DC part 3 – Day at the Smithsonian

May 5, 2025Leave a comment

I was super excited to finally visit the Smithsonian, one of the greatest (maybe the greatest?) collection of museums in the world, all free entry, an absolute gift to the world. I obviously go to these places now with filling a sketchbook in mind, but I’m actually just super interested in all the history on display, and eager to see it all. When I was a kid, I remember my mum’s friend Terri went to America and visited the Smithsonian, bringing me back a pen from the National Air and Space Museum, one of those special pens that astronauts use that can write upside down. I imagined astronauts up there writing postcards, or drawing. I was delighted to see the gift shop still selling these gimmicky pens, but I treasured the one I had when I was a kid and would show it off at primary school. Of course I would just write the words upside down, wondering why astronauts needed to write upside down words, possibly to confuse any hostile alien life forms they encountered, or maybe like when you see ambulances display the word ‘ambulance’ backwards so motorists can read it in their wing mirrors. It’s all part of astronaut training I suppose. Now I like to draw airplanes (I say aeroplanes) even though they are a bit difficult, they are fascinating. The wings are always a lot longer than you expect. You really need those double-page panoramic spreads in the old Moleskine. Above, a whole selection of planes drawn from the second floor. There was a large section of the Museum that was not open to the public, unfortunately, which according to the man included the plane called ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ (I am glad I never asked about that plane, because as established in a previous post I would definitely pronounce it wrong). Still, I wasn’t disappointed. We spent a lot of time doing the slow museum-walking around checking it all out, until we needed an overpriced snack, after which the family left while I stayed to sketch.

Now this here above is one of history’s greatest bits of technology. I draw a lot of stuff, fire hydrants, trees, but once in a while I get to draw an actual piece of significant human history. this is the Apollo 11 Command Module, Columbia, the actual thing that the other fellow sat in while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear (sorry, Aldrin) gallivanted about on the surface of the Moon. They were faffing about making small steps and playing golf or whatever, while up in space the other fellow, Michael Collins (not that one, Irish history fans) had to stay in the car. A bit like when you’re a kid and you have to wait in the car while your dad and your uncle go to the pub. It’s amazing to look at it and think that is the actual module, the real thing that went to space, that we all learned about at school (except in conspiracy-theory states). I’m standing there just inches from history, and it’s a tiny tin can. Definitely had to draw this. I also had to draw some of the space suits on display, see below. Imagine having to wear that. Being an astronaut is no walk in the park. I remember seeing this really realistic film when I was a kid called SpaceCamp which taught me exactly what real astronaut training must be like, and that ended my dream of being a space traveller.

Speaking of space, there was another piece of history on display, a life-size actual X-Wing fighter, suspended high above the seats next to the bathroom. I sat and drew that, of course I did. It was a T-70 model, which as you know is from the Resistance era, the sort Poe Dameron would fly, not Luke Skywalker. Strange that it had a little model of R2-D2 in it and not BB-8. I prefer the Rebellion era X-Wings, because their engines don’t split in half for some reason when they lock S-foils into attack position. What do I know. The X-Wing is like the Spitfire of Star Wars. Or maybe it’s like the F-16, I love an F-16, and the Naboo Starfighter is like the Spitfire. Oh I don’t know, it’s a pretend spaceship.

Still we came a long long way from what came first, which was the original Wright Brothers flyer, from 1903, as flown on that fateful day at Kitty Hawk. Here it is below, the real actual one. It reminded me a little of the Ewok gliders, but as you know the Ewoks could only glide from the trees, they were not technologically advanced enough to achieve take-off. This though is another piece of real actual history. Sure, we would have figured it out in the end, but from the moment humans learned to fly, figuring out how to both take off and land, well that was it. Game over. Of course Wilbur/Orville (below, the one who looks like the conductor from the Polar Express) was obviously lying in it backwards as we all now know, but back then they just didn’t know any better. It still looks more comfortable than flying Virgin Atlantic economy.

