Dennis Jones
eclectic artwork & other random things
The Michigan Missile
The ice hockey season I am currently playing in began last September. As we sat in the locker room before the very first game, the guy next to me said, “there’s only one thing I want out of this season.” I said, “what’s that, Jeff?” He said, “a picture of a hockey thug in a number 10 jersey.” I laughed and said if he would be patient I could probably take care of that for him. It’s been six months, the team has gone from worst to first place, and here’s a picture for the Michigan Missile… not to be confused in any way with the Russian Rocket…
A Hornswoggle Sockdolager
I threw some color on a scribble from my sketchbook. I’m not sure what kind of animal this is…
Officially Jumping On The Bandwagon
Peyton Manning just signed with the Broncos? Oh well, at least he stayed with the horse theme…
Aylin Shir
A Monday morning warmup sketch.
Senior Teutul
It’s Saturday morning… here’s a little warm up sketch I did…
In My Spare Time Last Week
I go to The Point Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. I was talking to my pastor on a Friday afternoon and he mentioned he wasn’t quite sold on the theme art for his new sermon series. There are a ton of items that have to be printed for a sermon series; bulletins, cd covers, slides, big visuals, etc. and all the art had to be ordered by Sunday afternoon. He explained his concept and wondered if I might want to take a crack at it before he pulled the trigger on the printing. I got up on Saturday morning, cranked out this piece of art, sent it to him and said, “hey, you won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t want to use it”… but he used it…
…of course, now the stage design had to be altered. I said, “hey, we could do something like this”…
…and we went with that idea also. Turned out pretty much the way it was drawn up.
I was sweatin’ bullets at one point because it’s one thing to draw up a quick sketch of an idea, it’s a totally different thing to try to execute it. I ended up building the plug head out of cardboard boxes…
The Clay Is Ready To Mold
Last Monday my stop-motion teacher suggested I open up the vikings mouth so it could be rigged with wire and then he could talk. That sounded like a good idea, so I did that, and then I put a few finishing touches to my sculpt. I reworked the helmet a bit, added a soul patch to his lip, gave him a snazzy belt buckle and added a little shoulder armor.
I reworked the arm gauntlets, cleaned out the scale armor and gave him a stitched garment of some sort.
I also flared the back of the helmet up a bit.
I’m interested to see how much detail the mold will be able to hold. It will be a few weeks before that process actually takes place.
The Animal Football Game
My pastor used this story as an illustration a few weeks ago…
The big animals and the little animals were having a football game. As the first half went along, the big animals were scoring at will. Every time they got the ball they would run it in for a touchdown. Then came the second half…
FIRST PLAY: The elephant runs the ball up the middle. BANG!! Tackled for a five-yard loss. The little animals go back to the huddle cheering and congratulating each other. “Who made that tackle?” asked the ant. “I did,” said the centipede.
SECOND PLAY: The rhinoceros runs the ball up the middle. WHOP!! Tackled for another five-yard loss. Back in the huddle the flea asked, “Who made that great stop?” “I did,” said the centipede.
THIRD PLAY: The gorilla tries an end sweep, led by the hippo throwing the lead block. SMACK!! Centipede tackles him for a 10-yard loss. Back in the huddle, the gnat asked the centipede, “Hey man, where were you in the first half?”
The centipede replied, “Getting my ankles taped.”
Joseph Video
I fired up the magical iShowU software and recorded my work on this little illustration…
Stop Motion Build 3
I have the clay sculpt for my stop motion puppet about where I want it. I fear there is too much detail for the casting process, but I have no idea because I have never done any of this before. We shall see…
Sock Monkey 2.0
Some people are consumed with trying to build a better mousetrap. Me? I’m consumed with trying to build a better sock monkey.
Stop Motion Build 2
…ok, so what have I learned so far on my first ever stop motion puppet build? Two tiny little aluminum wires will not hold five pounds of clay in the air very well. I had to bite the bullet last night, tear off the bottom half of my sculpt, and build a more substantial armature to support the weight… and you can tell by the look on this guys face that he was none too happy about it…
Stop Motion Project
In an effort to try and learn something new, I enrolled in a stop motion class at the local university. Here are my initial steps into this foreign terrain. First I need an idea, (which I don’t have) so I fall back to my standard fallback plan… VIKINGS! Using aluminum wire and masking tape I build an armature over the top of my pencil drawing.
I attach the wire armature to the wood base with a couple of nuts and bolts.
I want the top of my viking to be pretty beefy and if I build all that bulk up with clay this thing will no doubt weigh 600 pounds when I’m done, so I pump up the volume on my armature with aluminum foil.
Now for the fun part! I start roughing in the form with clay. This is where I am at so far. I’ll post more as this process happens.
It’s A Hoosier SuperBowl!
Friday at SuperBowl Village in downtown Indianapolis, we stumbled across the location ESPN was broadcasting from. Mike and Mike were on, so I called my oldest son (who listens to them every day) and told him we were there watching them live. He looked at his tv and began laughing uproariously telling me, “you’re in the camera shot right now!”
Skyrim Ice Troll
Whenever I see Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer on television, I usually dial in for a little of it. I like how Yukon Cornelius makes a friend out of Bumbles, the lovable, bouncing, abominable snowman. You can imagine how excited I was the other night as I wandered around Skyrim and ran into a lovable abominable snowman there. Unfortunately, it was not a lovable abominable snowman, it was a Skyrim Ice Troll which promptly killed poor Magnus StormWeasel yet again. Magnus StormWeasel… good hearted… dumb as a rock.
BIBLICAL PORTFOLIO
EPIC FANTASY PORTFOLIO
FANTASY ANIMAL PORTFOLIO
VEHICLES PORTFOLIO
SPORTS PORTFOLIO
HISTORICAL PORTFOLIO
RANDOM PORTFOLIO
CREATURES PORTFOLIO
Dennis Jones 