Longest Road Trip Ever

And when I arrive at my destination, the moose out front will tell me the park's closed.

It’s (Not) A Draw

A couple of years ago I took a drawing class.  One of those adult enrichment type of things.
It seemed like a good idea, as it was a beginner class focused largely on basic techniques and some of the fundamentals of materials and supplies, and I thought that getting back to basics would be good for me.  In particular, I found it appealing because I’ve never had any sort of formal art instruction beyond some really, really basic instruction in oil/acrylic painting back in grade school.*
So I figured there were principles from the analog approach that I could apply to my digital workflow.  In a lot of ways, it turned out to be a little too basic for my tastes, and there wasn’t quite enough focus on the differences between the various types of media and materials.  Honestly, I knew – and still know – very little about the differences between types of leads, for example, beyond what I’ve figured out through trial-and-error.  Given that I have an almost infinite digital toolbox of digital analogs of natural media tools at my fingertips I’d kind of like to know what more of them, you know, do.
And, again, I thought there would be some benefit to a more formal, structured approach than “I’ll try this one and see how it looks, I guess.”
Which isn’t to say that the class was a waste of time, I just wished that it had been more in-depth, though I suppose that, given the amount of time available for the class – it was a total of about 16 hours, spread out over 8 sessions – I probably set my expectations too high.
In any case, a while back I – and everyone else who had been in the class – got an e-mail from the instructor about an upcoming intermediate version of the class.  I considered signing up for it, but then I started thinking about some of the other issues I had with the introductory class.
…
It’s going to sound like I’m trying to do some sort of “humblebrag,” but that’s not at all what I’m going for, but the other issues I had with the class related to the other students.  More to the point, it related to how the other students in the class related to me.
See, most of the other students were absolute beginners, people who had never really put pencil to paper in any sort of serious attempt at creating art.
And, to be honest…it showed. 
But that’s okay!  I, personally, think that it was great that they were making the attempt at all, and, while most of them didn’t appear to have any sort of natural talent for it, drawing is also a skill, and as such, anyone, talented or not, can get better at it.  And even if they don’t get better, it’s still possible to enjoy the activity for its own sake.
Except…well, I do have some amount of natural talent for drawing – though not nearly so much as I’d like – and, despite never formally learning how, I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember.
So, not to put too fine a point on it, I was better at it than everyone else in the class.
A lot better.
To the extent that the instructor would have the other students stop what they were doing in order to watch what I was doing.
The attention alone, while flattering, made me uncomfortable, but what made it kind of unbearable was what followed, which were a lot of comments that ranged from passive-aggressive to full-on spiteful.
Things like, “Oh, of course he’s doing it perfectly.”  Or, “(Disgusted sound) Loot at what he did.”  Or, “I’m disgusted by how talented he is,” and, “It just makes you sick.”
It’s worth noting that most of the comments were made about me and seldom directly to me, but everyone made sure that I heard.
Again, I’m not mentioning this to make myself look good, particularly given that these comments – and even the non-verbal things, like the sighs and shaking heads – made me feel terrible.  It was not the least bit flattering.
Nor was it intended to be flattering.
Honestly, though, what really bothered me was that a lot of them would just give up.  They’d see what I’d done, look at what they were doing, and say, “Why bother?”
So…yeah, I went there to learn along with everyone else, but instead I was viewed as being an asshole just for being good at something, and my mere presence was disheartening for people.
I didn’t want to go somewhere and make people feel bad for not being as good at something as I am, and I didn’t want to be made to feel bad for being good at it,
I thought that in an intermediate class things might be different – particularly if there were some different students this time around – but given my previous experience, coupled with my desire to not have to, you know, go anywhere, I ultimately decided against signing up for it and deleted the e-mail.
In other drawing-related news, even though, as expected, no one donated anything to the cause, I ended up buying the Cintiq 27QHD Touch.  Which is also as expected, I should think.
In any case, I’ll have more on that new investment in a later post.

