pretty scary, huh?

It's Monday, it's Halloween, it's cloudy, damp, and raining, and it's my last week of AFCS 100 training for the USPS.

Over at the Rat Fink Yahoo Group, somebody poised the question of how the ol' Finkster would disguise himself on Halloween. Here's my two best guesses.

Slightly bummed that none of my posters made the finals in the IMDB contest, but I knew that it was a long shot.

balsa vapors

With almost cartoonish cause and effect, chilly weather blows in the same day Standard Time does.

Here's a rough sketch for an ad for a proposed Fun Rockets comeback. Note the deletion of the Zoomie and the addition of the Hyperbolic Tangent and the Whorl to the line. Also the hopeful addition of the Swinger II (although, theoretically better than the regular Swinger, the development of that thing is taking longer rather than shorter).

At the time, Barry F. was claiming that he was looking into some balsa suppliers and cycling the company back into making real kits.

Then he disappeared into the vapors....

I was halfway productive in getting some Captain Saucer pencils done yesterday (for once!). Will attempt to top myself today. First, I will have to revise a scripted scene.

cosmic classics

Daylight savings ends tonight and there is the possibility of early snow. Two more back-hoe scoops of dirt on the coffin of summer.

Speaking of dead things, here's more Holverson Designs stuff. The back side of yesterday's flyer, featuring the "Cosmic Classics". These were inspired by the old Centuri Fantasy Fleet and Super Fleet, except with a more retro Sci-Fi groove. The fleet was planned to have more kits added to it over the years.

If I had to do it over again, the BT-50 sized kits would be 4/3 bigger to more satisfying BT-56/ST-13 sizes. And, or course, handle the Fun Rockets situation differently.

sunspot

The class trip "fell" through. I finished up a Captain Saucer page and started another instead.

Here's a look at one side of the flyer for the proposed Holverson Designs kits for 2000. These never came out because of the Fun Rocket entanglement. Sunspot was sort of a retro-'70s Centuri sport flyer. Would be a 4/3 bigger around a ST-13/BT-56 body tube if I had to design in again.

launch-boy

Here's a mockup for a model rocket launch controller that was designed to be a Fun Rockets product but it got lost in the shuffle of that company going under. Dubbed the "Launch-boy", this mockup was shipped to China and never seen again. It was sort of a faux Bauhaus knockoff of that Quest controller that uses the nine volt transistor battery. Mine had an extra LED in it to fulfill a token "originality" requirement and at least let a person know if they have power if the continuity LED doesn't come on.

May or may not go on a "class trip" to a gentleman's club with some of the other trainees tonight. I don't think that I've been to one since the early '90s with my cousin and a high school buddy.

i oughta be in movies

It's hump-day and I have the ten posters pictured here entered in the IMDB.com contest. Please vote for one of them following this link and then clicking on the gallery button. Thanks!

By the way, the themes that pop up seem to be retro futures, animation, and boat anchor engineering applied to fan-service. Being gaga for Googie seems to weigh heavily in my retro future visions, despite that style being slightly before my time. There's also a retro future based on 2001 as seen from 1976. I was 16 that year.

by association....

Although this isn't a Space Case, it was done between the HP-Compaq closure and the Victorian inventor. I was in Lincoln, Nebraska, hanging with Pat Moriarity and Dale Ashmun and this was one of three pictures that I drew in Dale's sketchbook. Inspiration bit hard during an intermission of a Charlie Burton concert and I drew it sprawled across the seats of the Farmer's Cadillac II on that sweltering August dog day. The engine is the cliched huffed and flame belching Hemi, but it's such a good cliche! The character is a whacked out version of Zader Jader from the Greater Beta Crater. The usual version of him is seen as a background gag in that picture of Flexia riding the flying saucer in the October Archives. I believe that he is an original character that I created in the late '80s, but I wouldn't be surprised if I unconsciously recycled some throw-away background character from some reprint of a '50s Mad material, perhaps penned by Wood or Freas.

