrettably, I never got the rest of those now-long-out-of-print collections in the Epic series (jeebus, look at those used prices on Amazon), so I have not absorbed anywhere near as much of his work as I should have.

This morning, Moebius passed away in Paris. This is the second posthumous tribute to beloved artists I've made in a week. I should really make it a point to talk about my favorites more often, while they're still with us.

Ralph McQuarrie, 1929-2012

A master of his craft? You bet. A visionary? Hell yes. A favorite artist of mine? Absolutely.

But I cannot say that his work was an artistic influence. I've studied it, definitely learned a thing or two about composition and light from it. But it didn't make me want to do what he did.

I can't.

Ralph McQuarrie had a command of the technical aspects of art that I could never grasp. His work has a precision that I wouldn't even begin to attempt. I once saw footage of him at work -- it might have been on one of those old "Making of Star Wars" VHS tapes from the early '80s -- as he whipped off panel lines on an X-wing fighter by running his paintbrush along a ruler held above his illustration board, and it was clean and perfect in a way I didn't even know was possible.

That, coupled with the confidence with which he worked -- which shows through in each piece of Star Wars concept art we've ever seen published, and there are hundreds -- made Ralph McQuarrie practically untouchable for me as an artist, ever since I first became aware of him at the early age of 6-ish. Around 1980, when Empire Strikes Back came out, my Mom bought me the official behind-the-scenes magazine of the movie. It showed lots of candid shots of the actors, the model builders creating miniatures, and of course, preliminary concept art by McQuarrie and Joe Johnston, whose names I learned and remembered. It was then that I began to understand the creative process, the way things are first conceived and then move through an evolution, before they become a finished product. Some of McQuarrie's paintings looked somewhat different from the final images we saw in the films, but of course, what he's known for is actually how closely his concepts were stuck to in the actual production.

So, until I can pull off an illustration of an epic scene of a stunt fighter blasting its way through a phantasmagorical alien world and make you believe it's real, I can't really say that Ralph McQuarrie influenced my art. But he was one of the first teachers I ever had, and there aren't too many artists I respect more than him. Thank you, Ralph.

I have the best job in the world.

Take a look at this photo of a tattoo I did the other day. Take a good, long, steamin' look at it.

This is my job.

Think about that. This is how I pay my mortgage on my home. This is how I feed my family and our pets, pay for our needs, and occasionally buy a few records or a new videogame for myself. By drawing and tattooing stuff like this.

Granted, not all of the tattoos I do are this fun. It's a job like any other, where I'm not always enthused about every single thing I do. But there are plenty of times like this when I can step back and appreciate what I've got going on. It's a pretty good gig.

Here are some of my bookshelves in my studio/office at home.

Because of my work, I get to buy loads of books on art, cartoons, pinup girls, burlesque, comics, movie monsters...and it's all a tax writeoff because I utilize them as reference and research!

I know a lot of artists, burlesque performers, people in showbiz, and shop owners who are making a living doing what they love. We're all very lucky and we all feel like we have the best job in the world.

Do you have the best job in the world too? Are you doing what you love, or slogging along just to make ends meet? What can you do to turn your hobby or passion into a career? What's stopping you?

Life is short. Don't hate it for 8 hours a day.

Do all artists go through this? Vol. 1: That Ugly Feeling

There are numerous struggles that I think artists experience which make us wonder, "Do ALL artists go through this?" For example, when working on a piece, do you go through phases where you love it, then you think you screwed it up and hate it, then you fix it and love it again, then think you went too far, then fine-tune it until you are satisfied with it? Or do you do stupid stuff, like accidentally set your hand in some wet paint and then have to go back and fix that part you just shmeared?

I think most of that stuff happens to all of us, but there's one thing that bothers me and I don't know how to deal with it.

Jealousy. Or maybe it's envy, I'm not sure exactly what the right term is. But it's seeing another artist's work that you think is better than yours, and getting that strange combination of admiration of really great art, mixed with the sudden appearance of that rock in the pit of your stomach that makes you wish -- HARD -- that you were that good, and you honestly fear you never will be.

I'm letting you in on some personal stuff, here.

Usually, when I see art that's above and beyond my own skill level, I have a really positive attitude about it: I admire it, study it almost obsessively, try to learn from it, take what I can from it and use it to better my own work. I use it as an influence and mix it with everything else I know. This applies to both my tattooing and my drawing and painting.

But there are a few incredible artists out there -- I won't name any names -- that give me this ugly feeling. I absolutely love their work, but at the same time it's SO good that it makes me want to hurl all my art stuff out the window and just go open a goddamn hot dog stand instead.

