Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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Freaky Friday! The Flashback Edition

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I haven’t done a Freaky Friday post in a while, mainly because I haven’t had anything truly freaky to post about that wasn’t already showing up in WIP Wednesday or the Cynical Woman webcomics. However, I think I have finally found a topic freaky enough for all of us to enjoy. Enter…

Freaky Friday Flashbacks!!!!!

Okay, enough with the dramatics. While digging around for some drafting supplies in my art bins, I came across several old sketchbooks, some from waaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day. I thought it might be fun to show my really, really old artwork here. And you know, I don’t do nearly enough scanning in of stuff during the week, so why not scan in my old scribbles and doodles? Anyway, here’s the first drawing in one of my oldest sketchbooks.

Freaky, huh? I think I was about twelve when I drew this. Possibly younger, I can’t really say. Obviously I had access to colored pencils and books on druids, because I drew this very colorful shielf with a sickle wrapped in what I think was supposed to be mistle toe, and a bloody sword beneath that. This was pre-Princess Bride, so no, that is not Inago Montoya’s sword. I just came up with something fancy on my own. Or maybe I cribbed this from an old D&D manual. I don’t really know.

I do know I used to want to be a druid because I thought it would be cool to have magic powers. Then as I got older, my philosophy on that changed. First, I came to realize that wishing and casting spells did not make things happen, no matter how badly I wanted them to. Second, I also began to think that magic was cheating in a way. I have talents and abilities that I can use, but I have to work to be good at any of them. But doing that work leads to wonderful things. So why not sweat a little over a drawing or a writing project and earn money by the end results? Because honestly, all waving a magic wand ever got me was in trouble (mainly because I accidentally poked someone in the eye when I did it).

What other horror lie in the pages of my old sketchbooks? You’ll find out next week!

And don’t forget, the Cynical Woman Zazzle store has much more recent art that I worked very hard on, so go visit and see if there’s something there you like!

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Rats! Episode 74 – Those Darn Uniforms

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Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized cartoon!

If there was one thing I hated wearing as a cadet, it was cross belts and overcoat. Especially if it was overtop the wool blouse (did we wear the overcoat overtop the wool blouse? Or am I just mis-remembering how tortured I was by the VTCC uniform?). It was like being in Storm Trooper armor, only not nearly as cool. In other words, I couldn’t lift my arms above my shoulders because I was so restricted by the uniform.

I still have the brass breastplate for the cross belts though, and probably a brass rat buckle too. I spent many an hour polishing those things, and I can assure you, wherever they are hidden in my closet now, they look like crap! That’s what happens when you don’t polish your brass over the course of twenty plus years ;D

Don’t forget to visit the Zazzle shop! I’m selling weird stuff!

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WIP Wednesday – Zombie Goth Mermaid

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“Zombie Goth Mermaid – WIP, 4 December 2011” by Helen E. H. Madden

You might recognize this beautifully bizarre lady from this PerCaDraMo post. She’s one of the characters I drew by hand over Thanksgiving week. I thought she turned out so nicely, I decided to take her into Illustrator and see what I could do with her. So far, I’ve converted her into a Live Paint object and have been playing with color. Eventually, there will be brush strokes added, and maybe some fun text, like “Red sea at night, Mermaids delight…” We’ll see how this works out.

I’ve got other gothy, creepy-cool drawings in the works, and they will be making an appearance here as I put them together. Hubster has promised me an “art binge” weekend next week, meaning I’ll get to lock myself into the office and just go nuts putting together fun artwork for myself. I’m allowed to pull as many all-nighters as I want in 3-4 days, so I’m hoping to have some stuff put together for t-shirts and prints by the end of it. If there’s something you’ve seen on the site that you’re very in love with, let me know. I might be inclined to set that up for an art-binge weekend to make a nice, finished product you can have for yourself 😉

*****Don’t forget, the Cynical Woman Zazzle shop is open.*****

I’ve got a few products in there now, and obviously am planning on adding more as time goes by. Take a gander now though. I’ve got a couple holiday cards and postage available, plus t-shirts, a print, and other delightful items you can purchase. Remember, support your local Cynical Woman and help her conquer the world! RARRRRRRRR!!

