Under the influence...

Sleeping Giant - WIP
Making progress on my new works!
©2017 Copyright, Joseph A. Wraith



   I'm thinking of cloning myself, but I don't think I want to share my toys.  Although I really need to get more stuff done.  I love my day to day job, my random art idea projects and my continual side projects, but I also really love sleep and eating, yea eating is good.   There are just not enough hours in the day.  I like being diversified and doing many different things, but it's a double edged sword.

   When I was young child I had many different creative projects then as well. From building a Death Star trench war scene on my small desk (with big Styrofoam pieces and my models) in my bedroom and making Star Wars models (X-Wing, Millennium Falcon and Tie Fighters) for the trench scene, costumes (Darth Vader was my first, wandered through the Miami Omni Mall in 1978 as a short 16-17 year old skinny football padded Darth Vader, I must have been amusing to see. Sorry no selfies, we didn't take pictures like that back then.) I was doing Cosplay before there was Cosplay, and many other various things such as a bendable latex Alien Head Hugger I made from scratch from clay to mold.

    I was always doing something creative as a child.  I didn't have many childhood friends back then either, because I was never outside playing with them. I found my peace and entertainment in my art even then. As I grew up I was torn between becoming a Special Effects Make-up artist, or being a cartoonist for Disney. My Big Plans at 17!  The Air Force is where I ended up. Although eventually I did both, I was able to work for Disney as an Artist and I was able be a Special Effects Make-up Artist on several films, haunted houses and plays. I remember being a child in Kindergarten and being asked what I wanted to be, all the kids were saying things like Fireman, Astronaut, Princess, Cowboy and such,  I was like "I'm going to be a Cartoonist for Disney!".   I often wonder how many kids became what they wanted. I stand very blessed for the chance for having the talent and stubborn mind to do the things I have always wanted to do.  I never listened to the naysayers. I was inspired by artists such as Frank Frazetta, the Froud Brothers, Jim Henson, the comic art work from Mad and Heavy Metal Magazine and the monster art from Plop Magazine, Odd Rods and Weird-Ohs bubble gum cards.

  I am still influenced by such works today. I love BROM, he is amazing! There are so many wonderful artists today, unfortunately there is also a unoriginal copied artwork and styles out there as well.  Probably why I tend to lean towards the older masters. I've come to abhor Anime and Manga, it all looks the same and there is no growth to the art in general, no new influences. It's been cannibalized so much that it's just a regurgitation of the same old crap done by different artists in various styles.  I'm very tired of the big eyed, big boobed, half naked females with swords. Don't get me wrong I'm all for the female form, when it's real. Otherwise it might as well be Bugs Bunny in a dress, I get more out of that.

 But I digress once more, I think I will never retire, I will do art until I die with a VR Apple pencil in my hand on top of my holographic Ipad of the future.


JW







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