'Weirdos Make Great Superheroes'

I've come to the conclusion that we never really know anyone. People are full of surprises so it's best not to make too many assumptions. Of course we all do because we have so much data to process on a daily basis and it helps sort things out quickly. But ultimately, we have to let go of our assumptions because they are often incorrect. I catch myself making ridiculous assumptions and I suspect others do it too.

It's hard to see yourself as others see you but it's reasonable to think that people make some pretty incorrect assumptions about me. It's partly my own fault because I have developed some very convincing self-protection mechanisms to get me through life. But it's important to remember we are all strange and unique mixtures. For example I'm a bit of a 'bogun'.[1] I grew up in Rockingham - a new migrant working class suburb with Surfie and Skinhead 'gangs'. I didn't belong to either gang because back in those days I was a good student and doing well at school. The whole gang thing was a mystery to me - years later I discovered that I was known as one of the 'Brains' - simply because I was a bit of a swot, and apparently a bit aloof. Years later I also found out that Rockingham was a tough neighbourhood. Anyway, suffice to say my childhood wasn't auspicious. I was the first person in my family to go to university and eventually get a PhD.

The influence of this, and my family upbringing, means that I am a bit rough around the edges. Australians enjoy a warped sense of superiority in being a bit rough and down-to-earth. It's both an annoying and endearing Aussie trait. I guess I am no exception - basically because I can't stand bullshit. Old school Australians are irreverant and love to challenge authority. I put it down to our convict past. My family were free immigrants to this country but I still sometimes refer to myself as a 'bogun with a PhD'.

This is just a long-winded way of introducing the video above and justifying my 'atypical' cultural tastes - because I don't really understand them myself. I love the most ridiculous things - like this excerpt from Central Park on AppleTV. I love the humour, the lyrics and the melodies.

One thing is clear - I was a weirdo at school and I'm sill a weirdo in many peoples' eyes. But I'm OK with it now because if people want to keep making assumptions, I'll gladly keep challenging them - basically because it's fun.

[1] Bogun (bogan): is Australian and New Zealand slang for a person whose speech, clothing, attitude and behaviour are considered unrefined or unsophisticated. Depending on the context, the term can be pejorative or self-deprecating. The prevalence of the term bogan has also been associated with changing social attitudes towards social class in Australia.

Since the 1980s, the bogan has become a very well-recognised subculture, often as an example of bad taste. It has antecedents in the Australian larrikin and ocker, and various localised names exist that describe the same or very similar people to the bogan.

By the turn of the third millennium, the term bogan came to be employed more favourably to indicate a pride in being rough around the edges. In 2002, Michelle Griffin discussed the fact that "bogan" is no longer just being used as an insult, but is in fact a way to identify with the "Aussie" culture that many Anglo‐Saxon Australian citizens are proud of.

A tongue-in-cheek (but amusing and definitely recognisable) type of bogun. Things have evolved from here:

1. Australian person, usually caucasian, of uncouth and lower class background, residing on the edge of civilisation. Characteristics of a bogun include, proudly sporting a mullet hair cut, extremely small shorts, a grease stained t-shirt underneath a flanelette shirt of some description. 

2. A bogun's natural habitat is any suburb of australia with low property values, in a house that generally has 2 or 3 cars up on bricks in the front yard with no wheels or missing vital mechanical parts. One of the cars must be a ute (utility vehicle). Boguns are generally spotted with a stubbie (screw top beer bottle) or bong (pot smoking paraphernalia) in hand.

Video: from 'Central Park', series 1, episode 2, AppleTV.  

More Rejects

Here are some more process drawings. Above is the original pen drawing for this character - an 'Indian girl with glasses'. I love drawing in ballpoint pen. You can get really light, fine lines with it. Pen can be a bit 'sudden death' if you make a serious error, so I draw very lightly until I know where I am going.

Above is the drawing after being imported into Photoshop, cleaned up and coloured. Below is another version with the character smiling, softer shading and different (roughly drawn) glasses.

The final looks very little like any of these - here the character is too 'old' and not 'cute' enough. The latest version hits the mark and is very cute.

If the book ever gets completed and published, I will be able to share the final versions. For now it remains a copyright issue.

Images: Author. Hand drawn, digitally cleaned up and coloured.

Strategy for a Better Life

I was watching an interview of someone I know on YouTube. The video finished and automatically went onto the next. It was a talk given by Tara Brach entitled 'Learning to Respond, Not React'.

Being a child of the 60s I'm cynical about psycho-babble, the new age and self-motivational rants about how to be a 'better person' - how to be more functional in a system I think is completely fucked up. I wouldn't normally engage but I was doing some digital art and out of sheer laziness I let the audio roll on.  In the end I listened to the entire 53 minutes. I'm glad I did because the speaker outlined a valuable and practical strategy, probably the best I have ever heard. Maybe it was the way she said it, or maybe it's just that I am ready to hear it now.

I created the above meme so I can look at it regularly and remind myself. I posted it on Facebook because it might just help someone else too.

Rough 'Rejects'

I'm working on illustrations for a kid's book. During the COVID shutdown I answered a call out for creative collaborators from an emerging author in my small town. The writer is unpublished and I am 'unpublished' as an illustrator (in relation to books anyway). There won't be any money in it unless or until the book gets published and people buy it. I can't say too much about it but I have been developing some of the drawings. It's an interesting process - people have different ideas in their heads and they 'see' things differently in their imaginations. 

We have pretty much established what the main character will look like so I have been doing some mockup drawings for a plane. Here are the rejects - from above to below, in chronological order.

After this I went back to a more 'traditional' look (below), but that didn't work either.

There is now a final rough version (not included here) which is brightly coloured and more suitable for kids.

It's only a short story but it will be a lot of work. Which is OK at this point in my life because I am not doing anything much in my own creative space. I feel as though I've done and said everything I want to, at this stage anyway. Collaboration is a new challenge. It's also a sign that I have 'matured', because as a younger artist, I wouldn't have been able to compromise.

Images: Author, digital 'roughs'.

Purely Digital

This is another post about how I work digitally in Photoshop - quite different from the previous one which was hand drawn and imported into Photoshop. The image above was created entirely on the computer. There are still layers, as you can see by the images below - though this drawing doesn't have many at all compared to other work I've done.

Look! No background.

Look! No hair....

The images below are reference photos I collected from the internet. These are images I refer to in order to get a level of accuracy. Sometimes I use a photo as a background - this is one I took from my kitchen window on a foggy morning in the place we used to live under the karris (bottom centre). I've manipulated it using 'Adjustments' - probably several adjustments actually (I can't remember) and also a couple of the same image overlaid and manipulated using different 'Layer' modes (there's a dropdown menu for that).

A Brave, But 'Unlikely', New World