Phew...

I don't plan any of my drawings much - my personal work anyway. Commercial work is another thing altogether.
I rarely do roughs or sketches.
I just let the pen do whatever it wants to do and bammo - there's hopefully something nice at the end.
Consequently I'm at the whim of my subconscious, so I don't always get what I'm hoping to.
I've been treading water for a few days with the silly sketches below and am now relieved to return to something a little more fullfilling.
These things can be so fleeting sometimes.
I've been listening to a lot of Tom Waits recently and he often puts me in mind of wailing, apocolyptic preachers.

I have seen a handful of DVDs in the last few days and I should like to mention 2 of them.
Cold Mountain.
A film about the American civil war, with a cast of Europeans, a Brit and and Aussie as the leads and directed by an Englishman.
And shot in Hungary, or Belgium or somewhere else European.
There are a handful of Americans in the cast.
So before the film really gets going there are some major issues concerning authenticity.
This is not to say that Nicole Kidman and Jude Law aren't fine actors - they're both ok.
But their accents are not fine, which to me kills most of it dead.
I won't go on about it too much, but really, are there not enough American actors, who probably even have the correct accent, who could have played the roles?
On a positive not, you get to see the actress Melora Waters boobs, which is pleasing.

Troy.
The classic ancient Greek tale.
Swords, shields, beautiful women, blood, sailing ships, adventure, gods, soldiers, a whopping great wooden horse.
Before you even start making the thing you've got a pretty good start.
There's no plot that needs to be nutted out.
The characters are well established - even before pen is put to paper.
But it's about as dull as can be.
Almost the opposite of entertainment.
It's a sedative.
The only real nice bit is Brian Cox, who is normally terrific, but in this movie acts as if he was taking part in a different film.
He is entertaining because he is so silly.