Charles Santoso

I'm not sure where I saw it, the image above. I'm sure I had been doing an image search for art or illustration or Totoro (because I do those kind of things regularly...probably more regularly than I should admit). But I saw this image and my heart melted. This is a wonderful piece of Totoro work. It has the same sweetness but it's not just ordinary fan art. This has extra character to it. This is the kind of piece that grabs my attention. So of course I had to see where it came from. The link led me to other tribute art, some for Peanuts, some for Calvin and Hobbes, some for Harry Potter. But all of them had the same soft softness and sweetness to them. I was hooked.

So I went to My Mini Tree House and discovered that this was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Charles Santoso's work. And I love every bit of it. Santoso is a Sydney, Australia based artist who has done film and TV work. But it's his little character sketches that make me the happiest. On his website he describes himself as a concept artist who focuses on creating whimsical characters and scenes. He certainly does that. His draftsmanship is very good but it's the character and humor that makes me love his work.

 I subscribed immediately to his blog, and then started going back through the vast archive of art that he's already posted. As I read back, I grew to like his work even more. Santoso is willing to play. You can see the joy he takes in his work jump off the blog. He'll post concept art or strange dreams he's had. He'll try colors out and then post. He's having fun. I found all different types of art and so many characters, most of which are his own. Some artists leave me intimidated and Santoso certainly is good enough to do that. But looking at his work I just wanted to play and that was actually very inspiring. Incredible artwork and inspiration make for a new favorite artist.

P.S. I just went to Acid Free Gallery and purchased this print. Now I'll have some new artwork to hang on the wall.

Eric Barclay

It's been a while since I posted about an artist whose work I enjoy. I have a number of art and artist blogs that I follow so I'm always finding new and inventive work. Some more inventive than others.

Eric Barclay is a Texas based artist with a fun retro feel and some great use of bright colors. His print work is sweet and whimsical with a focus on animals and children. You can't help but smile when looking at it. I started following Eric's blog a while ago and am completely in love with most of his print work.

But it's his sculpture that I adore. Barclay takes cans, bottles, old light bulbs, and containers of all sorts and paints them to creates characters. The adorable little skunk above was once a Coke can. The two below, recurring characters for Barclay, are made from creamer containers. And to make me love them even more the penguin is Mr. Shackleton (based on Ernest Shackleton the Antarctic explorer I'm fascinated with) and the walrus is Mr. Hudson (based on Henry Hudson the fabled New York explorer).

Eric has done work for a number of different publications and companies. His blog and his website are filled with tons of examples of his great work. I love art that uses unique media and empty bottles, wood, gears, and lightbulbs are certainly unique. This last image, the lion below, was made from an old French's mustard container. I can only post a couple of his examples but check out the rest of his stuff on his website. It is guaranteed to make you smile.  

Bears and Seals and Deer, Oh My

I need a cleansing post after my last one on Keystone. As you know I'm an animal lover and I love heartwarming animal stories. So many of the stories we normally hear in the news are bad for animals but these last couple weeks have been fantastic. There have been a ton of sweet wildlife stories in the news recently. From the bear that took a ride on the garbage truck in Vancouver. To the bear found in a New Jersey basement. Both were captured and released without any harm.

There was the recent story of a New Zealand woman who came home to find a baby fur seal napping in her living room. The seal had apparently crawled out of the sea, crossed a busy highway, into the yard, through a cat door, and up some stairs to find the living room. There it had made itself comfortable on one of the sofas for a little nap. The woman was obviously shocked but quickly fell in love with the seal. The NZ Department of Conservation was called and the seal was captured and released into the sea without harm.

But my favorite story from the week was the Alaska Quest Charters captain who found himself in an interested position when four deer swam to his boat in the middle of Taku Inlet and wanted to board. He was in the middle of a chartered cruise but still pulled each of the deer onto the vessel. He turned the boat back to the shore and when he landed the deer got up and wandered off the dock and into the woods. The youngest deer had some issues getting back up after the exhausting swim and was helped off the boat in a wheelbarrow. After a period of time it too ran off into the woods. The event actually happened in October of last year but it has just started making the internet rounds. My sister posted it to Facebook yesterday and I immediately had to steal it. I love those kind of stories. Like the story last year of a firefighter giving a koala water after an Australian blaze, these stories reaffirm my faith in humanity. I hope 2012 is filled with them.

Needs list

I'm in an odd mood. It's not a particularly good one. So I have to post this image that I stole from a friend on facebook. Today it would be "peace". I might have to create one of these and post them up around me. A good reminder. And it brought me a bit of a smile.

Enslaved by Ducks

Years ago, when I bought my first bird-feeder, Jeff had argued against it. I had been hinting around that I wanted to buy one for quite a while. But each time I brought it up, Jeff would just say no. He didn't have anything particularly against birds or the feeding of them, but he was a little concerned that like my mother I would go a bit overboard in the care and feeding of them. My mother doesn't just feed the birds, she prepares grand buffets for them. But I finally bought my feeder and now Jeff can recognize many of the unique birds that visit our yard. I consider it a success.