The other two drawings in Dale's book were done at his house, earlier in the day. One was a prototype of the B.Q./Becky Nyu character as a morbidly obese nekomimi with glasses in full Mel Allen Sink mode. The other was a head shot of Flexia.

blown a gasket

Today the weather is prankishly both sunny and chilly. Like Old Man Winter is sending reminders about how he is soon coming uninvited and boorishly dominate our human party.

Had an AFCS 100 bug repair assignment get sidetracked by a machine shelling out a bearing this morning.

Here is the last of the Space Cases, drawn a few weeks after the HP plant closing in Omaha. This one had a parody Verne vibe with a Victorian inventor with more screws loose than his invention. There's a bit of Terry Gillium influence here, but those beady little cartoon eyes set in big dark sunken sockets work better in his wonderfully bastardized paper cut-outs of old time photos. This also got a little over-involved with all that mock-19th Century hatching. Of all the drawings that I ever did, this is Pat Moriarity's favorite. More spoofing of hot rod monster convention since the engine is a cartoon spoof of a Corliss. Not to mention aeolipile spoofs.

Has anybody actually seen a real aeolipile, outside of some arcane etching in some dictionary or textbook? I've seen other arcane "roundy-round" devices like Wymhurst machines, Cooks tube radiometers, brass ball governors, cup anemometers, etc. in museums and the like, but never an aeolipile!

because the first 10537 overtures were failures....

It's overcast, and I've had the 10538 Overture stuck in my head on and off for the past few days. I will make a futile attempt trying to get caught up in drawing Wingding and Captain Saucer.

Since these Spaces Cases have been posted in chronological order, here's a rough
sketch of an Anime based one. This was drawn during a incongruous feel good employee meeting back in Omaha in July 2004 about the upcoming Hewlett-P plant closing and unemployment. This also includes a cartoon steam tractor and a cat girl that looks well fed despite not liking cheesecake (it's a loopy Woody Woodpecker reference).

I was at HP until the last day and literally built the last computer at the Omaha plant. It was a ML-330 with an extra processor and hard drive.

What slightly burns me is that when HP closed their plants in Europe, all sorts of politicians came out to take token stands against it. Not a single politician from either party in the US said anything.

And I'm still sore about how both major parties snubbed rural America during the farm crisis of the '80s.

stepped a beat

Today is warmer and less breezy. The weather and changing seasons seem to effect my mood a lot more now than they did when I was a kid or teen.

Did my scannings at Wal-Mart last night and then came out to have my heart skip a beat at the sight of a white and silver Dodge pickup with a front corner crumpled in. I was relieved to discover that it wasn't my own "Farmer's Cadillac II" which was nicely unscathed a few parking spaces over.

Couldn't find the Lowe's that was supposedly "kitty corner, up the block"...

I have a few posters entered in the IMDB Poster Contest. Please vote for them.

Here is the third and last Space Case that was drawn at Indy, a really retro spoof of the early Mercury chimp flights. Also spoofing hot rod monsters art itself by replacing the exaggerated shift lever and fire belching engine with a balky lawn mower engine with a pull starter. A coworker asked why this 'toon had electrodes on his nipples. I said because it's squarely in the bad taste tradition of these things.

It also looks stupid and painful.

So, what was the point of wiring the Mercury capsules to shock the monkey?

jacket weather

There's a north wind blowing in jacket weather and reminding me that winter is rapidly approaching. I'm going to Wal-Mart after work and abusing the Fuji Film Photo kiosk to scan in some more drawings. I'm also going to Lowe's and getting some Elmer's Fill 'n' Finish for my model rockets.

Here's the next Space Case, also drawn during my stay at Hewlett-Packard Indianapolis. After the "NASA" drawing, I went to an office supply store and bought a set of disposable technical pens so that this guy has more variation in line width. The engine is a really old school hot rod flat-head V8 Ford with those triple little vintage two barrel carburetors and lake pipes. The "Cosmic Commie" is also a bit of a shift from pure cartoon monster art into the realm of human caricature (I consider "NASA" to be more monster than human). He's also a bit of a retro relic from the Cold War. Plus he was also influenced by the crazy cosmonaut from the movie Armageddon.