Especially when they make it look easy. I'm a very messy, 'sketchy' artist. I have to draw, and re-draw, and refine. When I paint, there's a lot of trial and error. I wrestle with my materials until the finished product comes out about 95% as cool as what I had in my head, and I'm hoping it still has some looseness to it, and doesn't look belabored. But some people just pick up their pencils or brushes, and art just seems to fall out of them by accident. It's frustrating and fascinating at the same time. I want to be able to do it, but it also makes me want to stick my head in the sand and pretend I was never trying to be an artist to begin with.

I'm ashamed of it. I know it's not the right attitude to have, and we all have the ability to change our way of thinking if we just choose to. I should just be able to look at this art, love it, decide what I like about it, and what it can teach me. But you can't always help your gut reactions, and there have been times I've looked at certain artists' work, and literally just started sweating.

Do all artists go through that?

Animated Ancestors

In this post I'll examine some of the ancestry of my girlie drawings which came from the world of animation. Although I take inspiration from everyone from Alphonse Mucha to Doug Sneyd, there are three significant animated women that continue to serve as references and templates, if not the aspired ideal, for the "Krushervision Girl."

Red Hot Riding Hood

Arguably, this is where it all started. In Tex Avery's classic cartoon Red Hot Riding Hood, Red is a nightclub singer/dancer, and the wolf is a very enthusiastic member of the audience.

Red also appeared in other Avery cartoons, such as Swing Shift Cinderella and Little Rural Riding Hood, among others. Like Betty Boop before her, the character is extremely cartoony in her proportions, so although she has a certain sex appeal, she's still sort of a silly design. Her facial design, though, is probably the most like the girls I draw. She's probably one of the most significant influences on John K's sexy girl designs too, from whom I also borrow ideas and try to learn.

A version of Red is also featured in Preston Blair's indispensible book Animation, with a frame-by-frame demonstration of her movements.

Jessica Rabbit

So she's the obvious one. Though not the first, for most folks, Jessica Rabbit put sexy cartoon girls on the map.

Jessica's proportions are no more realistic than Red's, but rather than an oversized cartoon head, her bust, waist, hips, and legs are what's exaggerated. The blob-like shape of her hair -- sort of a cartoon adaptation of the Veronica Lake style -- gives her an added fluidity.

Princess Daphne

Here's one you may not be familiar with. In actuality, Princess Daphne, from the 1983 laserdisc arcade game Dragon's Lair, may have been the biggest inspiration for all my work!

I was only a prepubescent videogame nerd when Dragon's Lair came out in 1983, but even then, man, I thought Daphne was hot. Design-wise, I think she might actually put Jessica to shame.

The animation and deisgns in Dragon's Lair came from Don Bluth, another huge influence of mine who was an animator at Disney until he went off on his own and put out films like The Secret of NIMH.

...

All of these characters had, and continue to have, a big influence on my girlie cartoons, and I will always go back and study them when I'm not sure about what I'm doing. I only hope my work can someday live up to the source of its inspiration.

Perpetuating the suck

It's been a while since my last blog post, and I got a rant! This is something that, as an artist, I get really irritated over on a number of different levels, and I've been wanting to bring it up. The time is now!

Here we have some bad art instruction.

For years now, ever since anime hit it big in the U.S. -- like the late '90s-early 2000s, when it really started to air regularly on American television -- I've been seeing English-language "how to draw manga" books all over. There are good ones, there are decent ones.

And then there are these:

This is a sad imitation of manga/anime art. To the casual observer, sure, it's got a similar style, but it's not right. It's not even appealing to look at! Who would look at this and say, "YEAH, I gotta learn to draw THIS!"??

Lemme back up. I'm actually a big fan of anime and manga. Have been since the early '90s. When the American anime licensing industry was in its infancy, I was there. Companies like AnimEigo, U.S. Renditions, and U.S. Manga Corps were releasing 30-minute subtitled VHS tapes of anime OAVs for about 30-40 bucks a pop, and my friends and I were buying them. And if a U.S. video company hadn't yet licensed a show we wanted to see, we ordered Japanese laserdiscs from dodgy mail-order shops on the west coast, bought cheap bootlegged fan-subtitled tapes from dealers at comic and sci-fi conventions, or found tape traders who had blurry 10th-generation copies of a few episodes taped off Japanese TV, and we watched them in straight, untranslated Japanese over and over and over, late into the night. I've built my share of plastic Gundam  model kits, too.

