Bizarro Year in Review: 2023

2023 Year in Review
By Bizarro

Well, this year just flew by and was filled with all manner of weirdness--some of which were actually pretty cool and completely unexpected.  My art was accidentally used on an alternate Marvel Comics cover to "A.X.E.: Eve of Judgement" #1 by Mr. Garcin.  So, I guess I got to do a Marvel Comics cover in the most bass-ackwards, Rube Goldberg-esque manner... which is exactly the way I would expect it to happen for me, I suppose.

I was also invited to have some of my art on the Escape Motions Rebelle social media pages.  Again, that was cool.  I was also invited to Beta Test Rebelle 7, which was interesting and fun (I hope you're all sitting down, but I'm a nerd).  I found a few bugs, made some suggestions for future features, so we'll see how that goes.  Rebelle has replaced Corel Painter for myself, and has a great painting engine (particularly the Watercolor brush).  They also have a new Metallic paint effect that is pretty neat.  And the pricing isn't outrageous.  Rebelle and Clip Studio Paint are my go to Art Programs.

I also submitted every month this year to semi-local Art Magazine, "Moss Piglet", out of Kenosha, WI, for other art-based fun, and did a few other projects here and there.  Artistically, I think I'm vaguely getting better.  More practice, practice, practice, is needed of course.

After some of that attention, my Blog(s) seemed to take off for several months.  Normally, my Blog is very, VERY modest.  I get about 1,500 hits per month on average.  For a couple months, I was getting several hundred hits a day an a couple times when I had 5,000+ people a day (once as many as 8,000 in a day).  For a little bit, I will admit the numbers made me think I was gonna be popular and my star was gonna rise and all those other cliches.  But, oddly, as much traffic as it generated, I can't say it really moved the needle at all.  There was no real engagement, no new people following me, or anything else of the sort.  They were just numbers on a graph went up, making me wonder if they were just bots, if any of the numbers are real, and just the general existential questions we all ask ourselves.  Ironically, the added traffic dropped off a cliff and returned to mostly normal the day before I started my "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween", which I consider a pretty fun challenge.  Ah, well, again, I'm not sure what the numbers mean, if anything.  Shrug and move on, I guess.  😀

This next year, I'm hoping to expand things a bit more and push myself a bit further.  I have a few projects I'm hoping to do which may be fun, announcements forthcoming later in the year.

I just want to take a few moments to thank everyone who has stopped by to gawk at my modest Blog.  It is much appreciated, more than you can possibly know.  I'm hoping the New Year will be filled with Peace, Love, and all that jazz for everyone.

Peace out, y'all!  HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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Done digitally in Rebelle 7, with a lettering assist from Clip Studio Paint

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Year in Review 2021: It's a Good Life

2021 Year in Review
"It's a Good Life"

It seems that every year gets a bad review by me, making me seem like a negative kind of guy (I'm not, really!) but, well, the past bunch of years have been pretty crappy, generally.  So, there's that.  Anyhoo, about this time of year I'm always trying to wrack my meager brains to figure out some mildly amusing/clever take on the previous year.  And, as usual, I was drawing a blank and running out of time.  I used Bizarro for the past two years... I guess I'll use him again and beat that joke into the ground, why not?

So, while trying to think of some Bizarro-esque comment on the year, I happened to have MeTV on in the background and saw Bill Mumy on an old, black-and-white episode of "Lost in Space" as the young Will Robinson.  Seeing him in black-and-white, I immediately flashed on his famous episode of "The Twilight Zone", "It's a Good Life" (a remarkably faithful adaptation of the short story of the same name by Jerome Bixby), and immediately knew I had my Year in Review for 2021.

Good on you, 2021, for giving me an idea just when I needed it.  You still suck, though, and I'm wishing you to the Cornfield...

Here's to hoping for a better 2022 for everyone!

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STEP ONE:  Here is the original idea, scribbled on a scrap piece of paper with a ballpoint pen.  Rather than do a few panels as a comic with "2021" slowly fading out, I thought it would be funnier to do it up as yet another animated .GIF.

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STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass in Clip Studio Paint, done on an 2,700px x 3,600px canvas @ 300dpi.  While the face is almost recognizable as a generic, tow-headed kid that might have been in that one episode of "The Twilight Zone", it's really quite a ways from Bill Mumy.  The eyes are too small, and the nose/mouth are just a bit off.  It took a bit of back-and-forth to even get that close to a semi-adequate likeness.  I was also gonna include the lamps in the background, and part of the phonograph, but it was just visually confusing and simplified everything by leaving them out.