The day was moving away from me fast, and I can only draw so much in such a short period of time. I spent a lot of time looking at racecars, but it was time to go and draw dinosaurs…

the scum and villainy cantina

April 3, 2024Leave a comment

I arrived in downtown Los Angeles after dark, checked into my very nice hotel and nearly decided not to head out to Hollywood because it was already past dinnertime. But how often am I down this way? Not very often. So I jumped on the Metro, which didn’t take that long. The LA Metro on a Friday evening is a fun place full of all sorts of characters, I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a hive of scum and villainy but it was interesting. It didn’t take long to get to Hollywood. I really like the aesthetic design of the station at Hollywood and Vine with its palm trees and movie cameras. The Oscars were happening that weekend, and further up the street they were preparing the Red Carpet. I eventually found the Scum and Villainy Cantina, one of my favourite places. I first came here in 2017, when it was just a pop-up place not expected to be permanent, and had a great evening with my friend from London (it was his birthday) and my brother-in-law. I came back a year later with my wife and son (who was then 10) for early drinks on the way back to our hotel in Burbank. So I was really pleased to see that these years later it was still going strong. It feels like the Mos Eisley Cantina, but has expanded its theme from simply Star Wars into a more general level of popular geekdom, with staff costumed in various guises such as the one guy dressed as Super Mario. I was particularly excited to see the one bartender dressed as Hunter from the Bad Batch, one of my favourite current cartoons. Some of the beertaps were lightsabres, and there was a comics-accurate Magneto helmet behind the bar. I ordered a deliciously messy “Charizard Chicken Sandwich” (I recognized Charizard from son’s Pokémon days) and a Blue Milk, of course. It was busy but not overly crowded, and I found a seat at a table with a good view of the bar, because of course I was going to sketch it. This is a very welcoming place that prides itself on being “Your Friendly Neighborhood Geek Bar”. The light was interesting; I was still getting used to my new progressive-lensed glasses so this was a test, but when it came to actually using my paints it was a bit of shot in the dark, as the blacklight changed most of my watercolours into something else, green being impossible to see. I know my palette pretty well though so I did my best, and when I looked at the sketch in proper light I was pleased with the accuracy of my colouring in. There was a lot of pink light though. I had another cocktail called Twin Sunrise, which I sketched below. I had a good evening, and the bar staff were pleased with my sketch, and the cantina reposted it on Instagram; someone commented that it looked like Snape and Voldemort were having a drink in front of me! It was just a couple on a date; I draw people pretty generically when I sketch bars (hiding features where I can – people isn’t my strong point!) (yes, despite the fact that I wrote a book about drawing people), but now I’m wishing that I had actually drawn people as sci-fi and fantasy characters, added in a Wookiee and a Gelfling or two. Maybe you can imagine the hairy figure on the left is Hagrid, crouched over. My eyesight was struggling as it was!

I nearly came back again the next evening, a fun place to hang out this was, but I was pretty tired after drawing dinosaurs all day (which was my Saturday plan) so I didn’t come back up to Hollywood, especially on the night before the Oscars when I’m sure the LA Metro would have been full of celebrities and stars. I can’t wait for my next visit back though, to try more things. I bought a pin; I wanted a t-shirt but I’ll get one of those online. If you want to see their website (check out their drinks menu!), it’s at: https://scumandvillainycantina.com/. If you’re in LA, check them out!

