Old School VS New School

I decided to try something new with a charcoal illustration I did today. I think I've been hanging out with Carl too much, he's starting to influence my doodles now... not that it's a bad thing at all... I was always such a purest and wouldn't think of touching (or retouching) a charcoal illo but there I went and messed around with my Carnage. This is the original... It seemed to take forever for some reason. I think it was a combination of the fact that it's been 11 days since I got dirty... 11 days of tattoo after tattoo (the busy season is upon me)... I had in my head that Carnage is red not black and it was honestly driving me bats that I don't know how to paint and don't have the time to give it a whirl at the moment either... oh yeah and did I mention I didn't pick up charcoals in a week and a half, I thought I forgot how to draw for awhile there.
The original turned out pretty well I thought but I still felt it needed to be red and it was driving me mad and since I can barely paint a wall, the best I could do was to run I some filters over it and came up with this revamped version.
I have to admit that I'm actually torn between the two. The colorized version was super quick, just messing around with the filters of which I don't know how to navigate at all, so I'm thinking the more I use them the end result will look better than this, quicker, and less head scratching and cigarette smoking. But again I'm really torn... First off I have never digitally colorized a piece before so this is brand new territory for me... Second I think it might look good, but I'm not sure. Third, I think I might need a graph pad to do this right if I want to continue to do it... I decided to post both the original and the colorized version as a print on ETSY... not that anyone cares but hey hey it's worth a shot right? Feedback is a good thing too, so I'm hoping to get some input either in chat, convo, or here... as far as I'm concerned everything I do sucks, but we all know we're our own worst critics.

Ok, so thoughts on this PLEASE... should I continue to colorize/enhance/digi/whatever the originals and offer them as prints or just quit while I'm ahead?

Oh yeah and feel free to check out the rest of my Illos:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/DrStrychnine?section_id=6974795

Progression, Nostalgia, and I'm Wearing Pants!

Today I did a bit more work on my Nana and Pops memorial tattoo... I finished the boy swallow. I was really pleased with the colors on this one as well. These colors are significant to both me and my Pop.

I remember when I was about 8 my Pop had this great old Caddy (he loved his Cadillacs). Well he had it painted in these great retro colors, green and blue. He was so proud when he brought it home from the shop so off he went to cruise around and show it off. WELL, when he brought it up to our house my Dad took one look at it and almost fell over laughing. Dad thought it was the ugliest color scheme he ever saw... I on the other hand thought that it was the most bad ass car I ever laid eyes on. Pop took me for a drive... we went for ice cream and mini golf and I thought I was the coolest kid alive as we drove around listening to Dean Martin the world seemed to just go away. My Pop was one in a million... he was an immigrant from Cornwall, England... he had the best accent and a deep growl to his voice. He was silly and yet refined at the same time. He never left the house without wearing a suit and tie and a pocket full of Tic Tacs (orange). He drove fast and drove till the day he died with an accumulation of speeding tickets to rival any stock car driver. I like to blame my Pop for my obession with mid century vintage, especially cars, more over Cadillacs. Pop was the senior citizen equivillant of the Transporter... he was saying "respect a man's car" in the 80's. He was the coolest. He resembled Anthony Hopkins, but a 6'2" version, slender, completely bald, moved like a cat. Spoke with authority and yet there was a kindness you could feel in his voice. And he had the bluest eyes I had ever seen in my life, they would smile when he laughed. Pop was a cool cat, to the day he died he was just cool, he oozed it.

This was pretty brutal to do on myself. I had my left leg twisted around to the left kicked out on the bed in the Bat Cave, very attractive to watch I'm sure. Another tattoo done on cam with Carl... OMG and his mom walked in while he was watching me work. At least I had pants on... that could've been far worse than it was considering I sat all morning in my undies playing Dead Rising, but all I can think now is she must think I'm bat shit crazy. I'm a bit embarassed tho I'm told it's cool still I feel like a crazy American girl corrupting her English gentleman son and now his mom knows it... EEEEK! Story of my life...

The tattoo is definately moving along as sketched although it's running into days instead of one sitting... now the healling process and in 3-4 weeks the banner will be added. Should've stuck with the yoga... maybe i wouldn't be so damn sore right now. I feel like I was beat up from the 2 days and 4 hours of twisting like a preztel. At least I get a break from it for a couple weeks, that is unless I start on my other leg.