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STEP THREE:  Here's the finished digital painting, with 2021 partially fading out.  It took an inordinate amount of drawing and re-drawing to try and get it to a relatively OK likeness of young Bill Mumy (while mostly there, I think there are still a few little spots that aren't quite right--but I also realized that's about as close as I'm gonna get).  As I've said many times before, I am always amazed at what a difference an 1/8" here and a 1/16" there can do to make-or-break a likeness.   I also slid the top image over a little to the left to make better room for the word balloon(s) and make a marginally improved composition.

I used had the "2021" on a separate layer, and changed the opacity to 65%, then 30%, and lastly 0%, to make it seem like it is fading to the cornfield; then imported the images into Photoshop to make an animated .GIF.

Also, here's something probably only myself and a half-dozen other people will notice, but there is a coincidence of edge on the spring and the top line of the shelf--the edge of the spring visually touches the top edge of the shelf.  Of course, I didn't realize it until I already did all of the work with the .GIF and uploaded all the images.  I'll let it go, but it still bugs me...

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Don't digitally in Clip Studio Paint with an assist from Photoshop.

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Bizarro Year in Review: 2020

 2020 Year in Review
By Bizarro

Hey, it's another "Year in Review" by Bizarro!  This time, as a parody of the "This is fine" meme.

2020... What can be said about 2020 that hasn't been said by everyone at this point?  

My best to all and I hope you all have a Happy New Year.

Here's to hoping a New Year sweeps clean!

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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Bizarro Year in Review: 2019

2019 Year in Review

By Bizarro

OK, who better than Bizarro to explain I have absolutely no idea what to make of 2019.  The year for me has been, well, Bizarre-Oh.  It has whipsawed back and forth between "Hey, that's good!" to be almost as quickly followed by "Oh, that's bad!"...  Like this clip from "The Simpsons", which is good!  It will probably be taken down for a DMCA Violation, which is bad...

There have been the usual retinue of personal triumphs and the high highs; only to be tripped up almost immediately with some personal disaster and low lows.  Some new, close friends I've made along the way, along with close friends I failed to keep in touch with nearly as often as I wished I had (sorry!  I'll do better this coming year, promise!).  To quote "The Simpsons", again: It was the best of times, it was the BLURST OF TIMES?  You stupid monkey!"

It was particularly strange weather-wise.  The winter was very mellow right up to February, when it decided to dump about 3 feet of snow in a month.  That was a LOT of shoveling for yours truly, as it was higher than the maw on the snowblower many days.  All that snow caused some minor flooding (it was just starting to work it's way into our house before I was able to shovel a pathway for the snow and slush and semi-frozen water away from the house...).  Also, with all the crazy snowstorms in Central Wisconsin, for the first time in my life I was snowed in at work.  Since I was there already, I helped out with some of the coordination going on for clean up and such and worked a 32 hour shift.  So, that was interesting, too, just to say I did it.  No, I don't really want to do that again.

Then, in July, there was a massive storm in Central Wisconsin which knocked out power for up to 7 days in some areas (we're talking within city limits, not way out in the middle of nowhere... well, as much of a city limit as Central Wisconsin has, of course).  Amusingly enough, I had just finished my shift at work and drove right through the middle of the storm that knocked over too many trees to count and power for almost a week.  You know it's bad when Wal-Mart had to close for two days.

Then there was an assortment of projects I did of which I was relatively proud, and a ton of other things which I had planned, but never got around to finishing, alas.  I also set a personal record with the number of posts I made this year--most of which were due to my dumb idea about the "31 Days of Hell-O-Ween": a daily posting, done mostly without a net.  Somehow, it worked and I still have no idea how.  But, here's to hoping I post even more next year.  I have plans for a few longer form posts, so we'll see about that and burn that bridge when I get to it.

Here's something strange to me: Whenever there is a video that involves the Celestials from Marvel Comics, my drawings from this Blog have a 50% of showing up in the video.  So, that's kinda cool to see my work show up in strange places.  Too bad they don't know it's from me, but oh, well.  Which reminds me... I will finally have get around to doing some cool drawings and painting involving Celestials.  I was always a fan of Kirby's "Eternals", and with them showing up on the big screen soon, I may have to jump in front of that parade.

Overall, I'm still trying to piece together what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks this year was about.

Oh, well, here's to hoping 2020 is, well, a perfect vision.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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