So naturally, anime and manga have had an influence on my art, just like classic cartoons, comics, and other artists have. Although you may not see it immediately, I actually borrow quite liberally from anime and manga (yes, even hentai and doujinshi) when I'm coming up with ideas for poses and situations in my pinup girl art. Of course, in my more zealous anime fanboy days, I attempted to draw a few anime and manga characters, and I thought I did fairly well at it; however, you could always tell that it wasn't drawn by a Japanese artist who was immersed in manga techniques. I tried to view my art objectively and it always had some sort of details or nuances that gave it away. I just couldn't nail the style perfectly. It's not easy.

My concern is that these books are teaching something the wrong way. I don't see a lot of other types of instructional art books authored by artists who aren't good at what they're trying to teach. There aren't books on anatomy that have the muscles placed in the wrong positions. There aren't books telling you to thin your watercolors with turpentine. But there are lots of books showing how to draw hideous versions of comics, cartoons, and manga.

I guess it gets under my skin for two reasons: One, because a type of art that I appreciate is being misrepresented. And two, if you suck at it, you have no business teaching others how to do it, thereby perpetuating the suck. Now we're gonna have kids drawing ugly skinny characters with big eyes and pointy chins and calling it "manga."

For the love of Shenlong, if you're gonna try to learn to draw manga, at least refer to the How to Draw Manga series from Graphic-Sha. It's available in English, but it's authored by Japanese manga artists and they're the real deal. Just compare the above image to this one:

Even a non-fan can see the difference. There's an authenticity missing from the top image that makes me wonder who would want to take any advice that book has to offer.

The same goes for any comic or cartooning instruction. Go straight to the sources, like the classic How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by John Buscema and Stan Lee, and Preston Blair's Animation. Learn from those who originated it, not those who imitate it.

BHOF 2011

It's been a few months since my last blog post, but much of that time was spent getting ready for this year's Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in Las Vegas. Now that it's come and gone, I better talk about it! I'll warn you now that my storytelling is kind of disjointed and incomplete. Also, you'd think this post should be full of photos, but I'm terrible about remembering to take them. So it's not, cuz I hardly have any.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1: My wife and I landed in Vegas and got settled into our room at the Orleans around 7:30pm, after a long day of travel. An intended 90-minute nap turned into several hours, and around midnight we got a call from our Californian friends Melissa and Vanessa from Retro Diva, who we got to know two years ago, the first time Krushervision vended at BHOF. Visiting and drinking ensued, and our evening ended around 4am.

THURSDAY, JUNE 2: In previous years, Thursday was vendor set-up day. This year, setup wasn't until Friday morning, so Thursday was kind of a prep day for me. The girls hit some Vegas thrift shops, while I retrieved the packages containing all my K-vision merch and my display wall which I had FedExed to myself the week before. I then met up with friends Franky Vivid and Michelle L'amour, because Michelle was sweet enough to sign a few prints of Naked Girls Reading art that I was selling. On the way back from their suite (which was way more swankierer than ours) and in need of some caffiene, I hit the coffee shop, where I ran into my buddy Java from Bachelor Pad Magazine, who was hanging out with Vivienne VaVoom. After BSing with them for a bit, I headed back to my room, but was re-routed by a text message from one Cha Cha Velour, telling me to meet her at Big Al's Comedy Club for a pre-Dr. Sketchy's pow-wow.

(Oh, and somewhere in there was a detour to the Namco arcade upstairs for some Street Fighter and Galaga. I'm only human.)

So, lemme get this next unfortunate part outta the way: Krushervision was supposed to sponsor the Dr. Sketchy's event on Thursday, and I was scheduled to co-host it with Las Vegas' own burlesque superstar and regular Sketchy's host, Cha Cha Velour. I was really looking forward to this, which would be the very first event of BHOF weekend. Well, long story short, despite our best efforts (especially on Cha Cha's part), due to certain technical issues, the Dr. Sketchy's session did not happen on time, and after 45 minutes with no resolution to the problems, we called it off. It was disappointing to say the least, and not a great way to kick off  the weekend. But, looking at the bright side, I got to meet Cha Cha, as well as Ms. Redd and Karla Joy, who were to be our models.

Although things got off to a questionable start, I wasn't about to spend the next four days stewing about it, so I shook it off and got excited for the rest of the weekend! The first night was the "Movers, Shakers and Innovators" show, which was hosted by Hubba Hubba Revue's Kingfish for the first half, and Foxy Tann (of whom Christina and I are both huge fans -- more on Foxy later) for the second. Both MCs did a great job, and the show was amazing. Some of my favorites from that first night were Inga Ingenue, Kitty Bang Bang, and Julie Atlas Muz. But as far as pure entertainment goes, I gotta tell you that Johnny Porkpie's "running commentary" act cracked me up until I was in tears. Seriously.

