Tastyalmonds Original Sketches!

So here's where it all began. At first I started reading books while sitting in the mall, but I couldn't anything much more beyond that with them. As a result, I started sketching after a couple months and a dozen or more books had been read. I've scanned and compiled all of my original artwork and uploaded it all here for you to see. All of these drawings were on 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper with a standard pencil. I've included some comments and other thoughts in the links for your consideration. Hope you like 'em!

First sketch - Simple shapes. Got great feedback from a couple of customers, so I started drawing more stuff. This is when I began really considering doing a comic strip.

Three fems - After finishing the shapes sketches over the course of a couple of days, I tried to draw one of the girls from the bookstore. Unfortunately I had to do it from memory, I don't think she was working that day, and as a result they look nothing like her. If any of them do, the one on the bottom could be considered "close".

Crazy Heads - I've never been great at drawing lips, so I thought I'd practice a bit. On most of these I just decided to exaggerate and make them and unreal as possible, sort of a way to determine what I was doing wrong by doing it wrong on purpose.

More random sketches - Working on some more sketching. The hat was at the hat store in front of the booth. The stylized light from the real estate booth in front and to the left of me. Other stuff is just mall related or completely random.

Girl from jewelry store - Another exercise in realistic drawing. This was one of the girls at a neighboring jewelry store. She never talked to me, but she always smiled if she walked past or if we were both just hangin' out in our respective shops looking out into the (seemingly) empty mall. Technically, I haven't finished this sketch (her hair was wavy and curly, not straight and flat).

Concept sketch of Tastyalmonds - The first ideas put to paper.

The First Comic sketch - Here it is folks! The very first ever comic strip I drew. I'll be redoing it on the computer with my finished characters eventually. Same with the other ones that I drew.

Strip Number 2 - After the Thanksgiving holiday/week I got back to drawing my strips. It really can get this boring working in a mall.

Character work - I had known from the beginning that I needed cleaner, better looking characters, so I tried a couple different styles before settling on the one I'm currently using. Here I am the center of this universe :-P

Other Characters - I began working on the other (soon to be) main characters. These are of the old style, but I've got the new and improved ones on the computer, awaiting some final touches and color. There are elements of chars here from Chris, Wayne, Kate, Mike, Bobby, Ruth, Ryan, the jewelry girl and so on.

More Character work - Lots of facial expressions here. Learning about making simple lines and dots to be expressive of characters' moods.

Strip Number 3 - I seriously thought about this while roasting almonds. Though never hit, I did see pieces of almonds fly out of the machine. Should I be wearing a safety mask? Body armor? were the questions always in the back of my mind after seeing that first projectile.

Strip Number 4 - Yes folks, crime does happen in a mall. Though I don't think anyone ever stolen any almonds from me, they did manage to steal our digital scale the first week we were there :-( I had gone to do the dishes at Tacos, Etc. in the Food Court and when I returned the Plexiglas in the back was popped in. I didn't know what had occurred exactly, but I needed help to put the plexi back up and recruited Chris to put it back in. It wasn't till we were done that I noticed the scale missing. After a few choice words I calmed down and we got a hold of security and all they could do was take a report. We got a replacement a week later, but at a costly $240 to get it. Had I been around when the thieving bastards had made their move, I surely would have run them down and tackled them just like Nicole from Foot Locker did to one sorry sap. Nicole was my hero the day she did that :-) Don't worry, I'll have her in a strip eventually too.

Strip Number X - Labeled 'X' because it's not numbered or any part of a series. Something of a tribute to a cartoonist (Greg Dean) whose style heavily influenced mine.

Greg Dean Practice - My attempts at drawing Greg Dean and myself standing next to each other and just shootin' the breeze. The very top left Greg head was traced from a printout, but I didn't like the way it looked, so I drew it over and over by hand until I got one that I liked. What's interesting is that I'm not very good at tracing anymore, not like when I was a kid and was the expert tracer :-P I was also still working on getting my hairstyle transferred to the comic caricature.

Kate and her head - I don't know what it was about Kate's head and face, but I just could not get it down for the longest time. I think it might have had something to do with her glasses, but I'm still not sure. In any event, I finally got the elements of her hair and glasses down to something I thought looked good. She was pretty excited when I showed it to her. She borrowed it and went and made a bunch of copies!

More Character development - Let's see, from left to right and top down: Chris, his son Blake, Bobby, Ernest (whose mustache I forgot for like a week!), Mike the security guard, Mike from Tacos, Etc., the Bookstore Beauty (the BB), and the jewelry girl.

Even More Chars - I knew lots of people at the mall :-) and these are just more of the regular ones that I saw almost every day. I've got Ryan in two different outfits, jewelry guy, Daryl the pottery guy, the BB again, and Connie the doll lady.

And still more - This set includes Lynne the pottery lady, Steve the doll guy, Roger the chessmaster of the mall, Robert my roommate (the only non-mall character so far), Chuck the real estate agent, and Jason the other real estate agent.

Energizer bunny anyone? - Heh, just when you thought I was done, more characters! Ruth the sec. guard, another bookstore girl, Tom's assistant at the wildlife picture booth (another forgotten name, and no char for Tom yet... argh), Mike the helicopter guy, and finally Santa's lil' helper. Btw, that's three Mike's, though there was at one time a second security guard named Mike...

Famous Musician! - The famous and great musician Ruminahui was in the mall during the Christmas season. He played his lute and little guitar, at the same time mind you, and sounded awesome. Way better than the stinkin' Skytron I had overhead. He even autographed it for me! W007!

The Last Drawing - As you can see from the date, this is the last drawing I did at the mall. It is of the BB, sketched as realistically as my ability allows, minus those ever so complex lips :-( As you saw earlier, I tried to sketch her, but this time I had her in view. The top left is her hairstyle, but not really her profile, and the large face is very close. She has sort of pouty lips but still looks like she's happy or smiling, and I just couldn't capture it in time. Argh. I actually went home early on this day because I was feeling really sick. Little did I know that only a short few hours later I'd wake up in the hallway next to my bathroom with paramedics around me! They put me on the gurney and I took a ride in the ambulance to the ER. Yuck. Now I've got a huge medical bill to pay, and that just for using the ER. They never determined anything other than it was some "flu-type" virus.

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This page last updated Tue 09:50 February 26, 2002