Mental Health Day

So today I decided to take a mental health day. I think it was a subconcious thing cause today was the 75 anniversary of The Bride of Frankenstein. For me a day off needs to be scheduled weeks in advance or theres this ridiculous amount of juggling clients around... so yeah, I'm leaning towards the subconcious... a Thursday night without a tattoo appointment hasn't happened in over a year.

Wednesday night I busted my ass I had a late night with a huge back piece and I wasn't done until 1 am and then I kicked out Etsy orders for the past 3 days and crashed at 4 am... overslept... woke up 15 mins before it was time to get Brad to school, but somehow we made it. We have mastered the art of the mad dash, yes we have. Off to school and oh the sweet silence of a teenage boy free home... well it wasn't silent but it was my kinda noise. I lumped around for 3 hrs dinking coffee, smoking cigs, watching my own little Munsters marathon and then decided to get cracking on a little self medicating.

Oh yes, I love to self medicate... and what is the Dr's drug of choice you might wonder... well INK of course. I'd been tossing around a couple ideas between my head and Carl and last minute decided to start on my memorial tattoo for my Nana and Pop. I was initially leaning towards a Sailor Jerry swallow design but then when I got the pencil in my hand I went my own route. It's a bit of a mix between old and new school, much like me... the final design is two swallows, a girl and a boy, with a curled ribbon with Lottie on top and George on the bottom.
I initially intended to have the entire piece done today but that was just not happening. this swallow is on the outside of my left calf and I was contorted into the most uncomfortable position ever... my leg was falling asleep, my hip was stuck, my back was aching... so I resigned myself to this being a work in progress. I'm hoping to finish the "boy" swallow tomorrow and after they heal I'll add the banner. It really is a tough thing to tattoo yourself. I notice my lines are scratchy when I tattoo myself but on others they are solid and clean. It's not like i can position myself comfortably to work like i would on a customer so i kinda am ok with the not so perfect work when its on me and the great thing is I can just go back later and clean it up if I have to.

This is the second tattoo I've done on cam with Carl... it's a whole new experience for me. I never have let anyone see me work on myself and 90% of my tattoos were done by me. Not even my son is privvy to watching me tattoo myself. Kinda a phobia I have... just one more thing Carl has been helping me get past, whether he knows it or not.

Ok, it's late... I'm wiped out. I'll post more tat pics as the piece progresses.
Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!
OUT!

Hey is this thing on?

Ok so here we go... the blogs maiden voyage....
I have no idea what I'm doing btw. I tried posting a couple vids and seriously folks I'm starting to think I'm special... you know the special of which I speak too... helmet, window licking, little bus... yeah, thats me. So no video for now, just that pic right there of me this morning, good and pissed off at the fucking birds chirping outside... little fuckers woke me up. I hate nature.

So yes another day, another week, almost nearly another month had passed since i started this account without so much as a post so i figured I better do something quick or the blog police might freeze my account... do they do that? IDK, I would do that to me. I'm hoping to be less caffeinated and less frustrated this weekend so that I can give the video a proper go. Last one was an epic fail because not only was I severely camera shy, I looked more wretched than that pic up there, I had nothing to say (probably cause I was so pissed off about the other one being unusable), not to mention throughout the vid my chair was shaking like Haiti from my dumb dog Manson who decided it was time for Battle Royale with Rope Thing (I like to name inanimate objects yes i do)... vid scrapped, didn't even make it to the cutting room.

I blame this comp... I do. It's new to me... I got it in December, just before Hexmas when everything was stupid cheap. It's really an awesome laptop, it's an HP G-60. I hadn't touched it tho till 2 months ago. Basically my kid was using it to play games on and I was using the MAC and the desktop...... Then Dr. Strychnine needed the web cam..... that's a story for another day ;D So yeah I'm just kinda getting to know this comp at the moment, and switching between 3 comps and 2 different operating systems takes talent, talent of which I don't posses at the moment.

It has become my mission this weekend to:
1. Get drunk
2. Clean my house
3. Post a video blog
4. Wash my car
5. Post some more art
Not in that order

Ok, far too much typing for 6 am.
BeetleJuice! BeetleJuice! BeetleJuice!
Fuck! I'm still here, that never works...