*It wasn’t so much an “art” class as it was an “arts and crafts” class, and we were just as – if not more – likely to spend time making things out of pipe cleaners as we were to get into any real instruction on the process and theory of art.  And when we did any sort of painting our only real options were to recreate images from vaguely religiously-themed picture postcards that would have been too treacly for Thomas Kincade.  It also didn’t help that the teacher, an old small town fuddy-duddy, not only had no interest in encouraging my personal interest in art, she actively disapproved of the type of art I was interested in creating, viewing it as too vulgar (and possibly sacrilegious).  Which isn’t any sort of indictment of the stuff I was drawing – I was a kid who was into comic books, so I mostly drew pictures of super heroes – but rather of her very limited view of what constituted art.  (See:  saccharine picture postcards, small town fuddy-duddy).

Ten %@!#ing Years!

Click to embiggen.

...and it wouldn't be a Threshold Birthday Extravaganza without also wishing a very happy birthday to the always lovely and always talented Carla Gugino!

The Unofficial Patron Saint of Threshold standing at the threshold.

The Process

I’m sure there are literally zeroes of people who wonder what my artistic process is like.
Well, if you’re numbered among that non-existent group of people, this post is for you!
Really, there are two processes:  when I know what I want to draw, and when I don’t know what I want to draw.
Eventually, however, the two processes converge, and are mostly identical.  Here, we’ll examine the latter process, which is the less common process.  When I say it’s less common, I don’t mean that I engage in it less often than the other, it’s just that it’s less common for it to result in a final product that anyone sees.*
Let’s begin.

1. Launch Manga Studio
2. Open a new document
3.  Stare at blank document for several minutes
4.  Smoke break
5.  Stare at blank document for several minutes
6.  Begin drawing random strokes
7.  Erase random strokes
8.  Smoke break
9.  Return with a vague idea of what I should draw
10.  Begin sketching
11.  Begin erasing
12.  Shoulder begins to hurt
13.  Neck begins to hurt
14.  Lose some amount of sensation in drawing hand
15.  Reconsider vague idea of what I should draw
16.  Close document; click Do Not Save
17.  Repeat Steps 2-10
18.  Begin sketching something that looks halfway-decent
19.  Irretrievably fuck things up
20.  Swearing break
21.  Clear the document
22.  Begin sketching something that looks halfway-decent
23.  Consider halfway-decent sketch and decide to not scrap it
24.  Begin inking**
25.  Retrievably fuck things up
26.  Fix the fuck-ups
27.  Begin coloring with flat colors
28.  Create approximately a gajillion layers for shading, highlights, and midtones, which I will completely lose track of, resulting in drawing on layers that I hadn’t intended to draw on to an extent that goes beyond Manga Studio’s ability to Undo
29.  Try to get a different look to the colors, even though I’m not entirely certain what look I’m going for
30.  Revert to standard look; swear
31.  Shoulder and neck are now in agony; swearing has increased exponentially
32.  Curse the day I was born
33.  Vow to never attempt to draw again
34.  Sigh…then get back to work
35.  Vision in left eye is now blurry, and will remain so for several hours
36.  Smoke break
37.  Say, “Fuck it,” and decide to just draw yet another damned picture of Scarlett Johansson*** and give up any hope of ever doing anything new or different, or managing to bring to life the vague images – or rather, vague impressions of images – swirling around in my brain
38.  Close document; click Save, never look at it again
39.  Draw yet another damned picture of Scarlett Johansson
40.  Wonder why I even bother
41.  Do the whole goddamn thing over again

*Which is actually incredibly common; I would say that 80-90% of the time I spend drawing does not result in a finished product that anyone sees.

**Throughout this step, in addition to constantly erasing and hitting Undo, I will swear at my hand and/or the brush tool, and ask, “Why are you doing this???” as my hand and/or the brush produce lines that look nothing at all like what I’d intended them to look like.

