I think he's actually getting worse.

     So I just keep sketching stuff, sometimes making slow progress.  As far as just faces go, I'm for sure better than I was, but still below some arbitrary boundary I've set for myself.  I need to get better at other aspects of drawing though, because there's not a terrible amount you can do with just the same faces over and over again. 

     The first thing that kind of pushed me a bit was no less than an artist's challenge; I was dared to draw Slash.  The gauntlet was thrown, the challenge was issued, and the smacked out sloppy-joe was drawn.

     You might gather that I'm slightly critical of Slash.  Well, for the record, Appetite for Destruction is one of the best albums of the 80's, and then none of the members of Guns n' Roses ever did anything worth listening to ever again.  Right after this one I wanted to do one more straight-on shot, before trying to stretch out a little.

     This was an attempt to do a little bit of detail, specifically I wanted to do some more hands.  They're still a little awkward but and freakishly long but it does seem like progress.  Also I was playing a lot of Fallout and figured "Why wouldn't radioactive soldiers of fortune have a little panache?"  After this I decided I needed to try experimenting with perspective.  Not every drawing can be a straight-on shot, no matter how much I want it to.  Unfortunately, since I have no experience with perspective yet, it seems like a giant step backwards in quality.  Check this out;

     So this pretty much turned out looking like a guy who got grazed with a shrink ray.  Maybe Rick Moranis was jealous of his handsome junk and got too drunk to shoot straight.   Actually, call Disney, I think I just came up with a script to pitch.  I bet changing the dimensions of the door would have helped.  I mean, art lessons would help too, but let's be reasonable.  I tried one more perspective shot.

    I don't know why I find gross nerds so funny.  It might be because this could have been me, had a few key things in my life gone wrong.  I also have always enjoyed the idea of people resting their gut on various things.  So, expect more attempts at perspective from me in the future, and honestly, you should also expect a lot of them to be gross nerds.

This update makes no sense at all

     This is a short one, y'all. (who even says y'all anymore? I do, and it's ridiculous.) One of my favourite things about myself is the amount of effort I'm willing to put into a really dumb joke, and a pun at that.  Here's something I thought of the other day and gave myself the dumbass "huh huh" chuckle.

     And that's that! I don't know anything about colouring yet.  Your average five year old has me beaten in this department.

So how long before he gets good at this?

     Well, last time I was pretty much a lazy douchebag, what with my not putting up the final picture in my "how I'm trying to not suck at drawing" manual.  I left you all high and dry, moist and wanting.   I've been focusing on the drawing lately, which I never intended to be the focus of this blog.  Who cares though, right? It's what I've been doing, so it's what you get.  Maybe to start off I'll show you what should have been the final image from my last update.

     I was "pleased" with the final product, but there's lots I want to work on.  For one, I want to expand on what kind of poses and perspectives I can do, along with working on various head-related things.  Things like faces and hair, which you can clearly see have a long way to go.  As far as trying different poses, I suppose I should have maybe looked up some common ways human beings stand, but that's way less fun than just drawing a stick figure and seeing where it takes you.

 

      This is for you Harry Potter superfans.  I know it doesn't really come up in the book, but Harry has a rare condition where the funk causes him to dance until he dies of exhaustion or dehydration.  I guess it never came up because J.K. Rowling had a bad experience with Bootsy Collins and a bottle of Beefeater.  I don't know exactly what dance move Harry is dropping here, but whatever it is must be good for toning the glutes.  I'm not terribly disappointed with this one, but the head is a little bit of a trainwreck.  After this one I wanted to do some drawings with a focus on heads, with varying degrees of success.

     Ok, so the face is pretty horrible here.  I was taking a stab at some Adventure Time facial expressions and really wasn't able to make it work.  I think in that case it's probably because I tried too hard,  the simplicity of the faces in shows like that is what ties the whole thing together.  I straight up need to buckle down and start making some faces that aren't mushy turds.

    
     Ok, now we're talking! It's pretty sad that I'm admitting that this is, so far, one of the best faces I've ever drawn.  I know the shading is a bunch of bullshit but I'm sort of getting used to that too.  One thing is for sure, how the fuck do you draw hats? Jesus.  Anyway, this picture still sidesteps the fact that I don't know how to draw hair either.  I guess I should at least make an attempt at a hairstyle so I don't seem like a total cop-out.

    See, that's way better.  I didn't mean for this to come out manga-style when I started on it, but it's what happened and there's no turning back.  In the immortal words of Robert Tepper, "I'm not asking for another chance, I just want to know why there's no easy way out, there's no shortcut home". 

     So there you have it! As slow as it's been, I can honestly say I've made some semblance of progress.  I guess to end this entry I want to give a shout out to Russia.  I noticed that there's upwards of 2 people from Russia that check this wet fart of a blog out once in a while, and that's kind of mind blowing.  So here's my shout out: HEY RUSSIA, WHAT UP BROSKIS!

Just call me "Pablum Picasso"

     So, as it turns out, when you practice something, you slowly get better at it.  Did you know this? It seems kind of unfair.  Where's the fun in not just being instantly good at everything? Anyway, I've been doodling like crazy lately.  Trying to stick with a more cartoony style, because drawings of real things are boring.  Like, New Brunswick boring (ooooooh burn ooooooh).  If I had to name a style I wanted to shoot towards developing, I guess I would call it modern internet? It's sort of a mish-mash of art styles brought together in one glorious orgy.  Take some Ren and Stimpy, mix in a little manga stuff, maybe garnish with some absurd for the sake of absurd, and have it fart.  Adventure Time is a great example of this style; you get the overly-detailed butt-cheeks of Ren and Stimpy, the huge eyes and weird facial expressions of manga, all dropped into situations that make no sense, with farts.  Kate Beaton is an excellent example of on-the-internet internet style.  Add to that the fact that she's a fucking scream.  She's making one of the smartest, funniest comics on the internet today, and the biased part of me says it's because she's Nova Scotian.  Something about crushing economic depression and alcohol abuse brings out the funny in a culture.  From a different angle there is Will Laren.  This guy totally eschews realism and goes straight for disgusting, and then puts great captions on them.  I'm not as funny as either of them, but maybe someday I'll find a combination of drugs and attitude that will at least make it look like I am.

     I did some more doodling.  Like I said I would.  It's not great, but I'm making myself laugh.  My facebook feed is swimming with people who have been going through proper channels to learn art, and they've been making great progress.  It's a funny contrast to see their ever-improving realism while entropy grips my skills harder and harder.  Whatever, I'm still going to show you my shitty progress because I think I'm a total scream.

    
     So, hey! Those look like actual hands and feet! I've only been at this for a few weeks and I'm already doing better than Rob Liefeld! Even though the face is this weird mask of angry darkness (so about on par with Liefeld).  Take note of the drawstring hoodie, because I've noticed it's the only clothing I can draw.  I assume it's what the young and hip kids are wearing, but I'm so out of touch I'm still wearing straight-leg jeans.

     This is Francis! Or at least a prototype of him.  He's a character from the same project as Billy Hunt, from a previous update.  Want to see a close up of his face? Rhetorical. You have no choice.

     So this is almost on the grossness level of the Will Laren drawings, just with more of an amateur smack.  I'm hoping that if I just keepdrawing this disgusting asshole over and over again I'll land on something I can call a finished product.  Well, at least progress on him has come farther than the next guy;

     So Captain Clubfoot here is Matt; another character from the same project.  I don't even know what I want his face to look like, every time I try to imagine it I come up with David Cross' character from the King of the Hill episode "The Witches of East Arlen".

      I've been trying to come up with a process to maybe make my drawings more consistent, and I've decided that I'm going to subject you to that process, step-by-step (day by day).  Check this shit out:

 

     So, lay down a stick figure skeleton first, right? Pretty simple beginner stuff.  Gesture drawing for a rough outline of the body shape, good good.  Honestly I should start using reference pictures and not drawing this from my mind's eye, but whatever, I do what I want.  Note how the head is in a very uncomfortable looking "oh no you di'int" sort of position, that could probably stand to be changed.  You'll also notice this is nearly the same pose as Fargo from a previous update; this is because I don't know how to art.

     Ok, that's a little better.  The head doesn't look like it's been stuck onto a broken neck, and while the hands aren't great, they sort of look like hands.  Also, boobs! I feel like I'm trying to not go overboard on the boobs, because I really feel they distract from my poop jokes.  The head has a kewpie doll/Betty Boop thing going on that I'm not super pleased with, but this is all part of the sucking less in small increments process. 

    Here we see the return of my beloved drawstring hoodie, and I figured why not toss in a pointless skirt to add a little sauce to it.  Accompanying this look is an s.o.s. pad hairstyle, because holy shit I haven't learned to draw hair yet.  That seems like it would be important.  What is this picture missing, aside from the feet? Probably some kind of stupid caption.