People who are into model rocketry for the fire and smoke tend to like that movie. People in the hobby for the rocket science in miniature tend to dislike it. And I now gravitate towards making these Bauhaus/Zen minimalist flying wing boost gliders as aerial art....

Then there's recreating the fantasy kits that I didn't buy when I was a kid and wished that I had.

is it wednesday or thursday?

You know how the days can get blurred together during the work week...

Here's the second of the Space Cases. This was drawn during the slack time during the two weeks that Compaq put me in a motel to work in their Indianapolis plant in the end of July 2004. That didn't advance my career any, put my life is probably modestly richer because of the experience.

This guy was sort of influenced by the "Safety Tip" cartoon character in the early '80s Estes catalog. Saftey Tip even popped up in their Apple ][ software. Maybe my guy is his evil fraternal twin. The engine is an earlier small block Chebbie with chrome valve covers and a Holley four barrel. Looks (too) familiar...

I also realized that I live in an time where you can see both the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in less than a hour's span on the flight over there.

fink different

Here's the first of my proposed Space Cases model rockets, the "Unhinged Flying Oddball". It was drawn up over Thanksgiving of 2003. It features a Jimmie huffered old school Hemi with the sight gag of two nuclear reactors in the place of dual carburetors. Although one could wonder why a rocket or UFO would need a hopped up V8.

I had a series of AFCS labs this morning and regular ol' class on deck for this afternoon.

Been getting in about three hours of drawing a day like I have been for the past few days. Add a sketch or two to my sketch book and then pencil in the good part of a page for the Captain Saucer revival. The Captain Saucer has mostly all new designs and they still haven't settled into staying on model yet.

space cases

Some of the lost products from the aborted Holverson Designs revival are the Space Cases. These were inspired by the old Estes Goony Birds but jacked up to a Rat Fink style hot rod monster level. Some of the designs in progress will be posted over the next few days.

Spent the morning learning how to adjust the cameras on the AFCS 100.

soaring failure

It's Monday and I'm back in the grind. Had an AFCS lab with an AFCS that wasn't cooperating....

Here's a revised kit card for a Holverson Designs comeback that looks like it is never going to happen.

I had so much time and money and effort and my life involved in that. I deserved better than what I got...

more dumpy characters

Cycling away from the big boob art and back to the big foot art, more sketches of the cast of the Dumpy Little Princess. They are in, in order: Dumpy Little Princess' Parents; the Prince's Parents; first draft of Prince's Guardsman, not to be used; first draft of the Dungeon Guard, not to be used; the dumb but dutiful Messenger when Dumpy was sending threatening love letters to the Prince was fast as she could write them and the Prince was guillotining them as fast as he could; the Constable that collared Dumpy after keying the Prince's royal carriage; the Prince's Guardsman, revised, who ejected Dumpy from the Prince's party that she paid for; and the Dungeon Guard, revised, for when Dumpy was grounded after attempting suicide, stalking the Prince, and angrily throwing cat-food at him.

Did do well but not great on last Friday's killer test. Don't know whether to be happy because I did well, or to be bummed because I didn't do great. :\

whoa momma!

While Leian Warrior Women are among the most formidable fighters in the universe, their mothers are much meaner....

Leonina Bast, Flexia's mother.

Probably the best pen & ink of my life and it had to be on graph paper and it had to be an bit harsh and odd looking minor character.

Will try to pencil in a whole lot of Captain Saucer and Wingding this weekend.

Like if you can have any less than a whole lot of Wingding....

heavy duty beauty

Filling in another gap today by uploading my most favorite creation of all time, Flexia Bast. This is a possible cover or poster for the Workhorse Comics revival of InterStellar OverDrive.

However, I'm not wholly happy with the face. It's a little harsh and very slightly off model, but I can't put my finger on how to fix it.