***Or Kelly Brook, or Eve Angel, or some other random woman; the point is that it will just end up being the same old bullshit

Giving The People What They Want

The other day I decided that I needed a new profile picture for Facebook, and given that I'm rarely photographed by other people, and there was no one around, I opted to go the selfie route.
I took several shots, but there was only one than I actually liked.  Unfortunately, due to my shaky Frankenstein hands, it turned out rather blurry.
I ran it through Photoshop, using the "Shake Reduction" filter, and while that did make it a bit sharper, it also added a lot of noise.
Then I thought, "Wait, don't I like, draw, or whatever?  Didn't I take the selfie while I was drawing?"
So I decided that there was enough detail in the blurry pic to use it as a reference to draw my own selfie-portrait.
I then made it my profile picture, and I found it interesting that it rapidly became the most "liked' drawing I've ever posted to Facebook.
That's...weird, I think.
It's also kind of disheartening, in a way.  I mean, it's nice that my friends like the picture of me, but, while it is pretty well done, I've done better, or at least I've posted pictures that I've been prouder of than this one, and yet many of those get no likes at all.
Of course, maybe the lesson is that I should give up on drawing Scarlett Johansson, and Eve Angel, and other beautiful women and assorted comic book characters and focus entirely on self-portraits.  It seems to be what the people want...

And who can blame them?  Rawr!

Is It Safe? Yes And No.

Here are a couple of pictures I've done.
The first is safe for work (and is "safe" in another way, in that it's the same old, tired, predictable kind of thing I always draw).
The second, which can be seen by clicking on the "Read More" link is decidedly NOT safe for work.
Here's the first one, a picture of Scarlett Johansson (of course) wearing a dark wig:

Yep, it's a drawing, all right.  How exciting.

The second is of Playboy Playmate (December, 1989) Petra Verkaik.
I have a particular fondness for Petra, not just because of her rather impressive endowments, but for some other intangible aspect that I can't quite put a name to.
I'm not alone in that regard - she's a very popular Playmate,being the most published woman in that magazine's history.
She is still active as a model via her Web site, and still looks amazing, especially given that she's nearly 50.
In fact, in the reference photo used for the drawing I did, she was at least in her early 40s.
So, click on "Read More" if you want to see a drawing I did of very naked lady with very large breasts.

Read more »

2014

Happy New Year from Threshold!

Posted Without Additional Comment

There Is No Try

Oh, hey, this thing is still around.
Yes, I’ve been neglecting the place more than usual.
No, I don’t have a good reason for it.
Well, in theory I do, but in practice…
Given that it’s November, one might assume that I’ve been neglecting this blog because I’ve been busy working on my novel for National Novel Writing Month.
That’s not the case this year.  For one thing, November kind of managed to sneak up on me, so I wasn’t at all prepared to dive into writing a novel, as I hadn’t spent any time coming up with an idea for one.
However, I did start out the month deciding that I would take the diligence that I normally apply to novel writing and apply it to another project entirely.
That hasn’t really yielded any results.
I suppose that one could say that writing a novel has never really yielded any results either, but at least by the end of the month I had something to show for my efforts.
With this other project?  Not so much.
So what is this mysterious NaNoWriMo replacement, you didn’t ask, because you already got bored and have moved on to look at cat pictures or something?
Well, when I was working on the comic book birthday present for the (former) boss lady, in the interest of time – and laziness – there were some scenes that I cut from the final product, scenes that added to the narrative, but weren’t essential, and which would have required additional pages.
Additionally, in the pages that I did produce I introduced a character whose backstory is hinted at, but not told, and after it was all over I found myself thinking, “I kind of want to tell her story.”
And finally, the limited page count forced me to do a considerable amount of compression, which led to there being pages that were literally filled to overflowing with expository dialogue.
So with all of that in mind I thought, “I should expand this to tell the full story that I’d originally imagined, give the pages some breathing room, tell the backstories, eliminate some of the sillier, in-joke elements, and turn it into a proper comic book that’s available for all the world to see.  Or more likely, ignore, but still, it’d be out there in some fashion.”
So that’s what I’ve been doing all month?
Well, kind of.
In adapting the story for a wider audience, one of the things I need to do is redesign the main character, the one based on the (former) boss lady.
The reasons for this are twofold:

I have a lot of pictures of her to use as references, but not enough to cover the full gamut of expressions and poses, and given that I’m not great at extrapolating things like expressions from a reference image, I need to come up with my own character design to eliminate the need for photo references.

