Dated 30/06/2015

After somehow stumbling into the world of Looney Tunes, Mike isn't quite sure how to cope with being a toon. Fortunately, Bugs Bunny is on hand to teach him the fundamentals of cartoon mistreatment.

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Oh Bugs. Where have you been all my artistic life.



Told you I'd be getting something finished soon. And I have to say, this was a delight to draw.

I had never attempted to draw Bugs Bunny until last summer, though I have had thoughts about him on occasion going back many, many years. I mean come on, it's hard not to be distracted by those feet of his. Just look at them. They're ma-HOO-sive.



When I submitted my first few experimental sketches of Bugs in my third Character Training Compilation, many folks seemed interested by his inclusion, and I already had a number of concepts in mind for him. (And before you ask: Yes, some include Daffy Duck. And some include size differences.)

It's clearly not escaped some of my watchers that I haven't submitted any finished artwork for the last three months. To an extent, this was the result of greater pressures on my time, with my job becoming more intense and irregular as well as other issues in my family. It was also because any time I had found to draw, I had generally been working on longer and more complex projects. But I was becoming increasingly aware of that gap since my last submission, and it was beginning to feel like I was in a bit of a rut again.

One of the ways I've found to get myself out of such ruts is to focus on simpler cartooning projects, so I decided now would be a good time to turn my attention to the likes of Bugs Bunny. The Looney Tunes/Warner Bros style is pretty loose and elastic so I don't feel it comes naturally to my usually meticulous approach. But much to my pleasure, Bugs proved very easy for me to draw and manipulate on this occasion - though whether or not that continues to be the case in my future work with him remains to me seen!

It will probably come as no surprise that another highly enjoyable aspect of this project was drawing Mike in a different style. I wanted to use Mike in this picture but I didn't want a clash of styles, so I thought I would experiment with depicting him with a Looney Tunes look. The facial design is partially inspired by some references of Daffy, but it was largely pulled out of my head.

I don't normally bother with digital inking, but given that this was a cartoon piece, I decided to try finishing the linework on the PC rather than my usual technique of tracing and drawing a neat final paper copy. Both methods have their nuisances, but I think it came out quite well on this occasion and I may use it again for future cartoon pieces.

Many of you will already be aware that this has swiftly ticked off a square in the latest volume of my Great Unfinished Collection. I actually only started this picture last week, so it has been an exceedingly quick turnaround, which is exactly what I needed in the circumstances. There are others in the pipeline which are also not too far from completion, so I'm hoping this is the start of a little flurry of uploads.

Judging by my past record though, you might want to take that with a pinch of salt.




RRRex