This afternoon, I'm facing a big hairy test that has been nicknamed "The Ace Buster".

spambots

Does anybody ever post comments here besides the spambots?

Here's an early '90s depiction of Sophia, colored with markers, back in my Tohru Nishimaki wanna be mode. Along with Alice Chalmers/"Studezon" character. Studezons was an aborted project that was spun off from the Scapegoat era, aborted "Whatever Happened to Fanboy?" Studezons then spun off the finished Galactic Gazongas that an adult comic company reneged on its promise of publishing.

Sophia started was a weird parody amalgam of Gozer from Ghostbusters, Spideria from He-Man, and the Witch Queen from Richard Corben's Den for my own Epic F*U*N with Fanboy. At least in that era, I tried to do some fun things with some bad crazy.

Like Studezon being Studebaker + amazon, two of my most favorite and most desired and beauteous things in the universe.

Variations on the character were Joanie Miro, a pun based on a comment made by a stupid indie comic publisher critiquing my comics back in the '80s, and then there's the more chunkified "Bossy" from an aborted attempt at a Milkmaids of Mars sequel.

q: are we not men?

A: Sophia Hagia and the Boyoids, villains from the proposed Captain Saucer story, "Mars Needs New Wave E.P.s!"

"There's a New Wave comin', I warm ya!
So why don't ya move to east Nemonia?
We're the kids from Nix Olympia!
(Whoa-oh!)
We're the kids from Nix Olympia!
(Whoa-oh!)"

(Hint for the oblivious: they're Martians, not Elfmimi!)

Noticed that all my previous postings were in black & white, so I added some color. I just tend to think of my drawings as being in black and white because of my long legacy in small press comics and apazines back in the '80s and '90s. Xerography kind of kept everyone rigidly monochrome, or looking like mud.

It's sunnier and warmer today, but you sure can still feel the seasons change, anyway.

radiation spawned comics

It's another damp day at the USPS training center here at Norman, Oklahoma.

Anyway, at a loss at what to post today, so I will post this sketch from '89 or '90. It's sort of a mutant recombinant Googie/Manga/New Wave thingie featuring an odd take on a minor InterStellar OverDrive character who really is sort of a Cyclopean elfmimi. This was back when I was on the road as a nuclear bowl jumper for Westinghouse. Many comic characters have been exposed to lots of radiation, but very few comic creators.

mixed mood

I'm in sort of a mixed mood today. It's cloudy and damp and cooler and my light table is on the fritz. I will fix the table when I score a screw driver. I'm trying to get psyched up for when AFCS classes resume tomorrow.

Here's a sketch of an alien monster dude having nasty thoughts about a carburetor. Maybe because it's only got one wimpy barrel. The alien monster is loosely based on one that I created back in second grade.

PS: Love the spell checking built into Mac OS X. Good thing this computer is smart enough to spell, 'cause I sure ain't. ;)

If you really were my friend you would have liked me and been on my side!

First draft character designs for a Jay Ward Fractured Fairy Tales pastiche called "The Dumpy Little Princess". The bodies are probably too big for their heads.

Saw "The Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird" on a dollar DVD last night. A pretty oddball and obscure French animated feature. Has sort of a proto-Miyazaki groove going on with odd images, high places, odd flying things (including bat winged policemen!) and vehicles, and even a giant robot!

puffing away....

Here's a rough sketch of a fantasy scene, brought in under 40-45 minutes. With an 1890's steam powered attempt at an airplane. Kind of reminds me of an illustration from a '60s children's story book. Or maybe Napoleon Dynamite's algebra notes...

Spent so far today trying to shake a migrane. Will get drawing after dinner.

anywho....

There are tons of cartoon and comics blogs by comics and cartoon professionals. Here's one by an electronic techician for the USPS.

Mel Allen Sink is the name on my original birth certificate. Nearly everything else says Doug Holverson.

Here's my quick 'n' dirty that I drew on the 4th. Love that Googie style!