I used to be green...

A loss of innocence.  

I grew up playing the Zelda series.  I have to imagine, Link did too.  At first, the killing is necessary.  You're fighting for your very survival; just trying to secure your place in the world.

But how many enemies were slain for a handful of rupees that would be wasted on your next magic potion fix?  Next thing you know, you're knee deep in the ichor of the fallen, numb to the consequences of your actions. The line between what is right and what is seemingly necessary is a thin one, and easily blurred.  

One day you'll wake up and realize who you are.

Sometimes to save a princess you have to kill a few bugs...

just don't be surprised when you end up with red on you.

Non Sequitur Monday

This is a Canadian llama who has been eating poison chicken.

He loves it.

The Rise and Fall of Sméagol

I started this one last Labor Day weekend.  My brother and I visited a friend in Chicago and in the sparse downtime, I did the pencils. It was originally a request from another friend who asked for some Tolkien content.  I let it sit because I wasn't really happy with how it was progressing. It just wasn't working...and I tend to avoid broken things like the plague. 

Today I inked and colored it.    

Why?  

Recently, I've been struggling with how I feel about the material world.  Learning to let things go and give to those who need it much more.  I'm not a rich man. Never have been.  But the longer I live, the more I realize just how lucky I am.  And how much responsibility that luck carries.  

As for the image itself, I wanted to catch the exact moment that Sméagol made the choice to become Gollum. Perched atop that precipice, knowing that what lay below was nothing but destruction...we've all been there and let ourselves fall.  It was a choice.  

It's always a choice.  

The things you own, end up owning you -Tyler Durden

Also, I drew a monkey:

Imported from Cybertron

 

Transformers are huge in our house right now.  And Legos.  And Transformers made out of Legos. 

 I am not making this up.  We make Transformers out of bits and pieces of other Lego sets.  Have you ever seen Harry Potter get blown apart by something that appears to be half-mechanical nightmare, half-Lightning McQueen?  

I have, it's horrifying. 

And at the same time, oddly satisfying.  Not only did I manage to create a transforming, robotic terror out of Pixar-parts...I also managed to make a little person who enjoys this type of mayhem as much as me.

This is extremely dangerous for a few reasons:

1.  I love toys.  

2.  I have a credit card.

3.  Have you ever stepped on a lego barefoot?  And not a nice rounded mini-figure head, or a discarded wheel that was lost in a firefight for the ages...no, I'm talking about a "rip you open like a Lovecraftian abomination because its edges were forged in the fires of hell" 2x2 brick.  They ain't kidding around. 

There's also the danger of getting coldcocked by an Optimus Prime wielding 4-year-old because, unbeknownst to me, I've been a closet Decepticon all these years.  Who knew?

Robots in disguise, man.  Robots in disguise.

So, that said...on with the post.

My son didn't want to do his homework.  

First of all, I'm thinking, "who has homework in pre-school?"  

Then I'm thinking, "yeah, I don't want to do homework either...where are the legos?" 

Dad of the Year, right?

But eventually I had to ask myself, "What would Bill Cosby do?"  So I made a funny face and put on a sweater.  Then, I decided to lead by example.  This stone killed two birds and bout of laziness that, quite honestly, should have had it's head up.  

We sat down and I walked him step by step through the process- pencils, inks, markers...while he colored in his lizard and practiced lower case "L"s. (Seriously?  Its a line.  How much practice do you need?)  

He got a picture of Bumblebee (with "Platypus Blue" eyes...which is a story in itself) and I got over whatever it was that was keeping me from posting. 

Sorry it took so long.