Original Art Sundays (Wednesday) No. 164: Suurealist Cowgirls, p. 20

Only four or five pages to go of this story, the second major Surrealist Cowgirls story.
There have been two minor SC stories, and of course, the paper dolls and the lunchbox for fun.
The page at hand:

 

Some notes on this page:

Sparse backgrounds. I tried to shake it up a bit from the heavy black backgrounds of recent pages, and used some support graphic elements for diversity. Chief among these are the lined partial background of panel two, a device I freely stole from Terry Moore, and the connecting infinity symbol in panel three.

I'm trying for more dynamic poses as the action builds. To that end, the face in grief in panel two, Kay's fainting in panel four, and Master Pah coming to life in the final panel.

Narrative note: until the last panel of the previous page, Master Pah had not moved other than to speak. His anger and sense of betrayal at the presence of his former apprentice spur him to physical action.

Scanner access is greatly improved now. 

Next: the battle, page one.

Original Art Sundays No. 138: Surrealist Cowgirls, the Lunch Box

A day late for no apparent reason.
New page proceeds apace, but is not there yet.
Meanwhile...
Something I've been meaning to do for a while.
I've had a fascination with lunchboxes for some time. I still have my Pigs in Space lunchbox from the late 70s.

Not my own, but a reasonable facsimile!

I'm usually opposed to the gimmicky stuff, but I'd like to see Surrealist Cowgirls lunchboxes, posters, PJs and beach towels. All done, not necessarily with taste, but with a combination of reverence for the source material and silliness. 
After all, I did make a Surrealist Cowgirls cartoon as part of my undergrad work. If I can get it uploaded from VHS to DVD to digital, I'll post it sometime.
Don't expect miracles. It's an odd under-explained gag, and aside from seeing the characters moving, it's only OK.
Ahem. That said.
As part of the MCAD 2012 Faculty Show (now up but scheduled for Opening Reception this coming Friday, September 14), I prepared a lunchbox.
Not so easy as it sounds.
With my burning desire to do business locally, I wasted five weeks trying to hunt down a blank lunchbox in the Twin Cities. Aside from some half size cheesy yellow plastic ones at the usually reliable wholesaler Axman- nothing.
I found a website, lunchboxes.com. I tried to commission them to do a custom job, which is part of their stock in trade. However, by that point it was early August, which is, of course, their busiest season, what with school starting and all.
So I ordered a blank and set to work on the art.

The Gang!

I still have to name the shapeshifting mule, represented here as a huge puppy.
The piece was done in colored pencil and ink, that the colors were pushed and border added in Photoshop CS6 (the new version, which I'm slowly learning/ relearning).
Design note: in retrospect, the floating Aztec winged light-bulb spire (well, what would you call it?) is a tad too close to the mountain- creates a bit of a merger.
I took the two printouts and did a simple pasteup.
The end result.

 Despite its crudity, I'm fairly happy with the end result.
Please join me in seeing this work, and the rest of the Surrealist Cowgirls exhibit, at the Faculty Art Show this coming Friday!
Next week: either more story or a field report on the opening.