Tribute to Nikki

Nikki is the finest songstress you will ever have the pleasure of being entertained by.

Goodbye Australia

In a few short hours I leave for London via San Francisco and Vancouver.
I am sure I'll get to the blog from time to time over that period, but in the meantime I'd like to thank the (as of this minute) 30,016 visitors that took the time to linger over my images.
Anyone who would like to get a hold of me can do so at elliotcowanimation@yahoo.com.
Take care everyone and I look forward to catching up with all your own work as soon as possible.
Elliot.

Brief Note

The value of the Australian dollar is of equal value to Australias political importance on a global scale (not very much).
Thanks John Howard.

Goodbye to Melbourne

I am leaving this home town Melbourne indefinately tomorrow night and it had been my intention to write something meaningful and important about this city and what it means to me.
Instead I'm simply going to say goodbye to my very best friend.

I'll be in Sydney for a few days before heading off around the world on Sunday the 25th.

Satisfying

Well this is the most satisfying thing I've drawn in weeks.
This one wasn't quite so satisfying but it's ok...

Goodbyes - update

More goodbyes.
This is Ackland Street in St Kilda.
A suburb known for being cool, groovy, filthy, heroin addiction and prostitution.
It was not so much like this when I was a child however.
It was very much a Jewish area at the time and my grandparents lived quite nearby and I spent a lot of time here.
There used to be lots of Jew's Bars, now there's lots of Juice Bars.
I'm sure every city has it's version.
It's cool but grubby. Alternative but trashy.
It used to be famous for it's cake shops but there are only a few left (see picture).


These are the clear blue waters of Port Phillip Bay, minutes from my family home.
I spent a lot of my childhood here too.
You'll see me and mum in the bottom corner there.
I am not especially tall (although the tallest in the family).


My dear friends Lee and Lisa and I went to see the lovely and talented Holly Throsby, which will be the last show I see in Australia.
Holly has a particular style of whispered, secretive folkish music.
Anyone who is moved by such things can listen to her first single here.
Her website has some nice graphics going on too for anyone interested.



Friday morning I drove to Wangaratta, about 4ish hours north east of Melbourne.
It was the last time to visit regional Australia before I leave for other shores.
I stay with my dear friend Robyn at her parents property.


This is a bit of a billabong, for jolly swagmen to drown themselves in.


Farmers are encouraged to not cut down old dead trees because our native parrots live in the hollowed branches.

The elephantine wrinkles on a gum tree.

Goodbye to the countryside...

A Little Colour Again

Smut and a Comment

This is obviously the smut bit.

Here are some comments about animation.
Despite the fact that I am only associated with the fringes of the animation industry, I am still quite prepared to shoot my mouth off about stuff I don't like.
I'll keep it brief.
Now then.
Dear producer/young person/television executive or anyone else of limited thinking capacity.
See this drawing below?

You might think it's got a whole Tex Avery feel to it.
It really doesn't.
He didn't really do that kind of thing that much, and his drawings were better.
What he did do a lot was make piles of really smart, silly, funny popular cartoons.
I'll turn this to a related subject that I do know a bit about - voice acting.
Anyone interested in the field should go take a gander at these two Tex Avery cartoons because they both have great voiceover work done in a offhand casual way that is not very common these days.
A lot of people who do character voices have a background as announcers (which is what we call them here) - guys who read scripts for radio and television commercials.
They are not actors and know hardly anything about character.
Anyway.
Cellbound the warden has a great deadpan voice and the villian a funny Irish thing going on.
Billy Boy especially good VO. It sounds like Daws Butler. Might not be.
Then go to Youtube.com and look for more animation. There's plenty there.

Train People

I shlepped all over the show today.
I did a session with some teachers about the might of blogging.
Went and picked up a laptop.
Here are two different women I saw on the train today.

Also, anyone come across a Paul Alexiou in their travels?