FRIDAY, JUNE 3: Up early to get the Krushervision booth set up. Secured a rear corner for myself, Retro Diva, and Bachelor Pad Magazine, as the three of us have been neighbors for the last three BHOFs and always have a good time together. This year, table skirts were not provided. Improvised with a sheet from one of the two beds in our room. Got all set up with my cool new display wall, and Krushervision was open for bidniss!

That evening, we made the tough decision to skip the show and went out with Vanessa and Melissa to get some dinner and do Vegasy stuff. We really wanted to squeeze in a break, because vending all day and having an hour to get ready before the show each night is really pretty hard on us vendors; we wind up totally wiped out by Sunday. So it actually felt pretty good to take that break and see a little more of Las Vegas, which I am begrudgingly starting to like a little bit. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 4: Breakfast (Cha Cha and Java materialized behind me in line at the coffee shop), vend vend vend, dinner, and then the main event of the weekend: The Tournament of Tease, hosted by the inimitable Miss Astrid, and the crowning of all the new cham-peens of burlesque for the year! Everybody really brought it this year and there were so many impressive acts. I won't say who I was secretly rooting for to win Reigning Queen, but I was very happy to see Indigo Blue take home the trophy.

During the afternoon, though, I was pleasantly surprised when Foxy Tann stopped by the booth, and I couldn't help telling her what a big fan of hers I am. She was super nice and we bonded over the fact that we're both upper-midwesterners (she from Minneapolis and myself from Wisconsin), so she was glad that I appreciated the cheesehead jokes she had made on Thursday night.

Also on Saturday afternoon, I decided to put together a little something for Cha Cha to thank her for busting her butt on Thursday.

Later, when I was picking up some grub in the food court, Foxy approached me and asked if she could use part of my booth to sell her pasties. How the hell could I say no to that??

Late on Saturday, I attended the first-ever Naked Girls Reading held at BHOF. Nasty Canasta, Greta Layne, Michelle L'amour and Polly Wood were charming (and naked) as they read burlesque-themed prose to an intimate audience of about 30 people.

SUNDAY, JUNE 5: A decent couple days of vending rounded out my obligations for the weekend, and I got to meet more great people, which is always the best part of the whole event, as far as I'm concerned. Cha Cha stopped by the booth and I gave her the pencil drawing I did of her as thanks for all the hard work she put into our ill-fated Sketchy's session. Pretty sure she liked it, because she ran off saying she was gonna go show it off to everyone! Foxy and her man showed up with her amazing pasties made of space-age polymer, and along with Christina, we all enjoyed hanging out and talking for the rest of the afternoon.

As the day wound down, the vendors packed everything up and went off to get ready for the final night of superstar burlesque. Before the show, we caught up with Coco Lectric for a bit, and also finally got to meet Perle Noire for the first time. Perle is one of my and Christina's favorites, and although our meeting was brief, we all look forward to catching up again when we take one of our frequent trips to New Orleans.

The show kicked off with 2010's Best Group winnners, The Chicago Starlets, who are always a blast to watch. With Nadine Dubois and Naughty Pierre hosting, the show continued on with an entire night of Exotic World title-holders, such as Kitten DeVille, Tigger!, Trixie and Monkey, Michelle L'amour, and Dirty Martini (just to name a few). A truly impressive lineup absolutely rocked it, then after intermission was the screening of the French film Tournee, starring Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz, Kitten on the Keys, and more. We ducked out before the film (it seemed a lot of people did), and took up residence at one of the Orleans' many bars to imbibe with friends.

There is so much that I'm forgetting to talk about (I didn't even get into talking about the after-parties), but when a weekend like this is so packed full of awesome, it becomes a blur after a week and it's almost impossible to put it all into one post. Let me just say that I'm proud to witness this convention of talented and creative people every year, and meeting new people and showing my work is always a highlight of my year. Lemme shamelessly name-drop here, and thank both old and new friends, and people who just stopped by and said hello: Vanessa Kunkel and Melissa Gruenhagen, Michelle L'amour and Franky Vivid, Java, Cha Cha Velour, Foxy Tann, Nicolette Daly, Mig Ponce, Don Spiro, Kitty Baby, Coco Lectric, Julie Atlas Muz, Perle Noire, Blaze, Ms. Redd, Karla Joy, Laura Herbert, Scooter Harris, and so many more. You're all awesome.

