FRUSTRASHOW

Most of the illustrations I produce these days are made during weekends when I have lots of free time. Some weekends, laziness takes hold of me and I couldn’t even lift a pencil. Others, like this one, are really productive and I manage to churn out some pretty good work. I’m really satisfied with the three below:

I own a Blue Beetle Mattel action figure but I’ve never really gotten into the character until I read DC’s Countdown to Infinite Crisis, which was one of the books that led up to Infinite Crisis. I totally liked how Ted Kord was portrayed–a genius but nevertheless clumsy crime-fighter with no superpowers who (with his best friend Booster Gold) was trying his best to keep up with big-name Leaguers like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. I liked the story so much that I’ve vowed to read other books where Ted starred such as Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League. I may have to buy those books from Amazon but for now, my blooming Blue Beetle craze would have to be gratified by making fan art like the one above.

Another book I’m trying to finish is The Sandman. It’s a long one but Neil Gaiman never fails to spark the imagination with every story. Characters are very well fleshed out, too, considering the key ones are immortal gods who should be beyond human characterization. The one who caught my attention yesterday was Delirium. Part of The Endless, Delirium seems to be the personification of madness or intoxication. Personally, she reminds me of Dionysus, the Greek god who’s also associated with those two concepts. The most striking feature of Delirium is her constantly changing hair, which is colored pink, green, and yellow.

This one I drew on my iPad using the Paper app by FiftyThree. My friends teased me about it when I posted it on Facebook ’cause the girl here looks like someone in the office. But honestly I think when I started drawing it, I just wanted to show a female character who’s sort of sexy, drinking in a bar and smoking. I guess it’s hard to steer a drawing away from the real people who inform or influence that drawing, which is why it ended up looking like someone in real life. I don’t regret drawing it. On the contrary, I love the fact that people easily associated it with a real girl, which probably meant I captured a lot of the character of that person with a few simple strokes. From an artistic perspective, that means a lot to me.