I had lofty ambitions for this cartoon after my disappointing showing in the previous panel. However I’m sorry to report that things are sliding in the wrong direction: this most recent panel seems worse than the one before.
After finishing it at the library while listening to podcasts and a Slayer album, I decamped to a bar patio and took stock.
I ran the cartoon by one of the best artists I know (not a cartoonist but a serious student of Renaissance-style drawing and painting) and she agreed it wasn’t the finest. “Too many ideas,” she sagely advised.
At too slow of a pace over the past few months I’ve also scratched out some crude and aggressive new panels in Those not skinning, can hold a leg. Drawings of toothy, spiny and decapitated cartoon creatures and monsters. More of these to come soon as well. I want to experiment more with these intuitive and ugly clashes of color and space.
yes better too many ideas than the reverse! this said while i agree it's very "busy" it give a feeling of franticness (is that a word?) that works and it's totally hypnotic and sucking us in! the one with the yellow almost cross particularly reminds me of a friend of mine who when very young was doing his math homework, his older brother passed by and put a canapé in his màuth without warning him it contained freshly chopped hash, ly friend remembered decades later that "the zero in front if me was trying to suck min head and body in!" it's that sort if feeling if looking at it globally and i quite like it. looking closer around there are tons of micro events micro stories and yes: in one picture you have enough material for at least thee personal gallery shows!!! 🌀
"Too many ideas" seems like it could be a good problem to have. If you can parse what the ideas are, seems to me that you could explore them individually, or in smaller combination. Curious to see what comes from that advice. As always, I'm enjoying your artwork (and your deliberate way of thinking about your artwork), keep going!