I think I get why there are so many burlesque festivals nowadays: nobody wants it to end. And speaking of that, I should be seeing many of you again at the New Orleans Burlesque Festival in September...

Cutening up an icon

One of my clients came in the other day and wanted a tattoo of the classic "Gee I wish I were a man -- I'd join the Navy" girl from the old WWI recruiting poster. She wanted the girl a little more pinup-y, though, while still retaining the Navy imagery, which was important to her, as well as that early 20th century feel.

So with all due respect to the illustrator Howard Chandler Christy and his iconic image created in 1917, we decided to cuten her up a little bit. Can you note all the changes I made to the artwork?

Making her bustier and nipping in her waist was an obvious first step. My client also wanted a little more noticeably curly hair. I enlarged her eyes and gave her some eyelash shape, redid her nose to give it a little upward tip, and gave her a bigger, more glamourous smile. All classic tricks learned from studying Gil Elvgren.

Pretty happy with the results. As a tattoo artist, it's important to be versatile. Although I like to draw my cartoony girls, I also love the challenge of working outside my favored style, and it's rewarding when it works out.

Debris 02.24.11

At Mother's restaurant in New Orleans, they have what they call "debris," which is the bits of beef that fall off into the gravy as it roasts. They save all this debris and use it as a menu item, which you can get with grits, or slathered on your Ferdi Special po' boy, or whatever. So, inspired by food as I often tend to be, all the random stuff I wanna talk about is getting slopped together into one post. Here, then, is Krushervision's debris for this week.

Hope you're liking the new website! I've had a pretty good response to it so far. Enjoying blogging and making more cartoons.

Got a few projects in the works for some heavy-hitters of burlesque. Really enthused about who I've been working with lately. I try not to talk too much about anything before it's done, though.

Speaking of burlesque, I booked our room for the Burlesque Hall of Fame weekend in Vegas this June. Always excited to go and see friends, meet new ones, and see tons of great burly-q. Expecting to be vending art prints and stuff again this year, so stop by the Krushervision booth and say hello!

Just finishing up the last LP of West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology. I got the vinyl box set version about a month ago, and it's taken me this long to work my way through it. It's fantastic. It goes all the way back to before he made a name for himself, and the first three sides are singles from the likes of Little Richard, The Isley Brothers, and a few other artists, when Jimi was just a guitar sideman. But you can totally hear in his playing that he's dying to cut loose and let 'em have it. The rest of the set spans his entire career, with lots of outtakes and alternate versions and stuff I've never heard. It's mind-boggling how much he recorded in his short career, that they're still putting out unreleased stuff 40 years after his death.

The vinyl package itself is beautifullly presented, with 8 albums in individual picture sleeves, as well as a full-color book with extensive liner notes on each track, all housed in a lidded box, similar to the Jimi Hendrix Experience box released in 2000, which I also have. The only disappointment is that the vinyl edition doesn't have the "Voodoo Child" documentary on DVD, narrated by Bootsy Collins as the voice of Jimi, which the CD version includes.

Anyway, after I splurged on that set, I promised I wouldn't go to a record store for another month. Got four more days on that.

How about your music? Are you a downloader? Still buy CDs? Or do you have a vinyl fetish too?

Also recently finished playing through Bayonetta on the 360. I'm a couple years late getting to that particular party, but I don't have the time to keep up with new games as much as I would like. Loved the game, though.

Completely over-the-top action, sets, bosses, story, ending -- everything about it is absolutely ridiculous. And fine quality, as you would expect from Platinum Games, the studio that used to be Clover. I'll buy just about anything of theirs.

The main character design doesn't hurt either.

A final note -- it's that time of year when weekends are starting to book up solid in advance at Oshkosh Tattoo, so if you're looking to get tattooed, make sure you call ahead (920-230-6611) and secure yourself a spot!

Pencils

Been really enjoying drawing in pencil in the last couple weeks.

Am surprised at how much patience I have building the values from lighter to darker. I don't have that kind of patience with watercolor. Guess I must be having fun!

Bristol board works nicely for smooth blending; not too much texture in the paper. I just use my finger to smudge and fade; even though you're not supposed to do this at the risk of leaving your greasy personal oils on the paper, I just never got good results with tortillons or "blending stumps," although I probably should give them another shot. I'll just try not to eat Fritos while I draw, I guess.

Anyway, it's been so enjoyable rediscovering pencil and I've been so happy with the results that I think I might start doing all my B+W cartoons in pencil instead of ink and Photoshop. What do you think? Prefer the hand-drawn look? The less Photoshop, the better?