satire

Game of Thrones Look and Find

I am sure everyone is as excited as we are about season 4 of Game of Thrones. We usually have a premiere cook off, but this April is too busy for us.

We will have some multi-course party closer to the finale when thing are less insane (ha).

It occurs to me when I do these, color may make my look and find too easy to solve. Often they are in black and white to fool the eye in books and magazines and that seems to work well with the theme.

I knew starting this there was no hope of getting more than a tiny fraction of the characters or story packed into on image so I focused on my favorite characters. Obviously, it cherry-picks the books/movies and there are spoilers, but I suspect if you have not seen the shows or read the books, the images will not mean much.

I do love some of the characters. Sam Tarly is my favorite caricature of the bunch.

Revenge of the Valkyrie

The most recent sketch challenge for The Ghost Empire Collective.

The theme was Star Wars and Music.

I have always thought that operas were the blockbusters of their time with ostentatious sets and over the top special effects. The Ring Cycle by Wagner was The Lord of the Rings movies of its time. (JRR. Tolkien denied he was influenced by The Ring Cycle)

I got the idea because I had just watched Wagner & Me with Stephen Fry discussing Richard Wagner (and the controversy over his legacy). (I never knew that Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria was built in honor of Wagner’s work.)

Of course the Bugs Bunny cartoon What’s Opera Doc is also a tribute to Wagner.

I think Princess Leia is a great Brünnhilde.

This sketch also has a dash of Aida. I can never get The Grand March tune from that one out of my head.

The Hobbit Actually

This is a fitting holiday post for Pop Smoothie. The Hobbit is being released for the holidays and of course Love Actually is a Christmas movie. The way the movie industry regurgitates franchises, I fully expect this silly concept to become reality. I think they can squeeze out a few more Hobbit movies with special guest stars! It would only take a couple teensy liberties…

I often wonder which movie Martin Freeman enjoyed making more of these two…

It is interesting, to do this cartoon, I really looked at all the dwarf designs in depth for the first time for the movies. I saw the first one of course but had not taken in all the details.

Back in the 90s I painted a lot of dwarves for the Middle Earth CCG.

It never once occurred to me to put a macrame design in their beards. Seeing it in the movie designs made me wish I had. I am sure the AD would have approved.

It made me wonder who does those elaborate designs. In the Tolkien universe, it is mentioned that dwarf women are never seen and have beards like the men. Perhaps they are never seen because they are constantly crafting exotic new beard styles.

And what is up with Kili? It looks like perhaps the mountain had a cute elven mailman? Maybe that is why they are so protective of their ladies…

A couple of my Hobbit cards from The Dragons expansion. L: Bilbo running from Smaug’s fire R: The King Under the Mountain I need to scan this painting. It is in a frame so a bit difficult to get to. If only I had drawn him with a big macrame planter in his beard. That would have been COOL!

We have plans to see Desolation of Smaug this Sunday before our Illustrators yearly Christmas party. It has actually gotten some good reviews. I will report back…

UPDATE: This joke trailer for Love Actually 2 is perfect: http://stylecaster.com/love-actually-parody/

UPDATE 2: I recently was arguing with friends about whether or not Desolation of Smaug is fan fiction. I said it was the most expensively produced piece of fan fiction ever. My friend said it cannot be since it is officially licensed by the Tolkien estate.

I just fount this review in The Atlantic by Christopher Orr which basically said what I did, although a bit harsher. http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/-em-the-hobbit-2-em-is-bad-fan-fiction/282316/

Orange is the New Black Zine

I recently found out about an Orange is the New Black Zine from Julia Lavigne on Twitter. I loved the show so much that I had to do an image.

I have a friend who does a hidden image pictures for Highlights magazine. Inspired by the images she brings to our weekly Illustrators Lunches, I made this one. I got in all my favorite characters.

If you love the show, they just extended the deadline a week. http://oitnb-zine.tumblr.com/

Artist guidelines…

Revenge of the Jesse

Note: This cartoon is a bit of a spoiler.

This was the first idea that came to mind as I watched the finale. I did a sketch and promptly dropped into an inescapable deadline vortex. I am still in a deep hole from a deadline standpoint, but finished this while on vacation in NYC.

So this is a bit late, but since it is a commentary on the last episode, hopefully those who looked forward to seeing Felina have already watched it. Note: There is imagery in the background that refers to the Breaking Bad podcast and what Gilligan had hoped to do.

Perhaps this cartoon will inspire people to wear Jesse’s slave outfit at cons instead of Princess Leia’s. No? I thought not…

Affleck is the New Bat…

This cartoon popped into my head when I heard the announcement about the next Batman and we were talking about it on twitter. I could not resist it. One can only hope that Kate Mulgrew will play the Joker in the franchise reboot. I wondered what the effect of watching Orange is the New Black a couple times would be…

I personally hope for a return to the batusi…

I should mention, my husband was on the Batman toy design team at Kenner/Hasbro in the 1990s during the Clooney era. Now THAT was a movie that could have worked with the Watusi. Batman and Robin was quite the confection…

More Ultimate Sinister…

Starting to ideate in my sketchbook about the next Ultimate Sinister story… The Great Catsby?

Death After Rather a Nice Lunch-The Thrilling Conclusion

This convenient little non-nonsensical wrapup always happens at the end of these mysteries… I wonder if anyone has ever though about putting an Avengers-style movie starring all the mystery sleuths. Maybe Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Jessica Fletcher, Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown…