Puppets and Chipmunks
When I was about ten, we moved onto a farm in the middle of nowhere (which happened to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived) and suddenly we were forced to make due with one single channel via antenna. That channel? CBC. We came from a home with full cable to a house with only CBC.
Needless to say we watched a lot of “The Red Green Show”, “Royal Canadian Air Farce”, “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”, the morning children’s cartoons, reruns of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”… oh, and “Just For Laughs”.
That was my favourite. The Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal… we saw so many episodes it wasn’t even funny. Anyway, a few times we were lucky enough to catch the episode that had Jeff Dunham as a performer, and he was one of our absolute favourites. After watching his show my sister and I would go around claiming everything was “on a steek!” 
Anyway, I found this excellent website, MoviesFoundOnline.com (They have “The Plague Dogs” on there!!!), and along with numerous other awesome movies, they had both of Jeff Dunham’s videos which I watched the other day and laughed my ass off.
I also brought out my sketchbook and drew a couple pictures of the puppets.
I always thought his puppets were some of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, but after looking at them from an artistic point of view they’re oddly charming. They’re wonderful caricatures, representations of stereotypes, and like I said in my last post I love that sort of thing. Bubba J. reminded me a lot of that old Howdy Doody puppet that used to terrify me. But I loved the shape of his nose and his teeth, and just had to give him a quick sketch.
Of course, Peanut had to follow. And then Jose Jalapeno on a Steek. I’m still wanting to sit down and draw a picture of Walter, hehe!
My drawings are always too safe. I never “stretch” things or exaggerate things enough. Which is why drawing these sorts of things are so much fun; it forces me to think outside of my comfort zone and draw crazy and whacky things. I still need a lot of work, but I thought I’d share anyway. =)
Next!
I’m also a huge sucker for animated movies. My sister and I both are absolutely obsessed with Disney, and pretty much any animated movie released in the late 80’s or 90’s we’ve probably seen and obsessed over. Anyway, we were also huge fans of The Chipmunks, and the movie “The Chipmunk Adventure”.
I still watch it a lot to this day; it’s one of my feel good movies. I rediscovered it on DVD a couple of years ago and I’m so glad I did! Every time I watch it I have to make a sketch or two of one of the characters, and watching it tonight was no exception.
I actually paused the movie and drew the frame as I saw it, just for practice, so I lay no claim to the pose or anything awesome like that. It’s just a reproduction. Already I know of a lot of things wrong with it, especially looking at the original frame. It was more exaggerated, and I messed up the proportions somewhat… but it was still a tonne of fun to do.
Here’s an old sketch I made of Jeanette (My favourite ‘munk!) about a year ago:
That time was drawing with just the moving movie in front of me, without a direct reference like I did tonight. You can see my own style come through a lot more in this one. And it’s not so much on model either.
Anyway, they’re a hell of a lot of fun, and the songs are so catchy, even so many years later. Here’s the cult favourite from the film, if you’re curious (also, it’s just plain awesome):
I’m not sure I have much else to say, except yay, second art post!! Woo! Sorry I’m so slow… this is seriously the only things I’ve drawn since my last post. Yeah, I’m that slow with this stuff. But that’s what I’m trying to work at, so… go me?