A Visibly Frivolous Day

For some reason, things that are totally, utterly, thoroughly, and absolutely black really tickle my funny bone. It happened with the rock star's totally black ship in one of Douglas Adams' books (Restaurant at the End of the Universe?) and it happened with Mr. Lipwig's "sombre" suit: "the suit was so black that if it had been sprinkled with stars the owls would have collided with it." That's funny.

There is an rule of thumb in animation (and probably painting, too) that you can't colour anything totally black because it will look like a hole in the screen (or canvas) and I thought that would be amusing in the case of this particular costume. What would be most effective, of course, would be to see this "hole in the screen" effect in live action, but that would be far too complicated for my frippery. I drew up a pose and stuck it on a screencap from Hunchback (its Paris is the closest I can find to a ready-made Ankh-Morpork) ...
This one turned out better than the one before where the open silhouette detracted from the gag. And he fits better in perspective. Huzzah for second chances. I'm sure Mr. Lipwig would agree.
(March 14 note: this picture looks way more effective on a thin flat screen monitor, as I found out at work today.)

8:55 pm
( Thursday's Sketchbook )

( Saturday's Sketchbook )

( Sunday's Sketchbook )