little bit of star wars early in the morning

October 20, 2023Leave a comment

I was up very early, as I’ve been doing, and I needed to sketch something, again, as I’ve been doing. So I drew the Lego AT-ST, in that gray paper sketchbook I haven’t drawn in since those early pandemic days, using the fountain pen that I’ve just started using again for the first time in a few years. This October has been a bit annoying and I’ve generally been feeling a bit stressed, and that has actually led to me sketching more. Hooray for being busy and stressed out! Anyway. I love Star Wars, by the way. I really enjoyed the Ahsoka show – slow start, I was getting irritated by all the arm folding and long pauses in the dialogue, but it all picked up. A few unresolved threads in there I felt but it was great seeing Anakin especially in Clone Wars form. Thrawn was exactly as hoped. I loved that it was genuinely a sequel to the last season of Rebels, the animated show I really loved. (I was a huge fan of Clone Wars too, and enjoyed Bad Batch; that revisited final season of Clone Wars was maybe one of my favourite Star Wars things). The fight choreography in Ahsoka was a lot better, though it’s easier to animate two-handed lightsabre fighting than to act it. still the lightsabres looked a lot less like glowsticks than in some previous Disney + shows. Speaking of, I could have a lot to say, but life’s too short, and I am awake in the middle o the night after an unexpected 3:30am wake-up. Mandalorian – I liked the first season, though it left me a little cold (a bit too style over substance); the second season I enjoyed a lot more with some great characters showing up, and had the best ending; the third season, sheesh, what the hell was that episode with Jack Black, honestly awful. Book of Boba Fett – started ok, got progressively shitter, and ended so terribly, but the slow chase scene on those ridiculous colourful mopeds was a low point for Star Wars until that Jack Black episode in Mando 3. I loved Obi-Wan Kenobi, sure there were a few choices that went the wrong way but on the whole it was a well planned out show (there were no episodes where we took a break from all the characters and spent an hour on some other story about a boring guy getting a desk job – FFS, Disney Star Wars) and it was a series that I really enjoyed. But I’m a massive Revenge of the Sith fan. And then there is Andor, a show with some beautiful moments, but was Too. Bloody. Long. And Too. Bloody. Boring. Star Wars for people who don’t actually like Star Wars. If it had dropped all at once like Netflix, instead of very slow weekly episodes that didn’t have proper endings, and you could watch it all together, it might – might – have been more enjoyable. Too many characters, too slow scenes, very hard to care about anyone at all (with the notable exception of Andy Serkis’s character), especially not the title character who was so uninteresting I thought his name was ‘and/or’, it was a show that if it didn’t have ‘Star Wars’ on the title would probably be a lot better off, but people like me would not have watched it. Honestly I watched it all, but my family took to skipping episodes (especially those ‘middle of the story’ ones) and I didn’t even have to recap, because there was nothing to recap. All those episodes, I was wondering if there was an editor’s strike or something. Too many not very interesting British actors playing side characters acting in that very boring way you see on the worst kind of ITV drama, and do you really need to see how someone gets from one place to another every single time, sat on the bus with them, walking across that hill, dudes this is Star Wars and we have places to go. And then there is Cyril. I know that isn’t how they spelled it, but they have a guy called Cyril who loses his job, obsesses about a woman in uniform (who takes pills to pull all-nighters working on solving a case like in all the serious detective dramas), goes home to live with his mum, eats bowls of cereal in her kitchen while she badgers him about a job she can get him with his uncle or something, and he gets that job and sits at a desk in a cubicle in a big office, and obsesses about the woman in uniform he fancies and about ‘and/or’ he wants to get back at – who wrote this show, Morrisey? This isn’t Star Wars, it’s a low budget Channel 4 drama set in the north of England that occasionally says the word ‘space’ or ’emperor Palpatine’ when it is nudged and remembers to. And people on the internet love it, they’re all “it’s my favourite Star Wars!”, because they don’t want kids shows, they want serious and slow and dark and grown-up (and people called Cyril who eat cereal and work in a cubicle), and that’s fine, keep it, and if you like it good for you, it’s good to like things, I like a lot of things I’m sure you hate (like the Phantom Menace), but Andor is only Star Wars because it says it is. Anyway enough of all that, I’m going back to bed.

long day at disneyland

March 17, 20234 Comments

Just before Christmas we took a brief little trip down to Southern California to visit Disneyland. My wife loves Disneyland; on my first ever trip to America in 2002 she took me there. This trip was to see all the Christmas decorations, which is always fun, and we were staying for two nights, which meant we would attempt the long, long day in the parks, and we were going to both parks, including California Adventure. We had an early start, getting to the gates not long after 7:00am, which is ridiculous but my wife is a good Disney planner and if we make the early start, we can beat a lot of the crowds, and have time for an afternoon nap. So we headed down Main Street with the other early birds and went over to Adventureland, which was not yet open. We were going to start off with Indiana Jones. While we waited, more and more people started to arrive, and I took the opportunity for a first quick sketch of the castle, above. I got this story into my head that Donald Duck’s original name was Dickie Duck (because they were supposed to be Mickey and Dickie, you see), and so every time I saw Donald Duck I would refer to him as Dickie Duck, and I don’t know, it would make me laugh when people tried to correct me. Didn’t really happen, just got eyerolls from my family. I’m Such A Dad. Disney days are busy, I always bring my sketchbook but we are generally on the move, and we get a lot of rides in. We went back to Galaxy’s Edge, ths Star wars land, and rode on the Rise of the Resistance ride, which is a lot of letter ‘R’s, but was a pretty phenomenal experience. By the early afternoon it’s usually time for a rest; my wife and son went back to the hotel to chill out, but my idea of resting is stopping and sketching. I found a spot nearby the Haunted Mansion, which was all decked out with ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ theme, which they do every year. We didn’t ride the Haunted Mansion this time, I’m not that into that one anyway.