As part of the joke in the birthday gift comic, there are several instances in which the main character appears nude, but some element – someone’s elbow, a word balloon, etc. – obscures it, a la “Austin Powers.”  In the proper comic, those obstructions would be removed, and, given that there would be a wider audience (potentially), if I’m going to draw the main character nude without obstructions, I don’t feel comfortable having her look exactly like the (former) boss lady.

Beyond that, I wanted to try to develop a consistent, simple, and streamlined style for the art, and when I’m engaging in portraiture, the resulting image can be too heavily-influenced by the reference, which – as was the case with the birthday gift – results in inconsistent styles.
So that was the challenge:  coming up with a simplified, consistent style, and designing a character who looks enough like the (former) boss lady for it to be clear that she was the inspiration, but doesn’t look exactly like her, and to develop, for the first time in all the years that I’ve been drawing, a consistent style.
That’s the keep word:  try.
We remember what Yoda said about “try,” don’t we?
It hasn’t been going well.  All attempts at a character redesign have either looked too much like her or not enough like her, and, of course, there’s no consistency to the style.
It doesn’t help that I’m not sure exactly what style I’m shooting for.  On the one hand, I want something pretty simple and clean, but on the other, I don’t want it to look too cartoony.
So basically while I really like their styles, I don’t want to go for the full Bruce Timm or Darwyn Cooke route, thinking that maybe I’d try to compromise with something a little more like the style of Amanda Conner.
However, that doesn’t really suit the tone of the story, so I’ve found myself leaning more towards the style of Terry Dodson.  After all, as I’ve mentioned many times before, when I look at people I can see the “styles” of various comic book artists.  “He’s a Gil Kane,” I’ll say, or “She’s totally an Art Adams.”  The (former) boss lady is a total Dodson.
But then I think about some of the other works that have influenced the idea behind the character and the story, such as Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, and I think that the noir style of Phillips might be a good fit as well.
And then I think about Brubaker’s latest – the advanced ads for which, by the way, were part of what pushed me to go ahead and try to do the birthday comic in the first place, as it appeared to be tapping a similar vein – Velvet, and the amazing work of Steve Epting…
So, yeah.  Even setting aside issues of talent and ability – which are significant issues – there’s the problem of just not being able to make up my mind.  It doesn’t help that for some reason my own style – or what passes for it – has kind of atrophied over the years as I’ve spent so much time drawing what I see rather than what I imagine, and for some reason the elements of it that show up in my sketches don’t really survive the process of inking and coloring.
In any case, that’s what I’ve been doing.  Or, you know, not doing, as Yoda would say.

Curse Me For A Brythunian

Last night I decided to devote some time to drawing something without a reference.
After spending a lot of time trying to think of something to draw, I finally decided on everyone’s favorite Cimmerian, Conan.
I also intended to use this drawing session as an opportunity to work on my inking, and the image that I had in mind was something that was kind of a hybrid of some of the classic Conan artists like Ruby Nebres and Alfredo Alcala, with a lot of hatching, with some elements of Art Adams and Mike Mignola thrown in for good measure.
It was my intention to do a black and white image, a la Savage Sword of Conan, although I considered adding in some gray tones as well.
The basic image, as far as the overall shape and some of the details, turned out okay, but once I started on the hatching it all fell apart because I suck at hatching.  Of course, the point of the practice was to get better at it, but that wasn’t happening, and it continues to not happen.
Still, after having put so much work into it, I didn’t want to just scrap it, so I decided to make it into a painting.  “After all,” I told myself, “hatching was originally done out of necessity, to make up for the shortcomings of the early printing process in comics.  Who needs it?  Not me!”
(It’s true that hatching is no longer really necessary, but despite that, I do still wish I was better at it.  Or, you know, any good at all.  At least with ink – or the digital version of it, at any rate.  I’m okayish at it with pencil, whether analog or digital.)
Unfortunately, my attempt at painting it looked like crap, so I scrapped.
Today I decided to revisit it, with the help of some fancy new custom brushes I bought for Manga Studio.
So I drew it all over again, and it looked okay…then I decided to try my hand at hatching again.
The result was…well, here’s the result:

Hatching is for chumps anyway.

