the eXternal mind

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Wait! Before you call some organization for the detriment of child violence or something to its equivalent, I would like to explain myself.

There was a “political cartoon” mini-competition in AP European History last week for extra credit points. I was part of an awesome group including Euge, Steve, Liebniz, and C. Grace. Since we all had somewhat horrible Euro grades (well, it just might be me), we decided that the best way to win would be to draw super-awesome cartoons–and so we did, in our opinion.

Euge drew two hilarious cartoons (he should scan them) in his usual stickfigureish style. Chris drew a Mario and Luigi adaptation of Giuseppe Mazzini’s meeting with Victor Emmanuel symbolizing the unification of Italy. Liebniz drew the death star and Brandon the Hut. I drew for the Germany category depicting Otto von Bismarck’s “Blood and Iron” phrase.

Well, maybe, I was a bit too clear about that. We (the group) took the straightforward approach for the cartoon and went for humor instead. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out very well. Here’s how the results went:
Mrs. W: “Group 1 (our group) gets 5 extra credit points!”
Us: “Yeah!” *All looking happy since we think we won first or something*
Mrs. W: “Group x1 wins 7 extra credit points!”
Mrs. W: “Group x2 wins 8 extra credit points!”
Mrs. W: “Group x3 wins 9 extra credit points!”
Mrs. W: “Group x4 wins 12 extra credit points!” (or something like that replacing xn with the group number)
Us: “Oh crap. We must have done really bad.”

Oh, yeah, right. About my “cartoon”. Well, if art is supposed to capture a certain emotion or feeling, then I think my attempt at the manga-like cartoon seemed to work. Because of the intensity of Bismarck’s goals, I thought his mindset was really emphasized in his “Blood and Iron ” phrase. When the rest of the group suggested that I draw blood and iron literally, I drew blood and iron, literally. Just imagine how much it would hurt to get smashed in the face with a huge high-density iron. Yeah, that’s exactly how Bismarck worked (I’m supposing, of course).

So, I tryed to put more dynamics in there, but I’m still horrible at drawing people that I botched a lot of the angles up. I was trying to simulate fast motion with the lines, but that’s not quite how manga artists do it. When I was reading Initial D, I realized that perpendicular lines are used to blur the edges. I think in other action manga, no arm is drawn at all, just lines marking a boundary. It’s quite interesting to draw actually. It helps me look at the world with some perspective… (bad pun intended)