While they were still resting at the hotel I strolled back over to Galaxy’s Edge to draw the Millennium Falcon. It’s not super easy to draw and I find myself sketching the various Mickey and Grogu eared people walking by. Fewer people with lightsabres this time but some had some pretty nice ones. I love a lightsabre, but I’m not doing that whole expensive build-your-own fancy one, though they do look good. We have enough plastic ones at home that me and my son used to fight each other with when he was small. I had an interesting juice drink with a fancy Star Wars name, then met up with the family again to spend a bit of time at California Adventure (the guy on the turnstile was very rude to us when the system wouldn’t let my son back in), rode on the rides at Cars Land (always great), had a look at the new Marvel Avengers stuff (wasn’t so great) and then later on we went back over to Disneyland for the fireworks which we watched over the Falcon, and had a drink in the Cantina. We went home at 11:30pm, so that was a very, very long day in the parks. I don’t need to go back again for quite a while but it was a fun day out, right before Christmas.

the bedroom days

May 26, 2020May 26, 20201 Comment

A couple more on the iPad drawn in the bedroom, or the Bedroom Office as it now is. Both drawn before we got our living room back (which was over the weekend, hooray!) so this was also the dining room and watching tv room. It’s also where I draw and write (haha, I hardly ever write at the moment), and it would be where I do my Lego animations but I’ve not done those in a while either. I felt like installing a running track around the bed and using it as a gym too. With all stuff from downstairs shelves all over the floor it would have been more like a hurdle track. Ah well, it’s where we are right now. I notice from some of my fellow sketchers in Europe that things are slowly beginning to open up there, and I think that they will here too soon, but extremely cautiously. Well most of us, some aren’t. I also can’t wait for the shelter-in-place to be over, because then the walking and running paths around here might not be so busy, people might stay in more. I don’t know, I want to go places, get on a train and wander about the City, but I don’t know how we’ll all feel. I have a nice mask. Lately I’ve been obsessed with the idea of going on week-long hikes along the national trails of England, as if that should ever happen. I used to think about that sort of thing when I was young but never got around to it, except my time in Cumbria when I was 17 doing the Outward Bound thing. In the meantime, stay at home, it’s very hot outside again in California. These two sketches were done on the iPad, sat on the bed, the one below while watching Revenge of the Sith (I do love ‘Sith’, one of my favourite films), the one above while monitoring an online seminar/workshop for our department. The bookshelf was moved from downstairs during the flood but I am going to keep it there as I like having books close by my bed. I have already moved the dvd shelf downstairs and replaced it with my old collection of Fighting Fantasy books. And right now, I’m watching the Bundesliga, as football has returned to Germany, albeit in empty stadiums. Unlike the quiet first round of games, the Dortmund-Bayern game has crowd noise pumped in, and the tv cameras are angled to show as little of the empty stands as possible. I’ve watched so many old World Cup games lately it is nice to watch some actual real new games. I feel like a teenager again, when I would rarely leave my room, just stay in there drawing and watching football or Star Wars or reading. Still on top of the recent flood which left us without a living room for a month, one of the cats got sick and was in hospital a couple of times, he’s recovering now the poor thing, but he did wee all over my side of the bed one night. Go home 2020 you are drunk! One thing all of this disruption and time at home has given me is time to go through things and organize stuff, get rid of what I don’t need, and one day I might get started on that.