For what it’s worth, I do like the job I did with the hatching on the left arm.
Because I wasn’t happy with it, I decided to try painting this one.
Here’s the result:

Understanding anatomy is for chumps anyway.

I like this more than the black and white image, but unfortunately the layer effects I did in Photoshop that looked really cool on the Cintiq don’t look as good anywhere else.  Oh well; it’s as good as it’s going to get, by Crom.

The Inside Of My Head Is A Strange Place

Though I admit that Karen rocks the look.

It's That Time Again

As is the tradition here at Threshold, we extend birthday wishes to its fellow Virgo, the lovely and talented Carla Gugino, with whom Threshold itself shares a birthday.
Please join us in hoping that Ms. Gugino has a happy and prosperous year!

A simple, retro Carla, drawn in Manga Studio 5*.
I assume the original reference image was a publicity still for Watchmen.

Threshold, meanwhile, will continue its march toward a full decade of near-total irrelevance!  Happy birthday to the little blog that couldn't!

*I bought Manga Studio 5 recently.  I like it a lot so far - it feels much more natural for more straightforward sketching/inking - with better results - than Photoshop.  Unfortunately, taking a more natural, straightforward approach to drawing is really bringing my weaknesses and lack of skills to the forefront.  Ah well.

You Guessed It…

…more drawings.

Donna Troy

Hellcat

Valkyrie

Odin

Odin was done via my more traditional method, which is to say I drew him primarily in Photoshop.
I did the (very) rough sketch in Illustrator, brought it into Photoshop and added the details and color, exported it to Illustrator to do some touch-ups on the lines, then brought it back into Photoshop.

Bonus:
I did a doodle of Validus (an old Legion of Super-Heroes villain) on my tablet in a program called Sketchbook Pro.

Then, on a whim, I brought it into Photoshop and gave it some polish.

Nothing Makes Sense

Present-Day Jon:  Hello, Jon.

Past Jon:   Who are you?

PDJ:  I’m you from the future.

PJ:  Huh.  I thought I’d be taller.

PDJ:  Yeah, I know.  What was your basis for thinking that?

PJ:  I don’t know.  I guess I just wanted to be taller.

PDJ:  Join the club.  Oh, wait.  You founded the club.

PJ:  So why are you here?  Trying to prevent me from making some huge mistake that results in my life not turning out the way it was supposed to?

PDJ:  Pfft, no.  I wouldn’t even know where to begin with that.  You pretty much get everything fractally wrong.

PJ:  What does fractally mean?

PDJ:  Never mind.  I just wanted to say that all the stuff you thought would happen?  It pretty much won’t.  But more to the point, one thing that you never thought would happen will actually happen.

PJ:  What?

PDJ:  One day you’ll draw a really good picture of The Creeper.

PJ:  …The Creeper?  The comic book character?

PDJ:  The very same.

PJ:  But…why?  Why would I even bother?  I mean, I’ve seriously never thought about doing that.

PDJ:  That’s my point.

PJ:  Not Batman, or Superman, or...or Nightwing?  Starfire, maybe.  Mmm, Starfire…

PDJ:  Nope.  The Creeper.  See?

(Plus I pretty much did the entire thing in Illustrator, which makes it that much more baffling.)

PJ:  Wow, that is really good.  I did that?

PDJ:  Yeah.

PJ:  That doesn’t make any sense.

PDJ:  Tell me about it.  I feel like nothing makes sense anymore.

PJ:  So I did that because I’m, like, a famous comic book artist or something?  I draw something with The Creeper in it?

PDJ:  …yeah, sure.  Just keep telling yourself that if you think it will help.

PJ:  What is that thing, anyway?  Some kind of pocket computer?

PDJ:  More or less.  It’s called a smartphone.

PJ:  So there are all kinds of cool science fiction gadgets in the future?

PDJ:  Ehh…yeeaaahhh, but nothing like warp drives or teleporters or whatever.  We don’t even have any off-world colonies.

