Day of my first online pencil sketches!

` This post will probably not be too long, as my eyeballs hurt very badly right now. Why? If anyone has been wondering where in the heck I was all day, I'd gone out to see The Chronicles of Narnia with Phil and EdgeWalker - although we arrived 1:40 minutes before it started thanks to the failing of my own skeptical abilities.
` No problem, though:
` We spent the interim looking at motorcycle gear, and when we got back to the multiplex with our tickets already in hand, we were able to get decent seats! It wasn't long before the theater was crammed, and for good reason: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe kicks Harry Potter's magical butt a thousand times over!
` Though this movie was also based on a 'children's' book, the Chronicles of Narnia are of a much higher caliber of realism than the whimsical Potter series; accordingly, this movie was more like The Lord of the Rings! As C. S. Lewis was a contemporary and friend of Tolkien's (and both authors were fed up with existing fantasy novels at the time) that would explain a lot of it.
` All I have to say is; "Wow. I haven't seen a movie that was this enjoyable in a very long time! Even all the actors playing the children were amazing! The fake lion was excellent."
` Plus, Mr. Tumnus - played by James McAvoy The Potty-Mouthed - was more adorable than I'd ever had the imagination for! (That's not surprising, considering that I'd read the books at a Time of Inability to Picture Things in my Head.) Also, fauns are so cute... what!?
` In fact, the only thing annoying about his design was, though his goat legs were done very well, he was supposed to have a long tail, characteristically draped over his arm.
` I won't complain too much, though: It could be that the lack of attention to this detail was to save money for all the other great stuff, like Aslan! Oh... don't get me started on Aslan! The centaurs and griffins were really awesome too, even as they fell in battle. And shattered into a million pieces. Yee!

` Sorry! I need to stop babbling...

` Nevertheless, I must say that The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe is much better than the movie I'd watched the day upon starting my first sketchbook....
` Only seventeen at the time, I had just seen Star Wars: Episode I. Now that was a really dorky movie, I admit, but I was still impressed enough to try drawing young Anakin's most bloodthirsty competitor, Sebulba, on the inside of the cover (above the LOTR inscription).
` I liked his design of all the aliens because he was a Dug, a camel-faced humanoid with hands on all four limbs that uses its arms for walking.


` That being satisfactory practice, I dove in for the title page. But what to draw? Perhaps another character from the movie? Well, since one can't help but not forget the obnoxious and amphibious Jar Jar Binks, his head wound up at the top:


` Yes, my last name's actually Hazel. Like the nut. Whose first name is Jerry.

` In hindsight, I think it would have been better if I'd drawn Jar Jar's head no longer attached to his body and stuck on a pike, blood dripping down the words....

` Oh well, can't change the past. Okay, I could, but I don't have the heart to get out my eraser.

` Now, at the time, I also watched Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and since my psychotic dad said that Jar Jar was just as unappealing as 'Gonad O'Boring' (as he called him), I decided I'd draw them both on the second page, just to exercise my memory:


` Okay, that's not the greatest drawing ever, but I thought it was funny at the time. Anyway, I'll have more sketches up tomorrow. I have to get off the computer now. Eyes... aching!