Have you ever drawn the Demon King? Before yesterday I haven't.
The theme for the Artstorm contest on Steemit where I participate every day was Demon King yesterday. The entire week is dedicated to celebrate the festival of light, Diwali which is being celebrated in India right now.
So naturally this theme was based on the story from India. I'm not entirely sure about the details but I think it's about how Sita, the wife of Rama was kidnapped by the Demon King. And of course Rama came to rescue her.
Well, for the creator of Pinky and Spiky comics like myself, it was a difficult task to portray this theme and use my usual characters Pinky the piglet, Spiky the hedgehog, Cornelius the purple cardinal, Dietrich the mouse, Victor the spider and Betsy the butterfly.
My wife Ausra has already drawn a comic with this theme about Betsy, Victor and Cornelius playing the Demon King so I didn't want to repeat her. I needed to draw something different. And funny, of course... But what and how?
That's the weirdest thing about inspiration that it can hit you in unexpected moments. I was sitting on my usual armchair in front of a TV in the evening. The TV was on but it doesn't bother me when I draw. It gives me a good static noise.
So without knowing what I will draw exactly, I made a frame, put my name and the date on the bottom and wrote the title in the top - The Demon King. Usually my titles start with Pinky and Spiky but I just couldn't picture them in the drawing.
I don't know how but I started picturing Dietrich and Cornelius in the scene. Who could be the Demon King? Maybe Dietrich. Because I'm a musician, mice seem more vicious than birds to me. They can't sing so well...
I then added Dietrich's name at the end of the title and tried to see with my mind's eye what could he do to Cornelius. Of course they live together with Pinky and Spiky and others in the gang so it's not like Dietrich should try to murder poor bird.
Maybe they are also playing? Maybe not. Too similar with Ausra's setting. Maybe Dietrich forces Cornelius to do something which he won't. This could be funny, right?
What wouldn't Cornelius do with his free will eagerly? Well, how about drinking fish oil. He knows it's good for him but the aftertaste...
So I drew Cornelius on the right hanging upside down tied really tight to a rope. Then on the left hand side I drew Dietrich holding a spoon full of fish oil. The fish oil was dripping.
Now the dialogue. Since Dietrich is forcing Cornelius to drink fish oil, the task was simple. I wrote, "You WILL drink this fish oil, Cornelius-Sita." It seemed funny on both sides that Cornelius is actually a boy but Sita is female name.
And that Dietrich had to tie up and hang upside down Cornelius like in a real thriller seemed silly. But that's exactly why it's funny. Now Cornelius had to answer something and I thought it would be fun to write, "Spiky-Rama save me!"
Some of our Pinky and Spiky fans might remember that a number of weeks ago the contest's theme was about Spiky drinking fish oil. And he hates fish oil in bottled form. He is in fact very happy now that Pinky opened a new pack with fish oil capsules so he should know better than anyone how Cornelius feels.
Now the colors... Dietrich naturally have their own colors, orange and purple. I made the rope brown and the spoon sort of blue. The fish oil was supposed to be yellow at first but I decided to have yellow in the background so I mixed it with gold and red. One color background seemed too simple for me and I added blue in the top. It goes well with orange and yellow I think.
(Reminder to self: I really need to get hold of the color wheel. I had one a few years ago when I was just starting drawing again and since it didn't seemed to me important at the time, I gave it to one of my organ students who studied art. Now I think Ausra and I would make good use of the color wheel when mixing colors in our comics.)
What do you think about this comic? Let me know you thoughts in the comments.