PJ:  Oh.  But you have time travel, right?  I mean, that’s how you’re here.

PDJ:  No.  I’m not actually here.  This is just a blog post.

PJ:  What’s a blog?

PDJ:  It doesn’t matter.  I mean, seriously, in the case of my blog, it really doesn’t matter.

PJ:  So that’s it, then?

PDJ:  I suppose so.  Drawing that picture kind of shattered my worldview.  I mean, it just seems so pointless to have done such a good job drawing something I really don't care about all that much, given how the things I actually care about turn out, so I felt like I needed to retroactively spread the existential terror out across my entire life.

PJ:  Existential?

PDJ:  Oh, just look it up in…well, in whatever it was you used for that kind of thing before Google.  And don’t ask me what Google is.

PJ:  Okay.  But…it was just the thing about The Creeper?  There’s nothing else you can tell me?

PDJ:  Hm.  Well, okay.  (Clears throat.  Makes important-sounding pronouncement.)  "She will never feel the same way about you as you feel about her."

PJ:  Who won’t feel the same way about me?

PDJ:  Whoever.   Take your pick.

PJ:  That’s…that not exactly inspiring.

PDJ:  It wasn’t meant to be.  Welcome to the rest of your life.

PJ:  Gee, thanks.

PDJ:  Don’t mention it.  Anyway, remember:  “Beware…The Creeper!”

PJ:  Wow.

PDJ:  Yeah, sorry.  I couldn’t resist.

More Drawing

So I’ve done some more drawing, this time producing an image that I’m actually reasonably pleased with of longtime enemy of the Marvel Family, the former hero known as Black Adam.
I did more of this one – initially, at least – in Illustrator than any of the others, having done all of the coloring and shading there rather than bringing the image into Photoshop for that.
After finishing it in Illustrator, I brought it into Photoshop to add some effects.
Then I posted the finished image to Facebook, but while I was reasonably happy with it – I think it looks pretty damn cool – I noticed that I had missed something:  one of the lightning bolt brushes left a weird hard edge that kind of sticks out.
After brining it back into Photoshop to fix that before posting it here, I decided to apply some blurring and smudging to soften it up a little, then did some more layer blending to make the blacks a little blacker.  This is Black Adam, after all.
I also thought that there might be some people interested in seeing what the initial rough sketch looked like, so I decided to post three images here:

The rough sketch.

The version posted to Facebook.

The retouched version.

So there you go.

What I’ve Been Doing

So I’ve been drawing:

Platinum, AKA "Tina," of the Metal Men

Phoenix (Rachel Summers)

Killer Frost

The Spectre

Talia al Ghul

Dr. Fate

Darkseid

Somewhat more to the point, I’ve been drawing in Illustrator, which, longtime readers may recall, is a program that seems to exist primarily for the purpose of making me swear and emit bear-like roars.  A lot.
I’m trying to find a way to adjust the fidelity settings of the brush so that the program will compensate for my unsteady hand, but won’t overcompensate to such an extent that the curves of the lines in no way resemble my intentions for them.  I haven’t had much luck.
It would be useful to be able to find that sweet spot, as it would conceivably speed up my workflow considerably, allowing for more completely freehand drawing, even for the big, sweeping curves, as opposed to the more labor-intensive process of precisely laying out points on a path in Photoshop.
I’ve mostly been trying to draw directly from my imagination, without using any sort of reference image*, which is why I’ve been focusing on comic book characters, as they’re what springs to mind.  In many cases, the point is just to try to get a better handle on drawing in Illustrator, so whether or not the final product is actually any good is kind of beside the point (which is an especially good thing in the case of Killer Frost and Talia, frankly).
I’ve gone with slightly more obscure characters – even some men, which is definitely a change of pace – because…well, just because.  Mostly I wanted to draw characters I’ve never drawn before, though I have drawn Darkseid and Dr. Fate before.
Ultimately what I’ve gained from the experience is a reinforcement of things that I already knew:

1.  Illustrator is a pain in the ass
2.  I get much better results when I’m drawing something I see rather than something from my imagination

So there you go.