In the meantime I’ll draw round the house. Tomorrow our local sketching thing Let’s Draw Davis will have a virtual get-together, less of a sketchcrawl and more just the show and tell bit, showing what we have drawn while stuck at home during this whole thing. I had an idea over the weekend that I might put a video together of my stay-home sketches, and the I thought I could do a series of YouTube videos giving a tour of Davis through my sketches, focusing on a different area or theme each time, make about 8-10 of them. Summer project.

galaxy’s edge

August 18, 2019August 18, 20194 Comments

In June, we went to Galaxy’s Edge, the brand new Star Wars land at Disneyland California. It was fun – expensive – but they have a huge life-size Millennium Falcon, and since it’s the fastest hunk o’ junk in the galaxy well, you have to sketch it. It was busy, for sure, though at that time Galaxy’s Edge were still only letting in limited numbers, I think it’s more open now. It’s very hard to get a reservation for a drink in the Cantina, that took some queuing up, but that was fun as well. Could have used more people dressed as aliens. The Millennium Falcon ride was good, flying in the cockpit, people saying “punch it” like that phrase is the new “may the force be with you”. Oh, the whole place is called Baku, and is named after the the city far, far away where they held this year’s Europa League final, forcing two teams and a few fans all the way from London, through asteroid fields and pursued by bounty hunters. Sorry not Baku, it’s called ‘Batuu’, which sounds very similar. As I sketched this I stood on a box that I had been sitting on, and a space-uniformed Batuu lady came up and said that climbing is not permitted in Batuu. They really sell this place as a real place (and people really buy it, with real non-Batuu currency). It’s pretty big too, and they are going to expand. The level of detail is epic even for Disney, and I tried a quick sketch in the restaurant (below) but there was so much to draw.

All in all, it was fun. My bubbling drink at the Cantina was crazy. I know Star Wars has been part of Disneyland for a long, long time (Star Tours is still one of my favourite things) but now Disney owns it and decides on its direction, well I do miss George Lucas, and when I asked my young nephew recently who his favourite Disney character was and he said “Darth Vader” well, a little part of me sank. But they did a pretty good job on this park. It’ll be expanded with a new ride soon, so I’m sure we’ll be back.

Up next…sketches from the summer trip…

on and on across the universe

November 3, 2018November 2, 20181 Comment

More Lego sketches! These are the mid-prequel-era Jedi star-fighters of Obi-Wan Kenobi (above) and Anakin Skywalker (below). The Obi-Wang ship actually comes with a huge ‘hyperspace ring’ (because one-man fighters this small don’t have space for an internal hyperdrive). I like the simple, sleek design, like a paper airplane, or a teeny-tiny Star Destroyer. The droid, R4 (or ‘Arfour’ as in ‘Arthur Daily’) liked to deal in dodgy motors and go for a drink down the Winchester. One thing always bugged me though. In Attack of the Clones, when Obi-Wan flies one of these to Kamino, Mace Windu orders him to apprehend Jango Fett and bring him back to Coruscant for questioning by the Jedi. But look at that ship! How’s he meant to do that? It’s not like there’s tons of room. Is he going to sit on Obi-Wan’s lap? Think, McFly, think!

Anakin’s Delta 7B fighter is a similar but not identical design (Obi-Wan’s is technically a Delta-7 Aethersprite-class light interceptor). The R2 unit sits in front of the cockpit. That must be awkward as you can see, because he’s always looking sideways. He’s going to be very uncomfortable like that. This ship didn’t appear in the movies but turned up in some of the animated media. I wish Lego had designed a more pointed nose but I suppose they didn’t want to take kids’ eyes out.

Flashback to last year…I drew their later versions, the ones flown in the opening sequence of Revenge of the Sith (which were trashed on Grievous’s starship). First up is Obi-Wan’s red and white (or grey here in Lego), Eta-2 Actis-class interceptor. Yeah I never knew it was called that, I looked it up. Later in the movie, when he flew to Utapau, he had a cool looking blue and white one, but he had to ditch that one too after Order 66. I love this design though, kind of like a B-Wing cockpit and a tie-fighter mixed with a speeder. If I lived in the Star Wars universe, this would be my vehicle of choice, you can keep your Falcons and Slave Ones and X-Wings. Well maybe I’d have this for space and a Snowspeeder for when I’m on-planet.