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ACW Episode 140 – Mama’s Got a New Do!

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Click on the thumbnail above to view the full-sized cartoon!

Oh yeah! Mama’s got a new do! It was high time, too. In spite of all the fabulous color in my hair, it was looking pretty sad. Yeah, I know, it was at least partly the bleaching that I did. But it was also partly the fact that I’ve hit my mid-forties, and my hormones have gone all wonky, and wouldn’t you know it, that affects my hair big time too.

So I went to my hairdresser and told her to lop a bunch of it off. I had recently been watching Farscape and had noticed how much I liked Chianna’s hair style, so I told her I wanted something similar to that. And yes, geek gal that I am, I did bring in a big pic of Chianna to show my hairdresser exactly what I meant. She didn’t even bat an eye.

What she did do was say, “No, I’m just going to do whatever I do,” and then she sat me down in the chair and started cutting. This ended up working out pretty well. She took off a good four inches, cutting based on how my hair curls, waves, and lies on my head. When she was done, there was this huge pile of pink, purple and blue hair on the floor. It looked like someone had shaved a punk version of Lassie. But that was okay, because I was left with a light, breezy look that I am now thoroughly enjoying.

Apparently this was such a drastic change that Pixie did not recognize me at all when I went to pick her up at school. This despite the fact that I am the only parent who shows up with pink, purple and blue hair. But she finally accepted the change and went home with me, so I guess we’re okay.

Now onto other, important news…

We have a Steampunk section in the Zazzle store!!!!!

Yessirree! I finally finished the steampunk themed artwork I’ve been slaving over all month and posted it in the Zazzle store. It was so good, I made it into Christmas cards, prints, stamps, a t-shirt and more! Plus all the other stuff is there too, including my Zombie Santa card! So pop on over and take a look. Zazzle offers sale codes on a regular basis, just look at the top of the page and you’ll see what the current special is. Support your local Cynical Woman and help her conquer the world of merchandising! Yay!

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Move It Mama Monday! Thank Heavens for the Wii

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I am very thankful for my Wii this week. Between the flu and the holidays, I didn’t get to do much of my usual exercise routine. I **did** exercise over the Thanksgiving break, but it was in the comfort of my in-laws’ living room, where Hubster set up our Wii. I did an hour of Gold’s Gym Cardio Workout (the boxing game I love so much) and another hour of Just Dance with Hubster and the kids. I’m sure my brother-in-law just loved watching the four of us bounce around the living room while he was trying to write his latest novel 😀

Once we returned, home, when the flu didn’t have me flat on my back, I did some Walk-It-Out with Pixie and more boxing. I did manage to get to the Y once, on Friday, and then took my first bike ride in a couple weeks yesterday. Both activities went well, which makes me feel good. It means that my Wii workouts let me keep up my endurance in spite of my break from the usual routine.

In fact, I think with the weather turning colder, the Wii will become part of the usual routine again. During the summer, it was easier to get out during the week to bike. Even though I promised myself I would not hibernate inside all winter, I still can’t seem to get myself outdoors to exercise. And with Girl Scout cookie season coming up, it may only get more difficult as things go. So I’m certain I’ll be relying on the Wii to keep my butt as jiggle-free as I possibly can. I may even look into getting a new fitness game, like Wii Zumba, just to mix things up.

Anyway that’s the fitness news for today! If you have any Wii workout games you’d recommend, let me know.

Speaking of news…

Cynical Woman has a Steampunk section in the Zazzle store!!!!!

Huzzah! I finally finished the steampunk themed artwork I’ve been slaving over all month and posted it in the Zazzle store. It was so good, I made it into Christmas cards, prints, stamps, a t-shirt and more! Plus all the other stuff is there too, including my Zombie Santa card! So pop on over and take a look. Zazzle offers sale codes on a regular basis, just look at the top of the page and you’ll see what the current special is. Support your local Cynical Woman and help her conquer the world of merchandising! Yay!

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Rats! Episode 73 – The Weeks Before Finals

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Click on the thumbnail above to see the full-sized image.