*I did use a reference image for Tina.

Strangers Who Are Like Friends

Over on Facebook there’s a Legion of Super-Heroes fan page called Legion World.
Quite some time ago my Ladies of the Legion posts caught the attention of the admin of Legion World who stopped by to compliment me on my work and began posting the images to the Legion World page.
This – understandably, I think – pleased me.
After a while the images were all collected into an album on Legion World.  An album dedicated solely to my artwork.  An album entitled “Artwork of Jon Maki AKA Heimdall.”  The description of the album refers to my artwork as being “stunning.”
This also pleased me. A lot.
After all, though you’d never know it from this blog – or really, any other part of my life – this meant that I actually have fans.
Granted, they may not count as *ahem* a legion of fans, but even so, it feels good to be acknowledged and appreciated.
(I always suspected that it would, but had never been certain until it actually happened.)
All of which is a bit of a preamble to the actual post here, which, I think, requires some additional introductory text.  Not just because I’m prone to self-indulgent walls of text, but because I need to make my intentions clear.
Some of the little self-deprecating shots I took at myself above – like the one about only suspecting that it would feel good to be acknowledged an appreciated – may come across as me fishing for compliments.  That’s not what I was doing – I was, legitimately, engaging in self-deprecating humor.  I mean, I do that.  When it comes to the jokes I make, I myself am, by a wide margin, the most frequent butt of them.
It’s how I am.  There may be some deep-seated psychological issues at the core of the personality trait, but mostly I make fun of myself because I know I can take it.  And besides, I’m just a jerk, so why should I care what I think?  Make fun of me all you want, me; I’ll just shrug it off and chalk it up to my jerkiness.
Anyway, where was I?
Right.  Legion World.
Every so often in my FB feed I’ll see a Legion World post with a reference to me, usually featuring another Legion-related image that I drew at some point, with a caption like, “Legion World Needs More Jon Maki!”  (My favorite was when there was a post of a picture I did of Scarlett Johansson that was captioned, “Now I'm not saying Jon Maki intended this image to be a take on Night Girl, but I am saying I needed a valid reason to post a Jon Maki image.”)
Most recently, I saw the image from this post pop up.
Looking at the post on Legion World I noticed that 34 people “liked” it and 11 people “shared” it on their own timelines.*
This leads me, finally, to the point of this post.
Unless it’s completely NSFW, any drawing that I post here I also post on Facebook.  Even when it is NSFW, I usually post a link (with a warning) to the blog post containing it.
Most of my artwork posts on Facebook go unnoticed except by a handful of my friends.  Said handful consists of a few people who can be counted on to regularly like or comment on most pictures, though there are a few “drive-by likes” from people who normally don’t hit the like button.
(Of course, even the drive-by likers tend to be a pretty consistent subset of my friends.)
In any case, I’ve never posted anything on Facebook that has gotten as many likes as that image on Legion World did.
Granted, Legion World has greater “reach” than I do, but the thing is, I don’t actually know any of the people who visit Legion World.
So I can’t help but wonder why it is that I can count on people I don’t know to like my arwork, but most of the people I do know completely ignore it.  Again, at the risk of sounding like I’m protesting too much, the point of this isn’t to try to lake a guilt trip on people in order to extort some praise and validation out of them.  Do I wish that more of my friends would like and/or comment on my picture posts?  Of course, but this isn’t an attempt to get them to do that.
Really I’m just thinking out loud – or at least thinking in a blog post – about something that I sometimes wonder about.
This isn’t something I lose sleep over, or spend a lot of time obsessing about, but it does come to mind at times, particularly when I see something like that post on Legion World.
I’m really just legitimately curious – why don’t more of my friends “like” my artwork?
I suppose that the most obvious explanation is exactly that:  they don’t like it, for whatever reason.  Maybe they find it offensive, or too objectifying, or they just plain don’t think it’s any good or just aren’t interested.
That’s certainly possible, and understandable – I do obviously tend to focus on pin-up/cheesecake-style images, and people have different, equally valid tastes when it comes to art.
I don’t discount this, but in my real-world encounters with people – many of them numbering among my Facebook friends – the response to my artwork is overwhelmingly positive.**
So I wonder.
And honestly, all I can really do is wonder, even here.  Because let’s face it, no one is going to bother leaving a comment here (which is something I've done plenty of whining about already), and I’m not actually going to put this on Facebook because despite – or perhaps because of – my claims to the contrary it will look like I’m saying, “Pls liek mah picz!  I can has validayshun?”
Anyway, while not discounting the “Your art is bad and you should feel bad” explanation, these are some of the other possible explanations I’ve come up with:

