Barbaric, but With Pants on, For a Change

Belated Summer Solstice, everybody! I do not know what it is about this time of year, but I often have a knockdown drag-out fight with procrastination, and almost always around this same time of year. I start off the year well enough, working hard and efficiently on the projects and personal tasks I have at hand, and yet every year, around this time I start to slip and slide, get lazy, sleep in more often, and eventually quit working on everything! GRRR! It is as though I put myself on Summer vacation. Well this year I have resolved to stop doing it...hopefully.

There seem to be two minds on the subject of self motivation. One side claims it does not exist and you simply have to have the discipline to get out of bed in the morning, start moving your body, splash cold water on your face, jam in those ear buds and pump some high tempo music at a considerable volume, while pouring yourself a hot cup o’ Joe! To show up instead of sleeping in, basically. The other side insinuates that one can self motivate, and if one has trouble in this area, listening to motivational speakers, plundering YouTube for motivational videos, buying / reading self-help books and yes, even attending seminars will help.

I found out, from subscribing to Improvement Pill on YouTube, that what you really need is an Internal Locus of Control. In other words, if you convince yourself that you and you alone are in control of your own life and that the only thing that is going to produce results is hard work, then you will have no problem with doing what you are supposed to be doing, instead of procrastinating, playing video games, sleeping in and just plain ol’ being lazy.

The only problem is that I have actually accomplished some things. I’m whittling away at the roleplaying game, I’m losing weight, trying to stay on my diet, putting on muscle, staying busy, I practically never...almost never...play video games anymore, and my mood and sleep patterns have improved because I’m eating more fruit and vegetables with my meals, and have dramatically cut down on sodium, sugar, gluten and soy. So I get into this mindset that I need a little reward.

So take a little reward, right? And I did. I went out, bought some junk food and gorged myself in front of the tube yesterday. And do you know what happened? I felt like shit, and did not want to do a single damn thing. And do you know what I did about that? I worked on my projects anyway!

My guy here needed an upgrade after I sketched out this humorous earlier take on watercolor paper, so I’ve taken some tracing paper, and began making improvements. A curious snarling expressing with eyes too large and way too effeminate hair (Fabio, anyone?) is now replaced with a cocksure expression, better shaped eyes and a rougher almost mullet haircut. His arms are too long, but that is nothing a little turd polish (Adobe Photoshop) cannot cure. And there you go. From zero to...well not quite hero. Let’s call it less than zero! Ha! They look a little like brothers. And I also had time to ink up a new critter! (Images below) Enjoy!

That’s it for now. If you haven’t done so already, you are more than welcome to follow us on social media. Cre8v Knuckledraggr on Pinterest, #cre8vknuckledraggr on Instagram and The Creative Knuckledragger on Facebook. Thanks again, be safe and have a great weekend! Happy Friday.

SLiM All Images Copyright © Stephen L. Morris 2020 All Rights Reserved

But Isn’t She...Pretty in...Gray??

 At the risk of modesty, this is probably the cutest little female character I’ve ever made. The improved version, that is. The original sketch was...not great. You see, when you draw a figure on 8.5” x 11” or 9” x 12” paper, your figure’s head is going to be fairly small. I found mine was way too small, and ended up with a distorted and unattractive face! I find 3” or larger is an ideal size for a good face, and it always helps to use a larger pad of paper. These days 8.5” x 11” or 9” x 12” is usually something I prefer to sketch on.

So obviously I re-worked the face a lot, though there’s still room for improvement. Sigh. The mouth on the original drawing was horrendous, so I made one from scratch using the mouse in Photoshop. In fact a lot of the new face was done by playing around with the Rectangular Marquee tool in PS. Don’t do it that way!!! Get yourself a Wacom tablet and draw everything the right way, correcting it all by hand. You’ll save yourself a ton of grief. It sucks being separated from my equipment, so I do a lot of making do.

For what it’s worth, at this point, the improved version is decent, minus the spidery line work, likely from the use of so old a scanner and Photoshop version. My computer has a newer version of PS, but won’t work with this house’s antiquated scanner. If I had Adobe Illustrator, I could make improved line work from scratch. But here we are.

Lastly, the texture for the wings is from a royalty free image of frosted glass. I simply created a symmetrical version of it in PS and brightened it up a bit. The finished result is the makings of a cute Fairy girl with a lousy haircut. Some day I shall have to learn how to draw women’s short, spiky, punky hairstyles. She does remind me a little bit of Sadie Sink, the actress that plays Max in Stranger Things. I don’t know why that is.

That’s it for now. If you haven’t done so already, you are more than welcome to follow us on social media. Cre8v Knuckledraggr on Pinterest, #cre8vknuckledraggr on Instagram and The Creative Knuckledragger on Facebook. Thanks again, be safe and have a great weekend! Happy Friday.

SLiM All Images (Below) are Copyright 

© Stephen L. Morris 2020 All Rights Reserved.

Superhuman Recurrences

Throughout my life, circumstances have placed me in this or that predicament where I was required to be stronger in some way, than I currently was. For example, the lesson I eventually learned from being bullied was that I had to be a tougher, faster, smarter and more confident kid than I was at the time. When I walked around with my shoulders slumped forward, looking like a victim, I looked like an easy target to bullies. That’s why I was bullied. And the lesson I learned from watching my loved ones die or go through life-threatening diseases required a different type of strength. I didn’t always necessarily need this strength for myself, but for those loved ones, and their family.

And every time I encountered these predicaments where I was required to be better than I was, the symbol of the Superman Shield was present in some way. It was in comic books, television, in the movies, in music, in video games, on t-shirts, ball caps, cereal boxes, in a cartoon, or a toy I collected, or a sticker I put on my Trapper Keeper. And the symbol of Superman was always there in some fashion.

Around 2001, I decided I had to have the Superman shield somewhere in my house or on my person at all times. It’s a philosophy I’m grateful to have adopted, though others might see me with a Superman shirt on and think “he likes the movies,” etc. I smile, but choose not to elaborate, because not everybody is going to get you and where you come from.

These days superheroes seem to be everywhere, so it's a small wonder of the difficulties we face on a daily basis. But without going through everything that has happened, I want to challenge each and every one of you to try as hard as you can to be better than you already are. Try your damnedest to be the best version of yourself you can be. And I know you can do it!!!! And when times are tough...when all hell breaks loose...when it seems like the end of days...look for the Superman logo in your life.

Be safe everybody, and thanks for reading! Link below.

SLiM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_logo