Currently I'm happy with my one feeder and its constant visitors. But I could see myself tipping over into overfeeding, overcare. Similar to Bob Tarte's hilarious memoir Enslaved by Ducks, I could easily see animals taking over my life. I'd read Enslaved by Ducks years ago on a whim and had fallen in love with Bob's household. With parrots, doves, rabbits, cats, ducks, turkeys, geese... all running around his house, I found myself laughing at the chaos and energy that I had grown up with. We often had cats, dogs, rabbits, mice, and some poor injured bird in the house. Bob's story takes that to an extreme. These creatures were not just in his life, they had taken over his life.

This past weekend I sat down with Bob's next book Fowl Weather. I was again transported into that wonderful menagerie where animals of any kind find a home. But this is a book that offers equal parts poignancy and humor. Bob mixes stories of his father's death and mother's growing forgetfulness with the antics of his household animals. He talks about his fights with his Muscovy ducks in the same story as the death of his beloved parrot. The story of how one of his parrots bit the bunny's tail off is intermixed with stories of his mother's constantly mislaid/hidden purse, a growing sign of her Alzheimer's. And it's a very personal set of stories. Through all of them, the animals seem to provide a balm for the chaos of Bob's life, even when they contribute to them. The stories show off the craziness of keeping forty animals, some of which hate each other. But it also shows how animals can be more than just pets. They can be saviors. I love to read stories of animals lovers. I can't imagine a more wonderful house for animals to end up at. Read Enslaved by Ducks for humor, read Fowl Weather for compassion.

How to Train Your Dragon

It's rare when Jeff buys a movie just so I can see it. He had gone to the theater on the cruise ship to see How To Train Your Dragon and I hadn't gone. So when it finally came out on DVD, Jeff practically ran to the store and bought it. He made me watch it the first night. Halfway through the movie, I loudly announced

"If anything happens to harm this dragon, you are so in trouble."

It took me less than forty minutes and I was already completely enchanted by the dragon. I'm an animal lover by nature and tend to anthropomorphize anyway but the way the animators imbued him with cat-like sweetness, put me over the edge. I loved Toothless. I worried about Toothless. While I loved Hiccup's character, it was Toothless that stole the show for me. I'm always amazed by what animators can do with just the movement of an ear. With just the movement of Toothless's ears, they could make him angry or curious or happy. Without saying a word the creature spoke volumes. I'm in awe of that.

The whole film was both funny and sweet. I loved Craig Ferguson's character. So much of the dialogue and narration was clever. With lines like "This is Berk. It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three. What little food grows here is tough and tasteless. The people that grow here, even more so," you can't help but laugh. The relationship between Hiccup and pretty much everyone was interesting. I loved the banter between him and Astrid. But it was touching too. I'll even admit that when Stoick thanked Toothless for bringing Hiccup down to earth safely, I shed more than a few tears. But it was the animation that made me love the film. The emotion on one dragon's face made it all worth it. Such a great movie. I'm awfully glad that Jeff made me watch it.

Ask, and You Shall Receive

I was asked about my favorite webcomics. I had planned to write up a brief comment and leave it in the comments section but it kept getting longer and longer. I have so many of them that I read now. And each of them is very different. So I decided that instead of a comment, it would be a post. Susskins, thanks for the idea and of course thanks for reading. Here are all of my favorite webcomics all in one place. Be warned, this could get long.

Favorite

Some of these will have their links to the right but I'll include them here as well. If you were to ask me which of my webcomics were my favorite I would have to say Sheldon. Dave Kellett is just consistantly funny. He posts everyday and almost all of his comics are hilarious. Sheldon is a 10 year old boy genius, who (sometimes) runs his own company. He lives with his out of shape and gently grumpy grandfather, Arthur the talking duck, Flaco a lizard that Arthur considers his son, and an incredibly hyper pug named Oso. An odd combination that leads to hilarious punch-lines. This one is a definite recommendation.

Story Based Webcomics

I have four webcomics that I follow that tell one long and mostly consistant story. If you start reading these you will want to go back and read from the beginning. Otherwise they simply make no sense. I'll start with my most recent find, Looking For Group. For fans of World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings, and fantasy in general this comic is a must read. Funny, action packed, cartoony with a touch of darkness. I wrote a whole post about it here. The next is Dreamland Chronicles. This story follows Alexander who lives in two worlds. He is a normal college student during the day but when he falls asleep he returns to Dreamland, a place of his youth to try to save it. The story is indepth and Scott Christian Sava, the creator has clearly thought it through. Beautifully rendered this story is a wonderful fantasy comic.

The next of my story based comics is only partly that. Wapsi Square started out as any other webcomic with a great mix of characters and daily strips. It has evolved into an elaborate mystery involving Mayan time clocks, demons, and immortal girls. Paul Taylor creates a very interesting group of characters and I am constantly intrigued by where it will turn next. This is a great mix of touching, funny, and creepy. The last of my story-based comics is Order of the Stick. (link on the left) This comic follows a band of D&D adventurers on their quest to destroy an evil undead wizard. All the classic D&D archetypes are there: bard, warrior, rogue, wizard. The story pokes fun at the Role Playing genre with comments about random encounters, dice roles, and experience/levels. The characters play off each other well and the strip is just one adventure after another. Hilarious stuff.