  I think my favourite part of this blog update is how I made it seem like there would be a conclusion picture, and then didn't follow through.  The truth is, there totally is one, but all attempts to put it in this update were stymied.  Maybe I'll get around to putting it up in the next one.   Anyway, I'm going to keep trying with this, and I'm going to clockwork-orange you into observing it.

Drinking apple snide-er

     I've been thinking of getting a digital video camera for a while now.  Sometimes I see things on youtube that tv network execs would never, ever consider airing (because it's great), and it kind of stirs me inside.  Suddenly everyone around the world has a way for their voice to be heard, no matter what they have to say.  This removes a certain barrier, where some fat billionaire gets to decide what my choices in entertainment are, based off what he thinks will net the most return on investment.  On the other hand, it also allows every untalented jackoff who thinks he's hilarious to inflict himself on the rest of the world.   I look at the average quality of youtube videos and realize that most of the people putting stuff up are about as terrible at it as the people that make most television shows.  I feel as though I could learn the basics pretty quickly, stuff like framing, lighting, optimal camera settings,  etc.  Video editing is already something I know a little about, whereas most of youtube clearly doesn't.  (Rare exception, here's a good example of youtube genius)

    The other half of making videos for youtube is actually having an idea worth doing.  Again, see most of the selection on youtube for examples of "why the fuck would someone waste their time making/watching this".  So far this sounds pretty cantankerous and dismissive of me, and that's almost exactly the point I'm driving at.  One of the show ideas I had is called "Objectively Crap", wherein I would break down point-by-point why a certain thing (tv show, band, etc) completely and totally sucks.  I called it objectively crap because, of course, taste in such things is totally subjective.  But come on, do you actually know anyone that thinks Gallagher is funny?  How about Larry the Cable Guy?  Anyway, most of the things I want to shit on are nearly universally hated, but people don't put any effort into explaining their hatred.  They feel the natural, visceral hatred deep inside that they certainly should feel whenever they are forced to listen to Dane Cook, but never muster a more convincing argument than "he just totally sucks".  I mean, I agree, but at least try, dude.

     Anyway, since it's going to be a while until I scrape together sufficient ducats to purchase a pistol for robbing an electronics store of a sweet piece for viddy-taping my seductive features, I might as well spit some flavour on here.  Here's the semi-rant that happened entirely in my head, it's a pre-production write up for the first installment of Objectively Crap.  Sometimes I get a little over the top when I'm drinking the haterade (or cruising around on my roller-hates) so, I don't know, don't take any of this personally if I fuck up and kind of insult you?

     Objectively Crap with Nick Woods, subject one;
     JERRY SEINFELD

     I'm not even kidding when I say Larry David is totally tits.  He's so awesome I wrote a poem:
Larry David is a genius, this I must admit
Unfortunately a poison turns his work to shit
Replace his awkward shittiness with observational "humour"
From a no-talent jack-off, malignant comedic tumor.

     Did you like it? Probably.  The best humour is rooted in truth, and what in this life is more true than the objective fact that Jerry Seinfeld is an utter comedy toilet? The show "Seinfeld" had almost everything going for it; the aforementioned Larry David, the always hilarious to see/hear Jason Alexander, and the upsettingly attractive Julia-Louis Dreyfus.  Although I did get pretty tired of idiots constantly repeating "huhuhheuheu a show about nothing", the lack of point and general human shittiness of the characters was a great idea.  It's just too fucking bad that the worst stand-up comedian in history was the main attraction.  On the scale of comedy, Jerry Seinfeld rates just slightly funnier than Harlequin icthyosis, and just below colo-rectal cancer.

     You're probably wondering why I feel so much hostility towards the guy.  It's probably because of my complete intolerance for intellectual laziness.  Don't misread me, it's not like I'm some genius myself, and I don't hate people for being "stupid" or what have you, any number of factors can contribute to a person's development and that leads to a pretty crazy-wide spectrum of intelligences.  The raw intelligence you have is almost completely out of your control, and nobody should be made to feel shitty because they drew the short straw in the nature/nurture lottery.  No, intellectual laziness is when you have all the necessary faculties, and you just don't fucking use them.  Let me break this shit down:

1 - Comedy for people that don't like to think
     "So!" said Jerry, his eyes playfully scanning the crowd of dulled eyes staring blankly at him, "What's the deal with those plastic things on the end of your shoelaces, anyway? Does anybody know what those are called? What's with that?" Uproarious laughter erupts from the docile herd, while a small, almost unnoticed voice pipes up: "Aglets, Jerry.  They're called aglets.  Pick up a fucking book once in a while."
     Jerry moves on to his next atrocity against humour; "And hey! What's up with skydivers?" The voice sighs audibly.  "Why do they wear helmets, anyway? What good will a helmet do when you're falling from thousands off feet in the air, right? What's the deal with that?"  The lone voice grows louder now, a palpable hatred growing within; "Jerry, for fucks sake," it sputters, exasperated, "Do you even know what skydiving is? There's such a thing as wind, Jerry.  An unexpected wind can blow a skydiver far off course, and a landing site can change from the intended wide-open field to a dangerously dense forest pretty damn quick.  If the chute gets caught in the foliage, the diver can hit the tress fairly hard, or even get caught very high off the ground, risking a fall if the chute rips.  A helmet only makes sense, Jerry."
     Jerry continues to blather his nonsense, much to the delight of the people who inexplicably paid to be there.  The lone voice walks out into the night and wonders if maybe he can find the grave of Mitch Hedberg, because even his dessicated corpse has smarter things to say than Jerry Seinfeld.

2 - Refusal to acknowledge things that are actually hilarious
     Remember Michael Richards ending his career? That was the hardest that guy ever made me laugh.  Watching it all fall apart in a matter of seconds was almost indescribable. It was like Magnum P.I. had T.C. drop him off just so he could give you a thumbs up in person.  The mustard on this meatloaf was that the DVD box set of Seinfeld season who gives a shit was about to drop, and they had to pull damage control.  What would normally have been a standard promotional visit to get people to spend money on the obsolete idea of physical media storage became a plea for forgiveness.  My favourite part of the whole fiasco is the laughter of the audience being met with admonishment from Jerry.  "This isn't funny!" he insists, glaring at the audience.  Oh, Jerry, I vigorously disagree.  Neither one of you assholes has ever put this much joy in my heart.

3 - What's the deal with a thing; The next generation
     So, every successful comic spawns a generation of imitators and admirers.  After Lenny Bruce you see guys like George Carlin and Richard Pryor pop up, and from there things blew up and we have this fantastic amount of excellent comedy available to us today.  The Yang to this Yin is the Seinfeld school of observational "comedy" (I know I keep putting that in quotes and it seems excessive, but I really want you to understand how strongly I feel about this) that was so popular amongst lazy hacks.  Some of these jokes, I don't know, they could be from one of any dozens of terrible Club 54 level dingii or they could be from Jerry himself, I'll be god damned if I'm going to go back and listen to his routines some more to verify it.
     You've heard the quintessential "what's the deal with airline food" before.  That might be Jerry, it might not, but whoever said it, it's the most Seinfeld joke ever.
"Deeeeeeer why don't they put a full kitchen and cooking staff on airplanes?"
"HEY GUYS, EVER NOTICE MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT?"
"What's up with Mexicans?"
"catch phrase!"

Conclusion:     For real, what else is even left to say.  The dude is odious.

Let's just set that bar nice and low.

     I wanted to knock out another update fairly quickly while I'm still full of piss and vinegar.  One of the interests I had mentioned before was animation; I never really grew out of the whole cartoon thing.  I could write out a list detailing all the cartoons I enjoy, but that would take an amount of time bordering on absurd.  I enjoy it as an expressive medium because the only limit is your own shitty imagination.  Live-action entertainment can cover all the same bases, but making it look good starts getting real expensive, real fast.  With cartoons, any pasty jerk with an idea can slap together something special.

     A while back I started constantly yammering to anyone unfortunate enough to be around me about how I'd like to produce animation.  I had started writing down and refining some concepts, when I realized how many more things were involved. I mentioned in my previous update that my ability to draw is somewhere around the "embarrassingly bad" level.  The closest I came to drawing experience was an offensively bad stick figure comic I had the audacity to put on the internet when I was 16.  As it turns out, drawing is kind of relevant to animation.  Learning to draw is a relatively cheap activity, and usually doesn't involve bears, for the most part.  Why not try?

     Because the artwork of a beginner is hilariously bad, usually.

     After hours of youtube tutorials and looking at pictures of naked people (anatomy research, you understand), I was ready to start.  First challenge; human face.
                                         
                                                                            So, ears, I guess.

