Josh and Monica

This drawing was inspired by a cute little moment between Franz’s little sister Monica, and his friend Josh Goldman. What happened was we – that is, me, Josh, J.J., and Franz’s friend David Rosen – were hanging out at Franz’s house, watching “Hellboy,” in preparation for the midnight showing of the sequel. Josh wasn’t too much of a participant, as he was busy dressing up as the main character. Well, he ran into a problem when he realized the skin dye he was using wouldn’t stick. J.J. suggested that he use baby powder to fix this, so Josh went looking for Monica, probably because he figured that her being a girl meant that she was stashing stuff like that.

When I heard Monica scream, I looked up to see both her and Josh standing in the hall outside the media room. The scene was hilarious, with Josh being all apologetic and Monica having this confused expression on her face. To me, it was like an imbalance of power – or maybe more like a situation where no one is in control. I mean, you got this big, tough-looking guy acting all nervous around a little girl. I knew that moment needed to be drawn.

Here are two practice drawings I did of each of them:

I’m proud of the Monica sketch, but I have a few problems with the one on Josh. For one thing, I suck at drawing men, so the whole process of teaching myself to draw the guy was painful. When I finally finished the pictured sketch, I felt that I had nailed it. But upon second glance, I thought, “Dagnabbit! This doesn’t look like Josh. This looks more like…Ron Livingston!!!” I’ve posted it up, though, since the man actually looks manly, not androgynous or pretty-boy anime-ish as most of my men tend to turn out – UGH!!!