I Guess That Counts as a Background

Here's another deck-derived semi-subconscious strip.

There's some decent cartooning in a couple of those panels.

I was trying a new method of shading in that second panel, but I think I'd better stick to cross-hatching. It might be possible for long practice to improve that method, but I don't think it's worth it—there's a sort of fundamental conflict between the super-smooth surface of the bristol board and the crayon's preference for tooth and texture.

AlphaBots: E is for ED-209

This week's AlphaBots drawing isn't a robot I'm especially fond of, though I do like the moment or scene that I've chosen for the illustration. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like RoboCop 2 as much as I like any of Frank Miller's other forays into film, but that's some pretty faint praise.

The ED-209 is an advanced police robot, designed (if I recall correctly) to build on RoboCop's success and replace the titular hero with a newer and less maverick model. (Update: I did not recall correctly. As my ED-209-drawing brother-in-Alphabots Sam Wolk reminds me, the ED-209 was a precursor to the RoboCop technology, and was visible in the first RoboCop movie, though I totally remember it from the sequel.)

But ED still has some programming glitches and design kinks to be worked out. (If you haven't seen RoboCop 2, please be aware that the clips I just linked to have some over-the-top violence.)

Anyway, ED-209 is not so good at descending a staircase. I really like the gingerly way it tries to position its chicken foot on the stairs; full props to its stop-motion animator, Phil Tippett.

The text caption for this panel came from a randomly chosen page in the nearest book to hand, the dopey pop-psych creativity manual that comes with the Ball of Whacks toy. Next time, I'll make sure a better book is nearby before I roll the die.

Bowie, Pee-Wee, and Dick Van Dyke Walk Into a Bar

The panels that came out of the deck for this strip are in the least common "legal" configuration:

If you look at the rules or guidelines for "Draw Two Panels," you'll see that it's possible to deal the panels into slots #2 and #3, instead of having them separated by a single panel.

My idea for the legal arrangements is this: the strip will go into more interesting territory if the newly-drawn panels don't merely happen in between the panels that come from the deck, but they will be more constrained by the deck panels if you get no more than one new panel in a row.

If no more than one new panel can appear in a row consecutively, and the dealt cards must appear in the order they're dealt, there are only three ways to fit them into a four-panel strip.

Of course, these are only my principles or guidelines. If you're playing "Draw Two Panels" yourself, you can make your own decisions about your constraints.

Greetings, Archy Buffo, Pratfall King

Well, I'm back to my deck, and back to my aleatory experiments.

I could discard panels #1 and #3 now, since they've both been used twice. But I think I'm going to load #1 back into my deck. That seems like a question I want to ask myself again, at least once.

Stay tuned. One day soon I will tell you what I'm doing with the discards.