Wow. This cartoon is just a few days over 22 years old. I can tell it was drawn during those mad last few weeks before exams because A) I actually wrote the date I drew this on the comic, and B) I didn’t bother with tiny details like correctly spelling “Henry” or putting all four legs on the chair, which can only mean I was feeling very lazy or I was too swamped by end-of-term homework to care.

I’m dedicating this week’s cartoon to Mich, who is currently finishing up her degree in Civil Engineering, though I doubt she feels very civil at this point. I remember those days, trying to crank out those last few stupid papers that really had nothing to do with what I planned to spend the rest of my life working on. I remember the caffeine-fueled all-nighters and the urge to destroy everything around my with a baseball bat. But mostly I remember the blissful moment when it was all over and I could just collapse in bed and go to sleep for a bit.

It will come, Mich. It will come. I promise. Until then, hang in there. You’re almost done.

A quick note, I will be shilling for my Zazzle shop from now until Doomsday, or the end of the holidays, which ever happens last. So stop by the Cynical Woman Zazzle shop and buy Zombie Santa Christmas cards! Yay, Zombie Santa! Or buy something else that I made there and give it to somebody you love, or at least marginally like, as a gift! If you like robots or zombies, or octopi with gears for brains, then there’s something there you want to buy. Support the Cynical Woman or she will give you her cooties of doooooooooooom!!!!!!

(And yes, I am seriously considering making a “Cooties of Doom!” t-shirt, but don’t know when I’ll have that done yet.)

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PerCaDraMo Day 30 – Fin

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Here it is, the last PerCaDraMo cartoon. I kept it simple, yet I think It’s appropriate. The month is finally over and I’ve got 30 cartoon sketches to show for it. Some were very simple, others quite elaborate, but all 30 are done now.

I also completed my NaNoWriMo goal of writing 50K words this month. I had not planned on doing both PerCaDraMo and NaNoWriMo at the same time. I just sort of got sucked into doing NaNoWriMo as I realized there would never be a good time to start a new novel so I might as well start now. So far I have 62K words of notes, outline, research, and a small handfull of actual scenes with setting and dialog. That counts, as far as I’m concerned, even though I haven’t finished the story yet. Maybe in another month I’ll have a decent, complete outline of that novel worked out.

But back to PerCaDraMo. I figured out a few things this month. Namely…

I love drawing with brush pens.

I’m actually pretty good drawing with brush pens.

I’d rather draw with just brush pens than start with pencils first, even though I might make a horrible mistake.

I’d rather draw with brush pens on paper than draw on my iPad, because as much as I love my iPad, it’s not as responsive at times as plain old pen and paper, and the iPad 1 severly limits how big an image I can draw.

However, I draw more with the iPad because it’s convenient and because I don’t have to bother with scanning anything in once I’m done because it’s already there in digital format.

And finally, there is something called NaNoMangO that occurs every November (I think) where artists draw a page of a graphic novel a day for a month. Yeah, 30 fully inked pages in 30 days. Think I could do that next year?

All this drawing has given me a serious hankering to draw some more, and maybe even to try my hand at a graphic novel of my own. So tomorrow I’ll be at my local craft store picking up a few supplies in preparation for that. I can’t make any big promises, but I hope to have something in the works soon.

I hope you all enjoyed PerCaDraMo!!

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PerCaDraMo Holiday Edition 02 – All Hand Drawn

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The following cartoons were drawn at my in-laws house over Thanksgiving week. I used a Prismacolor brush pen with other Prismacolor fine point pens for cross-hatching in some cases, and Faber-Castell color brush pens for the illustration of the Empress. These were drawn on Canson Comic and Manga Drawing Pad paper, 9×12 inches. The Canson paper is fantastic, and the Prismacolor brush pen is by far my favorite inking pen. These were all done free hand, no pencilling before hand (as you can obviously tell in one drawing). In order, the drawings are…

Zombie Mermaid, the first one I drew at my in-laws and by far my favorite. I misplaced my Prismacolor brush pen half-way through and had to make due with a Faber-Castell brush pen, which is slightly larger, but I don’t think it hurt the final drawing.

