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| The Doo Family Portrait |
Front row, from left to right: Howdy Doo, Scooby's brother; Ruby Doo, Scooby's sister and Scrappy's mother; Scrappy Doo; Yabba Doo, Scooby's brother; Scooby Doo; Momsy Doo, Scooby's mother; Dada Doo, Scooby's father; and Grandpa Scooby.
Middle row, from left to right: Skippy Doo, Scooby's brother; Scooby Dee, Scooby's cousin; Scooby Dum, Scooby's cousin; Whoopsy Doo, Scooby's cousin; Dixie Doo, Scooby's cousin; Dooby Dooby Doo, Scooby's cousin; and Horton Doo, Scooby's uncle.
Back row, from left to right: Great-Grandpa Scooby and Yankee Doodle Doo, the first Doo in America.
I said this once before, but it bears repeating. This idea sprang from something that a friend of mine had said regarding my drawing It All Started with a Mouse. When I had made the mention on Facebook that I had just finished drawing Scooby-Dum, the least remembered character of Scooby Doo, in the panoramic drawing she said that I should add Scooby Dee and perhaps Horton Doo. Of course, I didn't have any room in the composition for more characters, but through that suggestion came The Doo Family Portrait.
Since it took me a long time to finish The Incredible Hulk Transformation it allowed me to go through the entire Digital Coloring class thinking about this portrait. I am not kidding when I say that through each assignment that we had excluding our three original pages I was constantly thinking how I could apply the new technique that we learned in a given lesson to Scooby Doo and his family. I was seriously thinking about adding cuts to this drawing since they would be animated style cuts, and I thought that that would be perfect for a portrait based on a cartoon. However, I decided against it because shadows and highlights were not that prevalent in the classic cartoon, and I suppose that I could've added cast shadows, but I didn't. Instead I chose to just use basic color. Speaking of color, I probably have a rainbow palette, but...I just don't care. I wanted to stay true to the characters' color palette that it didn't matter if I ended up with a rainbow.
This had to be the most fun drawing that I've done since the last time I brought a large assortment of cartoon characters together. Still, it provided some challenges such as Howdy and Skippy Doo. Their only appearance was in A Pup Named Scooby Doo, and they were both puppies, which meant that I had to age them to Scooby's age. Fortunately the three brothers are triplets, which helped the aging process. Strangely, and I have no explanation for this, but Horton Doo should've been aged too since he also appeared in A Pup Named Scooby Doo. I just didn't do it.
I mentioned already that I wanted to stay true to the characters' color palette, but in the case of Great-Grandpa Scooby, I deviated. I stayed true to his blue-gray palette, but he just didn't look that ghostly. In fact, in the one episode that he appeared in he WASN'T that ghostly. Sure he was bluish gray and transparent, and that certainly would have worked if I had put something on the wall to make him look transparent, but I didn't in fear that it would take away from the portrait of Yankee Doodle Doo on the right side. I thought maybe making him look like he's coming through the wall would help, but truth be told, he looked like he was a wall mount. This is where waiting until my Digital Coloring class was over to finish this project came in handy because it allowed me to learn how to do a color hold and make it look like it's glowing. The best color holds are used on intangible objects, and ghosts would definitely fall in that category unless they're solid, but that's a question for another time. So I would have to say that Great-Grandpa Scooby is my favorite of this composition because of his ghostly look.
I hope that you all like it.
Mini Comic Update
I had shown you Page 1 already, and so here's pages 2 and 3. As you can see they're still in the production stage since I haven't gotten rid of the blue line yet or even cropped them to the bleed. Also I haven't done the suggestions that Prof. Chris Schweizer had made, which I probably won't do until all fifteen pages are complete.
I had put the mini comic aside when the Fall Quarter began, and then I picked it up where I had left off as soon as the quarter ended. Normally that would be just fine, but I discovered that I had made a continuity mistake. In the first six pages of the comic that were done before the Fall Quarter the mice have five fingers, but in pages 7-10 that were done after the quarter the mice have four. It's a major mistake, but truthfully, the pages done after the quarter are correct based upon the original character design. The Vampire Mouse was designed with four fingers, not five. So how did he come to have five fingers, not only in this project, but also in The Vampire Mouse Transformation Animation? Answer: I tend to take a picture of myself in the pose that I want to draw, which really helps in drawing hands, but in this case, I forgot to ignore one finger. What a mistake, but one that I will not correct. First of all, I don't know how many people will actually notice, and second, it adds a little bit of speciality to the first installment of the origin story.
Vocabulary Correction
Speaking of errors, I have a slight correction to make. I had said in my last post about the Modern Masters Exhibit at the High Museum that Abagael Warnars had wanted the members of the Atlanta Art History Society to choose a modern master and write a "non-fiction" story about them, and then we were going to hand them to our club advisor, Dr. Jasin. What I meant to say was that we were supposed to write a FICTION story about a modern master. I get "fiction" and "non-fiction" confused sometimes, and I meant to double check it, but instead I decided to do something that's not really me...be confident that I was right. Of course, I was wrong. I'm sorry about that confusion.
Final Thoughts
Before I head back to inking Page 10 of the mini comic I want to announce some drawings that are in the planning stages. The most important one is The Captains of Heroism, which will feature Captain America, Captain Atom, Captain Planet, Captain Marvel, and one more captain whose identity will not be divulged yet. A Dick Tracy drawing featuring some of his most notable rogues gallery. Of course, the two panoramic drawings of The Heroes of the Marvel and DC Universe and The Villains of the Marvel and DC Universe.
So until next time, this is Billy Wright wishing you all a good night. So long, everybody.
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