And then there is Anakin’s one. He later flew a dark green and grey one, once he started turning to the Dark Side, abandoning his previous love of yellow vehicles. Later on, he only flew in black (or sometimes very very dark grey). You can see how this design could mould into the classic Vader TIE-fighter. I wonder what that would look like in yellow? I bet the Emperor told him he wasn’t allowed to paint it yellow, he’d ruin the Empire’s whole aesthetic.

inktober 2017, told in Lego

December 3, 20179 Comments

Yeah, I know. I haven’t called, I haven’t written, to be fair I haven’t sketched that much either, but this is the longest I’ve neglected my regular sketchblog since I started doing it. A mixture of being super busy (which was stressful) and being super in Hawaii (which was nice). And suddenly it is December! And I have drawn my son’s 2017 advent calendar (pictures soon). I’ve also watched and enjoyed Thor Ragnarok and, yes, even Justice League. And it is appropriate then that the first entry in this very long series of sketches you are about to see is of the Flash, who for me was a lot better than I expected him to be. Here he is.

Oh right, I should explain. This is a series of drawings I did for “Inktober” 2017. What is that? Inktober is a series of prompts given out at the start of October to encourage people to draw one thing every day based on the prompt, but in ink. For 2017 they were: Swift, Divided, Poison, Underwater, and loads more. You can see the list at http://mrjakeparker.com/inktober/. Or just keep on reading and looking….

Number 2 is “Divided”, and it’s pretty obvious what is going on here. Iron Man has dropped Cap’s shield while he figures out a way to divide his collection of mugs between those suitable for tea and those for coffee.

Number 3 is “Poison”. Now technically Venom isn’t poison, but when you are writhing in agony after a rattlesnake bites you the last thing you want it some eejit coming along correcting your grammar.

Number 4 is “Underwater”. The Little Mermaid tends to live underwater, except for that time when she was banished for being Unworthy and couldn’t lift her mighty jewel.

Perhaps I should explain all of these. So my theme for my Inktober sketches was Lego minifigures, of which I have quite a few, mostly Marvel and Star Wars, and I love to sketch them, animate them, hide them from felines. Also, I decided that while this was all about ink drawings, I would nevertheless colour them in with some watercolour paint as well because “whatever, I do what I want”. This one is Falcon, who has very long wings.

Ninjago had to get in here, huh. This is Lloyd, number 6, and yes he actually has two swords. I know the one he is holding behind his back looks a bit odd but that was the pose, get over it. Ninjas gotta ninja.

Seven is ‘Shy’. Now I think Mr Lego Movie man is just a few days shy of his birthday and is freaking out about it. I did include the Palm Tree because of that whole thing with coconuts and shy, but it was, look I don’t know how coconuts work. The barrel seemed important.

I love this minifigure. He’s a dandy highwayman, without the dandy. Crooked as a barrel of snakes. I couldn’t use that because I didn’t want to repeat the barrel theme.

The rat is behind him and we are looking down at a slight elevation. He isn’t floating at his waist. The banana is bendy which will please the brexit lot. This is a pirate though who was probably pretending it was a pistol. He is screeching by the way because One Direction are on TV and he is excited as fuck. His vest was made by the same tailor that clothes Dennis the Menace (the British one from the Beano, who had the dog Gnasher, not the American one, who isn’t really a menace, Mr Wilson just needs to chill out a bit) (fun fact! I was in the official Dennis the Menace fan club) (fun fact! Darth Maul, who is also sometimes called Dennis the Phantom Menace, painted his face red and black in honour of Dennis the Menace’s famous jumper. He couldn’t do the hair because of the horns, but he did always refer to Naboo as Gnaboo, a reference only he understood) (he also used to call the Jedi “softies” and his secret nickname for Qui-Gon Jinn was “Walter”)

Number 10. “Gigantic”. Thanos would win this, wouldn’t he. Wouldn’t he? Well no, according to Deadpool vs Thanos by Tim Seeley, Deadpool definitely outdeaths the big purple chinned one. By the way, that trailer released this week, yes I am a little bit excited. I just hope Thanos finds his hat! He’s probably looking for it, that’s the plot of the film.