Man in a Tentacle Top Hat. I like the idea of this one, but man do I need practice drawing profile views. His face and head are far too narrow for that hat.

Empress Olgadevy Grants Her Benediction. I don’t know exactly what inspired this, possibly the Ukranian style icons that are in my in-laws house. It has a very Ukranian/Russian feel to me. I also wanted to draw something without tentacles that day, as tentacles seem to show up a lot in these drawings.

The Original Doctor Octopus. I just started drawing this one, starting at the face, and ended up with a mad scientist pretty quickly. I had the brain in the case drawn, but no legs for this guy, when I decided to add the tentacles. I think I should have added something in the upper right corner, maybe a window or some such thing, but this came out okay. The brain case is based on a gumball machine we have in our house. Mmmmm, gumball braaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnssssss…

And that’s the last of the PerCaDraMo images I drew over the holidays. There’s one more cartoon I need to draw tonight to finish off the month. After which I will have 30 drawings, some very good, some very strange, and some… whatever. I’ll sum up my thoughts on this experiment tomorrow or Friday and let folks know what I think was the end result of all this. If you have thoughts on PerCaDraMo, be sure to let me know, either in the comments section of the blog, or by tweeting me (@Cynical_Woman) or you can send email via the contact link in the website menu above.

Don’t forget to buy your Zombie Santa holiday cards!!!

If you like the artwork you’ve seen here for PerCaDraMo, you can have something very similar in style on your holiday cards this year. Zombie Santa cards are available in the Cynical Woman Zazzle shop, so be sure to buy yours today! And if you see something else you like there, buy that too! Trust me, I will not scold you if you do 😉

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ACW Episode 139 – My Healthy Thanksgiving

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Click on the thumbnail above to see the full-size version.

Oh yeah, do I have the flu. That’s the reason why today’s cartoon is late. I managed to get this drawn, inked and lettered whilst lying in bed yesterday, but then couldn’t figure out how to drag my sick ass out of bed, down stairs and up a second set of stairs to get into the office to scan this in. I seriously considered just grabbing the camera I had stashed in my nightstand and taking photos of the cartoon to upload for today, rather than try to make it to my scanner to do this job properly. I was that sick, folks.

The good news is today I feel much better. Yesterday I felt like someone wearing hob-nail boots was stomping on my back while simultaneously trying to chew through my head horizontally with a chain saw. My face and my teeth hurt like you wouldn’t believe! A friend of mine on Twitter who apparently had the same flu said he kept thinking his face was going to explode, then he hoped it would explode just so the pain would go away. That’s exactly how I felt.

So I spent most of yesterday in bed, letting the kids watch as much TV as they wanted while I tried to remain unconscious (bad mama!). Hubster got home from work, got the kids fed, checked homework and put them to bed. Then he applied some TLC to me by renting “Paul” for me to watch while I lay dying on the couch. In spite of my severe facial pain, I did manage to laugh through the whole movie. I highly recommend it.

I’m much better today, but I slept until noon, and wasn’t dressed and fed until just half an hour ago. Now I’m up and moving and I feel rather woozy sitting here at the computer trying to get all my cartoons set up for the week. Hubster has promised to come home early so we can get the girls and then take us all to see “Puss In Boots.” I expect I will doze through that, no matter how sexy Antonia Banderas is. But the kids say they won’t go without me, so I’m going.

Hopefully I’ll be back to my normal, bitchy self by the end of the week. In any case, here is today’s cartoon, drawn while I was dying from the flu. You should not catch the flu by enjoying this cartoon, but if you do, not my fault!

By the way, if you love me and you want me to feel better, don’t forget to stop by the Cynical Woman Zazzle shop and buy Zombie Santa Christmas cards!! Yeah, whoooaaaa! Zombie Santa! Or buy something else that I made there as a gift for somebody! I know there’s not a ton of stuff in the shop yet, but if you like robots or zombies, or octopi with gears for brains, then there’s something there you want to buy. Support the Cynical Woman with the flu! Or she will give you her cooties of doooooooooooom!!!!!!