     Ok, well, while that is a bit off-putting at first, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's terrible.  I'm sure it would at least get a stiff smile and a "Good effort, keep trying!" from an art teacher.  After this it was time to take a stab at some bodies.  Drawing them, I mean.

                                        I have no idea what the kids wear on their shirts nowadays

     Aside from the moderately ridiculous proportions on that poor woman, this also wasn't quite horrible.  I'll say this, though; hands are a total motherfucker.  You would think something I use all-day every-day might be a little easier to visualize and draw.  At least I was able to communicate a feeling of a strong wind on an emo kid, coupled with the angst of handlessness.  After this drawing I thought it might be a smart idea to go a little more cartoony, so I can pretend the hilarity is completely intentional.

                                                                      Pockets?! Genius.

     This guy is Billy Hunt, a character from a show I've been obsessing over writing.  I sketched out this first draft of him with only a vague idea of what he would look like, and so far he's way less of a disaster than I would have figured.  The more musically astute among you might notice his name is a deadly song by a deadly band called The Jam.  The less musically astute among you are lucky, because holy shit, you just heard about The Jam! Go to youtube right now, dude! Listen to some Jam! I was pretty happy after drawing this guy, because even my fantastic power of self-deprecation had to admit that there was visible progress. 

I don't even know what to say about this one

     After Billy came this, which I didn't really know at the time, turned out to be a different version of the main character of the awful internet comic I made so long ago.  I have to admit I was pretty pleased after this, the body is intentionally minimal and there's still the problem of the ol' flipper hands, but that face!  I'm so self-satisfied I might just go waste time on video games.

     So, there's a little bit of what I'm doing as far as trying to learn to draw.  Journey of a thousand miles etc. etc., but I'm hoping to occasionally have some more improvement to put on here.  Since I left you last week with a song by Ben and me, this time you get a song written and performed by Ben and his brother John Ross, and I swear it's the punkest fucking thing you'll ever hear.

Oh sweet, another nobody and his "opinions"

     If you're reading this, chances are you already know me and are just here to indulge my already implacable ego.  I decided recently that if I'm ever going to go beyond just paying lip-service to the concept of improving myself, I would need to keep some kind of visible record of my attempts to do shit.  Could I have chosen a better name for this than "The Gray Woods"? Probably.  It sounds like somewhere Robert Smith and Ian Curtis would meet for a lunch date.

     I have a crapload of interests, more than any reasonable human being could develop in the average lifetime.  I like to write, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you already knew that, since you're reading a blog I'm writing.  I like to make music, and if you've ever seen me or a picture of me, the stereotype-recognizing part of your brain would kick in and you would also immediately know that. 

 

I don't know...think this guy got lost and is trying to find a ride back to the 60's?

     I really enjoy animation, to the point where you might start to feel the embarrassment I should but clearly don't.  The problem with me being so into animation is that drawing is a skill I never really took the time to develop.  Seriously, I've produced drawings in art classes that were so bad the teacher laughed and walked away.  I know I said at the start of this paragraph that I had sooooo many interests, but for the purposes of this blog I want to focus on those three.  Sorry if I got your hopes up.

     My biggest problem with developing skills (like drawing) is that I have this tendency to do a little work, and when I see the tiniest bit of improvement, I get all smug and it's job-well-done time, wherein I am extremely easy to distract with cartoons and video games.  So, I figured that if I start posting things I'm working on for all to see, maybe shame will motivate me to actually keep it up.  "Hey Nick, how's that blog going?" you might sarcastically ask.  "Been cranking out those words like some kind of wordsmith? Not laying around all goddam day playing Minecraft?" No, dick, I've been playing Mount and Blade, obviously.

     I know that five ENTIRE paragraphs isn't really that much of a start to a blog.  Hopefully as I get better at this, I'll be able to express with my full capabilities, instead of living in correctional facilities.  Some people may not agree with how I do this, but I'll talk straight and meditate like a Buddhist.  Anyhoozles, I'm going to leave you with a demo recording of a song I've been working on with my buddy-pal Benny Ben "The Cole-Dawg" Coleman; we've been working on it intermittently for a while now, and it was going swimmingly until we got to the part where we record the singing.  Ben and I aren't what you'd call singers, but we have moxie.  While we hope moxie is enough to pay the bills, enjoy the part that we actually have recorded.  It's called Huckleberry Jam, and we are called....WEDNESDAY MEAT