How to Draw an Elephant in Four Easy Steps

This is a series of example drawings I made for class illustrating the idea of visually breaking an image down into its most basic parts and then using those parts to build it back up into something complex. It's kind of cheesy "How to Draw" book style, but it really is one of the fundamental ideas of not only drawing but doing just about any complicated task I think.

Human Resources Puffinstuff

I kind of think this little dude looks a little like a thin, demented H.R. Puffinstuff.

(I don't know what the "M" stands for, I just drew an M)

Keep your ion the ball

Another meeting, another pointless doodle.

It's pronounced "Big-Boo-Tay"

More nondescript, stream of conscientiousness, presentation fueled goodies.

I'm a Buff Baby Who Can Dance Like a Man

This ugly baby is yet another doodle inspired by viewing a Powerpoint presentation.

Little Old Lady Two

Yet another entry in the doodles inspired by PowerPoint presentations collection.

37.85 Liter Hat (for a Canadian Cowboy)

Another random PowerPoint fueled doodle.

Kitty Monkey

Whenever I sit through a presentation I doodle (while still paying complete attention I assure you) and sometimes what comes out of that isn't anything I really set out to create (probably because I'm too busy paying attention to the presentation). For example, a Kitty Monkey.

Bambi Eyes

The stinky lady from the other day didn't have a face, and since it almost looked like I'd posed her to avoid drawing her face I thought I'd do another drawing of what she would look like. I think she seems kind of vacant through the eyes, like she's probably pretty dumb.

Yup, stinky and dumb.

It stinks so good

The dichotomy of foxy lady and gross bodily function is somewhat funny to me.

Bottoms and Tops

I saw a guy in real life with a weird skinny legs in baggy jeans bottom and a super round fat upper body top last week and so I wanted to caricature that, but sadly this drawing comes nowhere close to doing him justice.

Menage a Try

This dude looks like the product of some lost weekend between Mel Gibson, Topher Grace, and Craig Ferguson, presuming those guys could actually reproduce in a unisex threesome.

Mystery Girl

It's been a while since I drew this and I can't remember if she was a real person or not. I think maybe she was, but I doodle a lot of faces...

Down like a Clown

This appropriate medium for this doodle probably should have been as a velvet painting instead of something I scribbled in pen in the margins of a stray piece of paper, but you work with the tools at hand.

Run for the Cure

What I like about this doodle is that even though this guy clearly has a lot of issues appearance wise that no amount of dieting or exercise could fix, he still puts on his jogging clothes to go for a run because he's more concerned about the health benefits than impressing anybody. Good for you weirdo ugly fat head doodle!

Dragon Goat

What do you get when you combine a goat, a lizard, and one of the bad guys from The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift? This goofy drawing.

Be Handsome. Be Attractive. Don't Be Unattractive.

One thing I revert to absently drawing consistently, say in the margins of notes during meetings or whatever, is some variation on craggy, goony, or odd looking portraits of made up faces. Or, in this case, one rakishly handsome looking devil. Look out ladies, he's looking for love.

Philip Glass

This is another drawing I made as an example for class. It's an empty glass.

An optimist might say it's a full glass I suppose, but brother, they're wrong.

Mystery Science Theater Five Thousand

This is a map I made a few years back for K College's annual 5K race. I understand that K stands for one thousand, but one thousand what? Miles? If so this thing isn't remotely to scale.

Starblazing

A kid in class who likes to draw anime and manga style stuff was asking me about doing female faces and hair. I asked him why Naruto wears safety cone orange capri sweat pants and has kitty whiskers on his face.

Then I drew this for him as he watched to illustrate a few things about facial proportions. You'll note the lack of any floating teardrops or asterisks at her forehead.

Where did that stupid stuff come from anyway? I know that the style traces its roots back to Osamu Tezuka, who basically just ripped off Carl Barks and added robots, but how do you go from a Carl Barks rip off with robots to the floaty tear drop nonsense?

About now that student would start correcting me and say that anime and manga are different, there are multiple styles, and nobody in Japan ripped off Carl Barks and who is Carl Barks anyway. Whatever.

Anyway, I kind of liked the drawing so later on I added some stuff to it in Photoshop.

Johnny Appleface

Why did I draw a fruit headed gangster named Johnny Appleface? Do I have to spell it out for you?

(Okay, so I actually don't know)

You're The Man Now, Dog

This is a vector illustration I made of a dog as an example for my digital arts class.

It's a wild dog.

"Wild Dog" by the way also happens to be the name my fanfic that crosses over the John Travolta of "Wild Hogs" with the John Travolta of "Old Dogs." I was going to go with "Old Hog," but that just seemed to demean the fine work of Mr. Travolta.

Live every week like it's Shark Week

Jabberjaw here doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.