The Tyger

I started this in approximately 2003, and I only finished it the day before yesterday. With a long gap of inactivity in the middle.





It's not like something I would do now, but I quite like it. It feels like something someone else did. The colours are quite childish and the tiger is very static.





But he's alright.

Wrestlemania Triple Threat Optical Confusion

Slobbering Alpha Pooches

Thundermitt Cenapards!

There you go, plate cats. Munch away!













From a review of the movie 'The Marine' starring John Cena in the role of John Trident (hee hee: John Trident):

'.... exploring John Cena's two facial expressions. Some people might say he only has one, but if you look closely you'll find two. The first is the most obvious, mule-headed stubbornness. The other is more subtle, but I'd describe it as barely constrained confusion. '

From later in that same review:

'....His fingers are like cucumbers, so large they're almost incapable of doing things like grasping. His arms are so muscled they're almost immobile, in battle the guy looks a lot like an angry Tyrannosaurus. '

Now I'd say that's a little unfair. Or confused. Tyrannosauruses have tiny little claw arms.

This review was a bit like prose caricature...

But John does not have hands. Or wrists. He has meatwise embiggened Thundermitts.












I hadn't done anything that satisfied me but I had loads of drawings. So I put them on this blog.







This could go in several directions. Actually it will. So munch on that!

John Cena is A Bump-Lunk!

Maybe that doesn't quite rhyme with 'erumpent' like I wanted it to... never mind.






I've been suffering for my art... I just said 'Right! If I'm going to draw John Cena, I'm going to do it properly.' I had been floundering in indecision, but now I was going to make the sacrifices necessary to see this task through.

But sifting through the reference material was not always easy on the peepers.



(I also referred to this problem on my wordy blog)

Bless his big flat topped rectangular foam wax head.





With this subject, it was kind of a case of 'You can't spoof a spoof'... I actually found it quite hard to get the drawings funnier or more strikingly extreme-looking than the original.

Or... to capture some aspect of the uniqueness of the original and play on it til the cows come home.

He does look sometimes like his arms are on backwards. And that's not the only feature he has in common with Fred Flintstone.





In the past I compared Cena to Poochie from that Simpsons episode that parodied focus-group thinking. Well, that was a little bit unfair. Even though it was true. Cena's designated wrestling persona did in the past make him into an extremly undignified human vehicle for the most unedifying corporate version of the 'tude' that John K described on his blog recently....

But he's a good stick really, is Cena. Watch him fly!









In real life, he appears to possess no 'tude, no pride, vanity, shame, grace, or feminine characteristics. He's also a walking epitome of 'uglycute'. Well, I say 'walking'... he doesn't appear overly good at activities that involve coordinating more than one limb.










When I do these drawings, I start off comparatively careful, with my observational head on...





But then there comes a stage where I'm suddenly faced with a plethora of possibilities... oh no!









Sometimes when I feel I'm gaining control, it makes me feel drunk with power... other times indecision leaves me befuddled. What is my ultimate aim? Moody intense paintings? Cute lighthearted cartoony designs? Involved, extreme caricature? The ability to draw Cena from memory? A striking image for a myspace comment (that's slightly depressing..)





A lot of the decision seem to boil down to 'mood'. Do I want to do something joyful and silly, or something that caters to all my high faluting serious propensities...

Not that the two things HAVE to mutually exclude each other, it may be like a continuum... or it may be that I have to find a way to be serious while infusing my pictures with joy.





I have said that I find it possible to 'get past' a subject and into my own intent once I learn the subject really, really well.

Well gosh I'm having fun with this for the time being.

P.S. apologies to John C and his friends and family, I didn't mean to be mean or anything. All insults are delivered with affection.

John Cena, drawing, cartoon, caricature, WWE, lunk, uglycute