Number 11 is “Run” and who better than Batman running to represent “Run”? It just needs Rodney to run alongside him now, like in that really old tv show. Thing is why is he running away from the batlight? Maybe he was just there and is off on his mission now, that is it. “So Batman,” coughs Commissioner Gordon. “Two-Face’s bank robbery is at the other end of the city. How are you going to get there? Batwing? Batmobile? Batcycle? Batportation?” “Ok, first of all,” growls Batman, “it’s ‘The Bat Man’ now, or just ‘Bat of Gotham’, right. Got that? And you are now Co-Missioner Gordon, because you are my co-person on my missions now, not The Rob-In. Secondly, I am going to run, because that is what Bats do.”

I’m so looking forward to the Last Jedi, aren’t you? Not long now. Kylo Ren likes to smash things up. Afterwards he feels totally shattered. I get it. I always feel tired whenever I have to talk to people as well. I’m sure his mask doesn’t help, having to repeat himself all the time.

Speaking of evil, here is Ultron. Don’t tell him that his name would be a good name for a washing powder. Danny Baker doing the adverts, “choose Ultron Prime, gets your metals greyer than grey”. This is teeming by the way not because they are teaming up (I can spell you know, occasionally) but because they are teeming, like insects, but in this case they are murder-bots. “This place is teeming with murder-bots, let’s go to Wetherspoons instead.” (By the way, I’d take a city falling from the sky teeming with murderous robots over an evening in a Wetherspoons any day)

Not sure about the red and white saltire, I think it was supposed to be X-Men related. This is the Wolverine, also known as the Logan. He is definitely fierce. He is also the best there is at what he does and what he does isn’t very nice. My wife pointed out though that he really isn’t the best there is at what he does, because if he were, he wouldn’t keep getting stabbed and shot. That actually makes him pretty rubbish at what he does. I’m like, fair point, but look at his claws. They are cool, even if they aren’t how claws work.

Fifteen is the Master of the Mystic Arts himself, Doctor Stephen Strange. In this picture is is singing Peter Andre’s hit song Mysterious Girl. That stuff behind him was added in afterwards, he was singing in front of a green screen. Those things on his hands are Magic.

Yeah, Comic Book Guy has a bit of a weight thing going on, I know. Sure, this is a cheap shot, I added the hot dog and soda and donut pieces (all real Lego pieces I do have), for all you know that is a low-calory Linda McCartney sausage, he could be drinking water and that donut could just be a small plate, the comic could be a book of encouragement, and that belly is drawn onto his shirt. So why this for ‘fat’, then? Because you can’t spell ‘fate’ without ‘fat’ and he is saying no, I reject my fate, I am not there yet, so ‘fat’ is just ‘fate’ but incomplete because he rejects it. That makes sense to me, because it is 1:30am after a busy week, and I am eating Pop Tarts.

Am I going to do this for every one? I’ve started now so I will, as Magnus Magnusson used to say, Finnish (pretty sure he was Icelandic actually). Black Panther is pretty graceful. I can’t wait for his movie, and he was great in Civil War. WAKANDAAAAA!!!! Actually I decided against the Pop Tarts. I am not accepting my fat.

One from the Lego Death Star (which by the way I have, and it is awesome). This is when they fall down the garbage chute and into the trash compactor. Hey have you heard of Palette Swap Ninja? It’s this thing on Youtube where someone has taken Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and put it against the original Star Wars film, and it totally works. Different words of course (it’s called “Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans”), and the one from this scene is Lovely Rita Meter Maid, renamed as “Dianoga Sewer Snake”. Love it!

Number 19 was Cloud so we had to go to our favourite floating city in the sky, the imaginatively named Cloud City. I laugh at that but other cities have names that are also obvious, in their original (often lost) languages. London for example may have come from an old British term meaning the Hill by the Pool, Canada comes from a word meaning ‘village’, and Venice comes from the words ‘Very Nice’. That London one is disputed by the way, but that’s what I used to tell people in my old bus tour guide days as one possible explanation referring to Tower Hill, by the section of Thames called the Pool of London. I wonder if Boba Fett, when he dropped off the frozen Solo at Jabba’s palace, was all cracking up, saying “and then he goes, “I know“! Hahahaha! I’m totally using that one!” Jabba and Bib and that horrible little monkey thing are all rolling about laughing, they can’t even pick up the carbonite because they are laughing so much.