High Signal to Noise Ratio:  Unlike me, most people have a lot of friends on Facebook.  Far too many to actually even notice, let alone interact with.  Also, while I keep my newsfeed pretty readable by hiding a lot of irrelevant stuff like updates about game activities and whatnot, it’s possible that many of my friends don’t hide anything, and so they’re inundated with too much stuff to notice my pictures.

Unplugged:  Maybe most of my friends don’t actually spend a lot of time on Facebook.

Unsubscribed:  Maybe people want to maintain a connection with me, but they don’t want my frequent posts of pictures and random thoughts cluttering up their newsfeeds, so they’ve hidden all updates from me.  Which means that I’m considered noise rather than signal, and honestly, that’s just as hurtful as “Your art is bad and you should feel bad,” but still, it’s possible.

For Games Only:  Maybe all they do on Facebook is play games.  Given how many game update stories I’ve had to hide and game requests I’ve ignored, this one seems likely, especially given that once I finally hid all of those updates the amount of activity I saw on my newsfeed dropped exponentially, so clearly if they’re doing anything on Facebook at all most of my friends aren’t doing anything that shows up in my newsfeed, which leaves games as the most likely suspect.  (Though this could also be a result of their privacy settings and the utilization of lists.)

What Is This I Don’t Even:  Back when I had a display for Heroic Portraits during the craft show at work a lot of the people who stopped by my table – even the ones who were previously aware of my artistic endeavors – didn’t understand that I actually drew the Portraits.  I’m not sure what it was that they thought I did, but it was clear that there was, until I explained the process to them, no understanding of the fact that these images were hand-drawn by me.  I suppose that it’s equally possible that when I post a picture to Facebook – even when I actually use the words “drawing,” “draw,” and “drew,” – that they aren’t putting the pieces together and figuring out that this is artwork done by me.  Maybe they think they’re just some random pictures I found and posted – I don’t know.  But I have seen that there are people who can look at my artwork and not actually grok the fact that it’s my artwork.

So those are my theories.  Now I’ll set them aside and go back to not thinking about it except on those occasions when I post something that I’m really proud of and pleased with and find that it doesn’t even seem to warrant crickets chirping…and then on those occasions I’ll just remind myself that I have an album dedicated to my artwork at Legion World and I’ll find myself liking total strangers more than I like my own friends.

*Admittedly, this probably had more to do with the text in the image, which is very funny if you’re any sort of fan of the Legion, and not the quality of the quickly-dashed off art.  Trust me; it actually is really funny.  It’s the kind of thing that people who find that kind of thing funny will find funny.

**If sometimes kind of nitpicky.  “Why is her arm like that?”  “What’s wrong with her nose?”  “That doesn’t look like her.”

Remember That Time I Drew Jennifer Lawrence?

You know, this time:

Yep, this is the time I did that.

Thing I DId...

...that I forgot to post here.
Oh well, here it is:

I call it "Self-Made."

I put it up on Facebook, then never got around to posting it here.

Some Pictures

I drew a picture of Supergirl flying through the Time Barrier to visit the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th Century, mostly in an attempt to experiment with a more traditionally comic style.  This is the result:

Meh.

Anatomy is off, perspective is off, and it’s just generally kind of disappointing given how much time I spent working on it.  But there it is.
I did this as the end result of just doodling with nothing in particular in mind:

Meh.

Looks kind of like the “Precogs” in the movie “Minority Report.”  it started out, as my random doodles usually do, with an eye.  I don’t know why eyes are my go-to doodle, but they are.  So…yeah.