My Neighbor Totoro

I have to admit this piece is a complete indulgence...

First of all...this is the character Totoro from one of Hayao Miyazaki's earlier films, "My Neighbor Totoro." Not only is it one of my favorite movies of all time, but Miyazaki has to be one of my most revered filmmakers. If you have never seen it, (or any of his films for that matter...you must.) However, Studio Ghibli (Miyazaki's company...) teamed up with Disney recently and made fairly bastardized new overdubs of his movies and re-released them in America.

This is a shame. The movies already had English versions but I guess Disney went for the marketing slam dunk and thought..."Hey, if Dakota Fanning is in the v.o. instead of some faceless no-name from 1988...these will probably sell better."

They are probably right.
But! I have seen all of the original english-overdub versions and they are far and away the better choice. (Dakota Fanning really does a v.o. for one of the new ones, no joke, i'm not just being an ass.)

Anyway, I grew up on Totoro. It was magic for me. It's like someone extracted my imagination and made a movie of what they found. I used to run around my backyard barefoot in the "forest" (a cluster of dogwood trees...) collecting seeds and berries which I would then tie up in little leaf pouches with twine and hide them under my pillow. (Only dreams will make them grow!)

So tonight I thought I'd pay homage to that enchanting part of my childhood and do a Miyazaki piece.

It is also indulgent of me to work on something like this because it goes against the credo I've been attempting to mash into my artist brain lately which is "Don't take the easy way." Basically...work on things that challenge me. Like human form, faces, clothing etc. (Hands!! Grfggjhjh!!) SO doing this handsome happy Totoro is sort of cheating because this particular "fantasy and fluff" style is easy for me. It's sort of my comfort zone.

However I figure I can make up for it when it comes time to paint. I want to challenge myself with my shadowing and blending and color choices. (I don't know what those choices are yet, but when I figure it out, I will post the progress.)

Whatever, I was in a shit mood and feeling funky so...SO WHAT!? I'm going to figuratively curl up with a pint of Ben and Jerry's on this one and do something comfortable and soothing.