Grrr. Arrrgh.

Sorry, it's not a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" sketch (though that's not a bad idea, now that you mention it. Thanks!). It is, however, a 'fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer' sketch.

This is a preliminary sketch of a picture I ultimately did for my friend Thad's birthday last year. Every year, a group of friends and I take a trip down to Chincoteague Island. Last year's trip happened to almost coincide with Thad's birthday. Never a group to pass up an excuse for a party, we decided to celebrate the birthday a little early. Thad's a man of many different tastes, and we wanted to get him something that would be fun, birthday-worthy, and memorable. Once we ruled out the showgirls, we settled on Calvin and Hobbes. For those of you who don't know Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes... well, shame on you. Really. There's no excuse. Go look it up, buy the books, or something, then come back.

Seriously, you should be ashamed.

Okay, glad you're back.

Anyway, I also thought that, instead of buying a birthday card, We could make one, one that could fit in with the theme. So, one Google search later, I found some good Calvin and Hobbes reference material, and decided to make Thad a comic strip character. I found this great quote about aging (via Skottie Young's website) that seemed to fit perfectly with both the birthday and with Thad himself (it's that old adage: 'Growing old is required; Growing up is optional') So you get a picture of Thad acting goofy, and wearing a BPRD t-shirt (Hellboy is another character Thad likes). If you look closely, you can see another face I tried out, before ultimately picking what you've got in front of you. Oh- the ovals to the right are me testing out a brush-tipped pen before I started inking the picture.

There you go. Lots of words for a birthday card. We all had a good time. The company and the cake were excellent.

In other news, tonight was another art experiment- you should see the results of that in the near future.

Music: "Birthday" - The Beatles

(yeah, I know it was months ago, but I just posted an entire post about a birthday card! what else would I put?!?)