Last night’s discussion with Paranormal Underground on Z-Radio with Karen and crew wended its way around to the Guest Draw concept. I assume everyone knows the story behind this, but I’m not so arrogant that I don’t realize you all don’t live inside my head… which is a good thing! You’d all be fried insane in that Vulcan stew-pot of ideas.
If you listened to the show last night or have been watchin’ my frantic Twitter posts, you’ll know the idea faucet has been wide open and I’m a bit overwhelmed. There’s a huge pile of post-it notes and napkins with thoughts jotted all over. The windows are open this morning and I expect a breeze to discombobulate the entire stack. (I spelled discombobulate right! WooHOO! Spell check needs to recognize “WooHoo”…)
Segue to topic: The Guest Draw came out of a conversation on Twitter with Brian Harnois. As a joke I asked if he’d like to “star” in Entities-R-Us. He jumped at the idea. So, I did a couple character studies (which he still uses on his website), then drew a comic. At the drawing stage, I thought it would be a hoot to call it a “Guest Draw” as opposed to a “Guest Star”… the comic is after all, 2-dimensional. The Guest Draw was born.
Some time after that I was in contact with Barry FitzGerald of Ghost Hunters International, SyFy with a separate issue. I threw out the Guest Draw thing. He too went for it. Barry must have liked it well enough as he asked me to illustrate his and Dustin Pari’s next book. That should be coming out soon.
Guest Draws came out of the woodwork with Shannon Sylvia, the Klinge Brothers, Josh Gates, Zak Bagans, the ENTIRE GHI crew, etc… I have given up on seeking permission as it is tough to contact some of these folks. I’m reluctant to draw someone if they are not keen on it. I’m not out to offend, or discredit anyone. I’d rather lightheartedly show their amusing personality traits that endear them to the public. Who wants to be portrayed with horns? …that might be a really funny idea though. Hmmmm. Feel free to draw some fan art of me with horns! I would respond well to that!
I was asked last night, are some people hard to draw? Who were the easiest to draw? Let me set the record here… I’m not “Rembranting” people here, so my renderings are not perfect character sketches of facial attributes. What I draw is the personality in simple form. It’s like a gesture of character that is just recognizable in posture and expression mostly.
It is easy to draw someone with an outward personality, one who exudes a particular persona. Some of my favorite draws have been Josh Gates, Zak Bagans, Dustin Pari, Brian Harnois, Grant Wilson… and Sunday’s Guest Draw Jeff Belanger!
When I’m faced with a more elusive closed personality – the quiet type, it becomes a challenge. Some of my more difficult draws have been Jason Hawes, Barry FitzGerald (though I’ve gotten to know Barry better to sketch him spot on at this point). These folks don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, they don’t offer up as much as they observe the world. So, drawing them requires me to peer inward, invading their space to some extent. Since I’m not one to be a “space invader” it’s a little uncomfortable. However, I dive right in and usually come up with an acceptable rendition. So far no one has japped me out in a dark alley with a sack full of pennies…
Guest Draws are great for the fans, the celebs and the comic strip. I get requests all the time to draw fan favorites. Some of the stars will ask me. I’m not adverse to drawing regular people into my comics either. What makes a cartoon work is the humor, you don’t have to be famous to pull it off. It’s an even playing field. I have used Guest Draws to help promote events for some. And, they also draw in readership for the comic strip. It’s “Shameless Marketing” at it’s best – everyone has fun, everyone gets something worthwhile out of it. As I always say, it’s about paying it forward and sharing.
AND THAT is the Guest Draw story.
DON’T MISS JEFF BELANGER in Sunday’s Guest Draw Slot in honor of his new book release, Legend Tripping.
SPEAKING OF GUEST DRAWS – THIS IS THE LAST WEEK FOR JOSH GATES T-shirts, Mug and Poster! I will be switching to Dustin Pari on the 15th. Order today! http://www.cafepress.com/ERUGuestDraw
SATURDAY BLOGTALK with TINNER TINS and ODDLY PARANORMAL on Para-X Sat., Sept 4 at 10pm EST, 9pm CT, 8pm MT, 7pm PT: http://www.para-x.com/oddly.html Tinner is a total fruitloop, so this should be an absolutely crazy discussion! PLEASE HECKLE! Shoot… I was heckled all through grade school and now I can get so much as a curse-word tossed at me!
Be there or be trapezoidal!
Tj
GET THE BOOK!!! Miss the Halloween and Christmas Rush!
Entities-R-Us Book, Paranormal Humor for the Ghost Hunter’s Soul can be had here: http://tinyurl.com/erubook or hit up Amazon!
STILL GUNNING FOR FAN ART AND GHOST STORIES! You want your renditions on this website? You want to share your story? Send it to me terri@entities-r-us.com
I reserve the right to edit a bit if stories are HUGE or some spelling needs sorting. Keep it clean! 🙂
