Mr. Friday WIP

(2-19-06: Pen and ink, assorted microns, sharpie, photoshop colors. All of the lines/black spaces were hand drawn. The colors were filled in through the use of my wacom tablet. Approx. 3 hrs.)


Have I mentioned that Paolo is ridiculously fun to draw? Well, he is. This has been a nasty weekend, so I thought I'd draw something fun. There are a few kinks to work out before I submit the final version, but I like what I have so far.

I've been toying with the idea of joining void.com for a few weeks, and I designed a few characters for that express purpose. Then I realized two things: one, I can't draw dogs, and two, it would make much more sense if I just practiced drawing one of my characters for 'Phantasm'. Paolo seems perfect for a project like this, so I might join him up in the next few days. What do you guys think? I'm all for thievery and debauchery, personally. Besides, he's the only one of my characters who would pick a fight with a stranger given the slightest provocation.

A fun fact about Mr. Vernedi here...the tip of his thumb and first two fingers have callouses similar in texture to the lighting strips on books of matches. If he snaps his fingers, he can create sparks. This is a pretty cool trick in and of itself, but it serves a greater purpose. Paolo has an incredibly high internal body temperature which is contained by his outer layer of skin. This prevents him from burning whatever he touches on contact, but makes it a little tricky to set himself on fire should he ever need to make use of his bogeyman powers. Whenever Paolo gets nervous or agitated, he sweats profusely. Kind of a gross reaction, really, but his sweat isn't the normal nasty stuff. His sweat has a chemical composition almost identical to that of kerosene, so when it coats his skin, he has no trouble setting himself alight. When he gets really pissed, he's about as flammable as a gasoline-soaked rag. Unfortunately, unless he really scrubs off, he smells strongly of lighter fluid...

Since Paolo spends a lot of his free-time restoring, forging, and designing paintings, his studio smells like a horrible combination of lighter fluid, gasoline and turpentine. He would very much like to retire from the theiving busness and become the curator of an art museum, but that isn't likely to happen until he deals with his personality (and hygene? haha) problems. Man, art history rocks.

It's silly, but Paolo's sort of a special character to me, since we share that same dream. Neither of us are likely to ever realize it, but dreams are fun. Right now I'm in bio lab 8-12 hrs. a week smelling like albumin solution, ethyl alcohol, or some other ungodly stench...If you don't know what albumin solution smells like...well, good for you. It is a smell so rank that it could be used in biological warfare. I would gladly trade karyotyping for Klimt right now.