Geekery

As I mentioned before I'm a geek. Actually pretty proud of that. Geeks tend to be some of the most interesting people. So I love geek comics. These are things that deal with video games, RPGs, computer stuff, fantasy, and SciFi. I have several. The most recent one is Weregeek, a comic about a reluctant gamer who is slowly drawn into the geek world while trying to keep his new game addiction a secret. I wrote a post about it here. Evil Inc is another new addition and one I've already blogged about. Set at a company for supervillians, run by supervillians this is a comic book fan's must read. Consistantly silly and funny, this pokes fun at the whole genre. PVP by Scott Kurtz is a comic about the staff of a video game magazine. This comic is filled with pop culture references, great characters, and one big blue Troll. PVP (short for Player Versus Player) is a model of geekery, discussing new video games, movies, and technology through its characters. The interactions between the characters is funny but the references are even better. The comic is currently following a separate story-arch involving a dwarven warrior and his bard.

Greg Dean's Real Life Comics follows him and his wife Liz in their daily life. Dean is a lover of all things SciFi, television, computer games, and other geekery. The strip tends to be random, jumping from idea to idea (just how life works) but the jokes are pitch perfect. You are guaranteed a good laugh with this one. XKCD is a bit of an oddity. It's not often that a webcomic is so intelligent, so interesting, that I need to go look things up after reading it. I am constantly heading towards google or a reference book after reading this very funny comic. The strip is very random jokes about computers, science, math, and physics. The drawings are mostly stick figures but the jokes are hilarious if sometimes over my head. I love that I not only laugh at this comic but get to learn a little.

Sweet

There are some comics I read for their humor and their sweetness. Little Dee by Chris Baldwin is the perfect example of this. The story follows Dee, a young girl, who is lost in the woods and befriended by a gentle bear, a sarcastic vulture, and a loveable dog. This is a comic that you will laugh at but also be touched by. The humor mostly comes from the animals playing off Vachel the vulture. This comic makes me go Awwww, so cute while I'm laughing. Another animal based story is Sandusky by John Prengaman. The story follows a mountain lion named Sandusky that was left on a man named Scott's doorstep. Scott, who lives with his husky named Bunker, can't turn the big cat away and adopts him. But as always happens Sandusky grows up and leads both Scott and Bunker on some interesting adventures. The strip is beautifully drawn and the story, which publishes three times a week, is constantly changing. The cast of characters are wonderful and Sandusky often become the butt of the jokes because of his now civilized ways.

A new comic that I've fallen in love with is Misery Loves Sherman. I wrote about it here along with Evil Inc. The story follows Sherman, a young boy who seems to always get the short end of the stick. He is joined by two aliens who live in his room, a small version of death, a bratty and often violent sister, and two parents who don't seem to understand him. Chris Eliopoulos's drawings are rounded and wonderfully cute. Sherman is an underdog that you can't help but root for. Unshelved doesn't really fit under cute but I can't quite find another place to put it. This hilarious strip follows the adventures of the librarians at the Mallville Public Library. Dewey (yes named after Melvil Dewey founder of the Dewey Decimal System) is the main character. He's a sarcastic young adult librarian who's not a huge fan of the rules and would rather be reading then helping patrons. The fantastic cast includes an overly perky children's librarian, a rule-setting straight laced library director, a technophobic reference librarian, and a large beaver who acts as both book mascot and book shelver. For a book lover and a librarian like myself this is just heaven. The strip is a great workplace comic with a ton of great book reference and SciFi references. Every Sunday the comic does a guest book review as well.

Pushing the Envelope

I know you're getting tired but I just have two more. These comics are the ones that constantly stretch the boundaries. Anything is likely to happen and often does. They are both hilarious but both could be incredibly offensive to the wrong person. The first is Sinfest by Tatsuya Ishida. This strip makes me laugh everyday. One of the funniest ones out there. The comic mostly follows Slick, a self-absorbed young man who is in love with Monique, a sexy and strong female. But the cast has pretty much everything. From the sweet Percy and Pooch (the artist's pets) to the devil and his succubi. Jesus makes regular appearances along with Buddha and God (or at least his hand which is often puppet covered). This strip will offend in so many ways. It pokes fun at religion, politics, sex, and drugs. It is incredibly risque but also incredibly funny. If you are easily offended this is not for you. If not, I guarantee you will laugh. The other I have just started reading. Least I Could Do is done by the two creators of Looking For Group. The comic follows Rayne a self-styling Don Juan. The humor is almost always focused on Rayne's attempts to have sex with pretty much every girl he meets. The comic is risque in the extreme but really funny. I laugh almost everyday at this one and am slowly working through the archives.

There you go, my current favorite webcomics all in one place. Be careful of what you ask for.