In the very first post on this blog, Ricks spoke about shadows, but despite that, for a year my sheep have floated in the air.

At various times I've tried various ways to add a shadow and put their feet on the ground. But nothing's really worked, especially when they had no hooves.

The other day I tried this and quite like it:

It's very subtle but it's meant to be. Hopefully no-one will notice it, but it'll just indicate subconsciously that they girls are firmly planted on the grass.

Does it work? Does it highlight the fact that they only have two legs, and look a bit odd for that reason? Does it look odd that there's a shadow there but nowhere else?

Posting pictures of your dinner

I left Facebook. Maybe I'm a grumpy old stick but I truly believe that no-one really likes to look at pictures of other people's babies, cats and dinners. (Don't get me started on "like and share if..."). Anyway. When I imagined what a sheep's dinner would look like if posted on social media, that made me chuckle because of course it would be just a green square. 

The second panel is obviously a Facebook screenshot with some photoshopping. The first frame is a stock image of two sheep. The speech bubble and frames took no time at all.

The line about something truly remarkable getting 3 likes but a picture of breakfast getting lots isn't original but I saw it done very well recently - can't credit that artist because I don't know who they are, but thank you, mystery cartoonist.

Throwback Thursday - comparison one year on

 This is the second 'throwback Thursday'. I've gone to the very first cartoon, the one that started it all. I was then using pen and paper and scanning that in. They were originally deliberately crude in style (that's my story). They look so different now.

 The style has become more refined. I've experimented with more detail and some colour, but I really like the "cloud on two sticks" style that I started with and don't want to let that go.

 This has a surreal aspect to it (mixing sheepy things and human things for an absurd result) that I really liked, but haven't always kept sight of.

This is the world we live in folks.

I was pleased to get back to a single-framer.

As far as the drawing goes, it's very lazy, I only had to add eyebrows to a 'stock' frame. I decided to write the word 'sarcastic' into the bubble because I wasn't sure that it was clear enough that she isn't being serious about changing her name. Or maybe that's spelling it out a bit too much? (pun intended!)

This one was inspired by a true story (or at least something I read on Wikipedia). I fell off my chair laughing at the tale of guitarist Rik Emmett changing the spelling of his name after it was misspelled on the cover of Triumph's first album. "...rather than have the album recalled or cause confusion with fans..." That's very accommodating of him. When I told my mum this story, she said "it could have been worse" which made me laugh even harder than I did at the original story.

A search of the web for possible misspellings of 'Yvonne' turned up a page of gaffes by Starbucks employees. I wonder how that Yvonne felt about having Evan written on her cup?

As humans, the lazier of us are pretty prone to making compromises or workarounds rather than properly fixing our own mistakes, hence Maureen jumping at the chance to avoid her paperwork.

Watch & Learn

Area 5.1 Comic - Watch & Learn

I genuinely am intrigued by my Tomtom fitness watches ability to monitor sleep. It has a heart rate monitor that shines a light onto my wrist to pick up blood pulses, but over night this sensor isn't lit. Right now I have no idea how it works.

It's seemed to me the basis of a cartoon, and all I needed was a punchline.

Area 5.1 - Watch & Learn (5th Nov 2016)

To the Punch

My working punchline was,...

LGM1: "It even tells me how much sleep I'm getting, but I have no idea how it knows"
LGM2: "You'd better not wear it at work then"

In retrospect it didnt feel like a very good joke, so I went with something inspired by snoring. And for a watch loaded with sensors I think it's a better idea.

Drawing Style

I'm sticking with the two-tone shading, and this time I went slightly bolder. It gives the impression of them standing in a harsher light. I went with an empty background because it didnt feel important, and it gives it a very clean style. The only difference from a normal set of LGM's was the inclusion of the headband.

Throwback Thursday #1

This is the first 'throwback Thursday'. This is a rework of one of my favourite Yvonne cartoons, not the first but very early. The original is #4, here.

I've not changed the text at all, I really like the joke and I still think it's worded well. The surreal element is a style I really wanted to run with, maybe I've lost sight of that a little. It's the drawing style that I wanted to update here. My early drawings look very crude now. It's been a year, I'm looking forward to looking back on this one in a year's time.

I've also changed the layout. For two frames I used to place them horizontally adjacent, but I've since found that the vertical scroll works well.

Reworking some of the older ones also gives some of the older cartoons another airing. I'm planning to revisit one of the early cartoons each thursday.

Rainbow poop

The lastest Yvonne was inspired by seeing some messy berry-coloured bird-poop splattered around the place. The thought of it coming out of our birds like stripey toothpaste amused me!

My initial sketch had a single square frame divided diagonally. (I still feel an urge to fit each into a single square frame if I can because that was my original vision for this cartoon) But there's something to be gained from seeing the first frame and taking that in, before scrolling down and seeing the 'reveal'.

Drawing trees / hedges bearing fruit using the very simple style I've established was the hard part and It certainly could be better.