20 is another Ninjago one, this is Sensei Wu, who as all masters do, says deep stuff. I can totally relate.

21, this is Nick Angry from the Avengers movies. He has a flying car, like any badass should.

22 is “trail”, so here is a man with a map looking a bit lost. Reminds me of 17 year old Pete in the Outward Bound excursion in Cumbria, that was an experience. I was not a great navigator but I quite enjoyed being out in the wilderness. Well, the countryside, it was Cumbria, not the Canadian Rockies. Cumbria can be pretty rugged though, and the midges are about a foot long biting chunks out of your arm when you’re trying to sleep.

The connection here was juice as in petrol/gas, that’s the best I could do. I love the Formula 1 Lego, and F1 itself too. Glad Hamilton won the title this year, but hope Ferrari give them a juicy old run next year.

Han Solo again, this time coming out of the carbonite and unable to see, and about to be thrown into the Sarlacc, except wait! That’s Lando in disguise! Mr Cloud City himself. Tatooine just means ‘Sand World’. Luke just means ‘farm boy future jedi’. Lando on the other hand is a nickname because he actually hates the land, it’s ironic, that’s why he liked living in the clouds. It’s 2:10am and I wish I had had those pop tarts now.

Come on, this is the only ship that matters. But what’s this? Captain Hook has stolen the Millennium Falcon! He stole it from Unkar Plutt, who stole it from the Irving Boys, who stole it from Ducain, who stole it from Han Solo. “Would you get going, you pirate!”

Squeak, well here are two of our favourite mice ever, unfortunately I drew them looking totally spaced out. Why Mickey is shirtless I didn’t ask.

Spider-man! Or ‘Spider of Queens’! I LOVED ‘Homecoming’. Here he is climbing Avengers Tower. Little does he know, there is an elevator. Phil Coulson uses it in the first Avengers movie, eagle-eyed viewers will remember.

“With style” yes, yes that’s the reference. That’s what I say, “oh it’s not Winter, it’s just Fall with Style”

Awww. They are back together. I always imagine them singing like Annie and Daddy Warbucks at the end of that film, I forget what it’s called, Orphan with Dog or something. “Together at last, together for-ev-errr”. Get this man a shield.

“Found”. “Just lying in the desert”. “Fell of the back of a spaceship”. “Ben Kenobi said I could have it, m’lud”.

And finally, #31. Mask. Because Luke tries to mask his obvious displeasure at seeing his father is all bald, he is thinking, oh man when I’m his age I’m probably going to be all bald too. Little did he know the opposite would be true, he’s totally hairy, stuck out on that island. Just two weeks until The Last Jedi! But for now it is 2:30am and I hope you have enjoyed this little pictorial story of a month.

sabre rattling

June 9, 20172 Comments

Well what an election night that was! I actually bowed out and didn’t watch it seat-by-seat this time, because frankly I wanted to watch Wonder Woman instead (it was pretty good). I got home just in time for them to announce the Hung Parliament, so, more fun then. Sure there’ll be another one around the corner soon. Anyway…I’m still catching up with month-old sketches, and here are a few of the old Star Wars Galactic Heroes figures I’ve had for years, the ones with the odd bow-legged stance, as if they are on the Galactic Loo. The bottom ones were drawn on Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, (for my friends in the UK, that’s on the Fifth of April). They do look like they’ve lost their seats, a whole bunch of lost seats. Nick Clegg’s, for example. I wish I had more, like the Boba Fett one, but you can’t get them any more, except on Ebay or Amazon for a lot of money. I love that Vader one on the bottom row, pointing his sabre like Errol Flynn. These were a lot of fun to draw.

“and this is my counterpart”

April 25, 2017April 26, 20171 Comment

This near-sighted scrap-pile. This overweight glob of grease. This malfunctioning little twerp. This real bargain. This extremely well put together little droid. This subject of loose-wire jokes. This stupid lump. This feisty little one. This stupid little astromech. This devoted searcher of former masters. This a-bit-eccentric artoo unit. These rusty innards. This maker of mistakes, from time-to-time.

Actually this is just a water-bottle, which has the design of everyone’s favourite little droid (or do we all like BB-8 more now?). It belongs to my son, and gets a lot of use (especially during soccer practice).