reflective essay

Once again, this was a very challenging assignment, although once I could let go of certain personal issues, and was able to relax, delving into attempts to depict different aspects of the character, it became more enjoyable. The single, overriding challenge is coming to grips with having monumentally underdeveloped drawing skills. Yes, the frontal view is eerily reminiscent of the side profile. It turns out that this is one of the advantages of a cylindrical character. I could accept the looseness of my drawings. That became one of the most important qualities of my character. He is a light bulb. The erratic quality of his lines is part of his unsettled character – and a reflection of the fact that he is not in charge of his life – and any attempt to get precise would not work, I think, although the conflict is that the conceptual artist is supposed to define things fairly clearly for everyone else in the project. The very looseness of this character is part of what endears him to me. Change the dimensions, or shape, or size, and this character morphs very easily into this character’s opponent-of-the-moment (part of his life), whether it is his overbearing, abusive boss, or defiant, angst-ridden child. I had a hard time truly ‘defining’ this character, because I was having so much fun with it. A slim version with a fedora is a confident, ego-driven career man, or, by adding a slight curve at the bottom of the glass envelope, it depicts his physical vulnerability and middle-age, with a pot belly. How does one depict different nuances with such a simple depiction? For now, part of the visual vocabulary that I am using seems to place a certain reliance on visual stereotypes. And, by the way, it’s hard being a PC cartoonist. Um, a more curvaceous, shorter figure, wearing a skirt, more delicate (none) feet, and having a pink incandescence, was used to depict a female figure. Is this sort of stereotyped visual graphic shorthand necessary? I really can’t answer that one. For me, at my level, I think yes. Miles encouraged me to develop different aspects of the character. How, he suggested, do you show a character in love? I, with my normal heavy hand, attempted to suggest physical intimacy.
Again, my lack of drawing skills was the biggest source of frustration. I would dearly love to delve into a character that would require detail. I am drawn to the strong drifter in Western films. The Western film has been constantly been reinvented ever since Charles Porter made ‘The Great Train Robbery. From the beginnings, through today, the strong drifter, fast with his guns, has been mythologized. In the 1950’s, ‘Pursued’, with Robert Mitchum, was more of a psychological, noir Western. The early 1970’s brought Westerns that were basically Vietnam films, either for, or against. If I could draw better, I would be interested in drawing an interpretation of the ‘Plains drifter’. Even Stephen King had his version of the western gunfighter in the ‘Dark Tower’ series.