Doodle Diarrhea

Natalies Portman

Pretty girls are always hard to caricature.
You can can do kind of a cartoony drawing of them, but a caricature is a harder thing.
As Smook and I have discussed recently, I think it's the essence of the character rather than an exact likeness that's important - the essence of beautiful girl is pretty boring to be honest.
As for caricaturing actors.
I tend to do them in character as it's a useful cheat to lead the view to who it is supposed to be.
It was my first instinct to do her bald, as she's been in the media bald for some time, but I thought that was TOO much of a cheat, so I did one with hair first.
I think that even though they both had the same base head drawing, they bald one looks more accurate.

Also - Australia beat Japan in the soccer yesterday.
This is apparently a very good thing.
Go team.

Smook Is Like Jesus But Draws Better

Apart from being a traitor to his people and a political hot potato, Smook from Red Dot is a terrific bloke who knows his way around a piece of paper.
He also claims to be a shitty caricaturist.
Go to his blog and call him a liar!
He drew this great picture using the horror story further down the page as a reference.

Full Brain

I've found it terribly hard to draw recently.
My head is full of other things (shit mostly).

Blergh!

Ipdate.
Anyone interested in design in general but design for the music industry in particular should take a gander at this journal entry by David Byrne.


Usually when I draw me, it's because I'm having trouble drawing anything else.

Soon this look will be the rage in Paris, Milan and New York.
The look include floppy, unshaven jowls.


New hair style.
I wanted something that says "I like Dungeons and Dragons", "I invented a new way of masturbating", "I was convicted for interfering with children".


Extreme makeovers.
Before, during and after.
Hmmm...it's way too easy for me to look unappealing...

Colour!

Idiocy From This Morning

I know most of these people.
At least one of them would like to pound me into some kind of hamburger patty.

Michael Jackson

It's hard to do a anything new with a caricature of the Prince of Pop.
I had his gaunt face in mind when I did this, and then it occured to me that he's lived an isolated enclosed life for so long he might be a bit Gollumish.

Strange Dancers

I'm Back!

I have once again grabbed technology by the balls and forced it to do what I wanted.
New Wacom - lovely.

Travesty

Although I have not swung past this pub recently, an old teenage and uni haunt, The Espy (The Esplanade), I did find this picture of it.
Someone appears to have gone insane and taken a giant industrial sized shit out the back.
I am saddened by progress once again.

More Friends

I had always intended to get a digital camera before I left Tassie to document my entire journey to through Australia, North America and then the UK.
I didn't get one.
I stayed with lovely friends over the weekend (see drunken male of questionable sexual orientation below).
I shall return this weekend for more jolly fun and food.
These pictures are from the next day, when everyone was much prettier, except for me, who was more tired.

Drinky Time!

Working Girls and Angry Anuses

I'm still not up and running re posting pretty pictures.
So I will tell two short tales about old men instead.
(These stories are much improved when told in person, as I do the voices and hand gestures and everything).

Tale 01.
As part of my farewell, my dear friend Robyn took me to lunch at a lovely Greek eatery down by the river - her delighful little 10 month old girl, Gracie, came with us.
As we ate our lunch, everyone cooed over the baby (who is very delightful), in particular an elderly man, who kept popping back to say a few kindly words.
As he finished his lunch and got up to leave he came over one last time and said, with a beaming smile and without a hint of saddness, "You've got to hold on to them. My daughter's a prostitute in the Blue Mountains".
There is a long list of things I'd have loved to have said, but Robyn would have taken my eye out with a fork.

Tale 02.
Several years ago, I went with a friend to buy my first car.
It was a rock solid red Cortina and I bought it from an old man whose wife had been driving it to town once a week to go to church (and had recently died).
We knocked on the door and although we could hear that someone was in, but it took him a long time to come to the door.
When he finally opened it he hitched up his pants and said "Sorry I took so long, but the nurse was dressing a boil on my anus".
Nice!

Up The Junction

Now that I have a little time, I have done a search for where I'll be staying (with my cousin), somewhere called Junction St.
It is peculiar sensation to be looking at this map knowing that I'll be there soon.