Monday, September 30, 2013

Six Stages of Watching The Breaking Bad Finale (Warning: Spoilers!!)

This post and the illustration below will be about the series finale of Breaking Bad that aired last night.  While I didn't include full and detailed spoilers, if you haven't watched the finale yet and don't want to get spoiled, stop reading right now!!
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Last night I watched the series finale of Breaking Bad and loved every minute of it. It's so rare for a great show to consistently get better over its seasons and finish with an amazing finale that ties up almost all loose ends and bring various character arcs to a satisfying conclusion. While a show can't show the future of every single character (well I guess they kinda did that with Six Feet Under), what the creators and actors of Breaking Bad did was to flesh out each of the characters so well that you can kind of predict what the likely paths are for these amazingly real and complex characters. There was a lot of closure in this episode but without any cheesiness like you see sometimes in other shows.  I'm really going to miss this series because this is drama (on TV or in the theater) at its best.

I wanted to do a drawing of the different stages I went through in watching the finale. I've mentioned before that I think of Breaking Bad as like a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy where you go through such an extreme emotional roller coaster. Because this was a larger illustration than what I normally do I had to use a different paper and this paper sucked so much with my pens!  I almost didn't finish this or post it since I know not everyone watches this show but by the time I had finished the pencil sketches and was going over it with ink, I didn't want to scrap the drawing and start over. So I continued on but it was like tugging the pen nib along the paper and now my wrist is killing me and I'm having to ice it. Stupid tendonitis. Ok if you've made it this far through the post then I assume you are willing to see my drawing. I'll post a censored version first so as to not spoil anyone who might have my blog post link set to show thumbnail images and below that is the uncensored version.

Censored verison
Uncensored version:

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

While I Was Sleeping 2

And then some mornings I wake up like this. Sometimes I end up in weird positions after a night of contortions around my sleepy pug lumps.

I don't know if you can tell but in this drawing I tried to show me as hot and sweating from getting trapped between two warm pugs with my comforter tucked in at my sides. During the summer I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night because I'm so hot from my pug barnacles. And the pillow on the left has become the pug pillow as I usually sleep on the right so notice the increased amount of pug fur.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

While I Was Sleeping

This is the position I woke up in this morning. It's a pretty common one.

If the comforter ever folds over or bunches in a spot you can be sure that Sunny and/or Rosy will plop on top of it making it impossible to gain back that comforter space. By the morning I'm usually huddled over trying to find warmth by sliding parts of my body under the areas of the comforter I can move, with my legs stuck in a position by a pug's heavy head. And let's not forget the joy of waking up to a stinky pug butt in my face.

Ideally, in this situation, I'd reposition diagonally on my bed and squeeze under the covers. Sometimes that happens. And sometimes I get fed up and yank on the comforter to budge a sleeping pug lump and move my legs (Sunny and Rosy HATE it when I do that). But today I didn't do either and I woke up like this.

Still, I can't imagine not having them with me in the big bed!

Monday, September 23, 2013

Breaking Pug


Congratulations to Breaking Bad on their Emmy win tonight, but I'm hoping that next year they sweep the awards show because this second half of the fifth (and last!) season is amazing!

Breaking Bad is one of the best television shows I've ever watched.  If you're not watching it go catch up on Netflix and be prepared to watch an incredibly emotional, gripping, and, at times, painful to watch television show that manages to balance an incredibly dark character-driven drama with a slight touch of humor.  All of the actors in this how are fantastic even if I hate the characters they play.  Watching each episode (and the arc of the entire series) is like watching a Shakespearean or Greek tragedy, with extreme catharsis.

In honor of the show's last season and the upcoming series finale, here's a pug version of the transformation of Walter White into Heisenberg. Of course I had to add pug fur on the clothes because that's just a part of pug life.

P.S. Between this show and Malcolm in the Middle, I've seen Bryan Cranston in his tighty whities way too many times.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Sick

So last week I was hit by a stomach bug, got better, ran a 10 mile race on Sunday, and now I'm battling a head cold. I don't know if this is all related or if it's because of the temperature drop and other people at work being sick. Either way, I feel blah. I've taken cold medicine (the good stuff behind the counter) but it only helps with the symptoms so much. And because I was just out last week I feel like I need to drag my butt to work. So here's a drawing of some sick pugs because they look way cuter than if I were to draw my snotty, coughing, bloodshot eyed self.

P.S. I may add this as a get better card to my shop.

Play Fight

After a particularly snarly morning of play fighting between Sunny and Rosy, I started this drawing earlier today and then halfway through realized I had already done a post on their fighting maneuvers!  (Post: Let's Get Ready To Pug Ruuumbbble!)  Ah well, I decided to finish the drawing and post it anyways.

And here's a video of the morning ruckus:

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

As Relaxed as a Pug and Her Stuffy

So I spent all lunch doing a new drawing of Sunny and Rosy playing/fighting and then realized I've already done a similar drawing several months ago! I'll still post it later but I'll have to clean it up first. In the meantime here's a simple drawing of Sunny nursing on her beloved stuffy. Sometimes she falls asleep like this.

Rosy doesn't nurse on her stuffies; she likes to gnaw on them and then kill them.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Pug Totem

It's been a long time since I've done a drawing for Illustration Friday but as soon as I saw the topic "totem," I immediately wanted to do a pug version!

Hope everyone has a happy Friday the 13th and a great weekend!

Thursday, September 12, 2013

No Shame

I haven't done one of these multi-image drawings in a while!  I was worried that I didn't have anything more to say about pugs.  Oddly enough I finally got my inspiration for this topic by Sunny's NSFW pose this morning.  I had to censor the image for safe viewing (see below).
I don't normally censor the girls' photos, but this pose just was asking for it, and when I used an app to tap on that star sticker (just doing that made me chuckle), I couldn't resist posting it.  Somehow adding the star makes this photo look dirtier - it draws attention to Sunny's lady parts.

One of the things that always cracks me up about my pugs is how they have no shame and they do whatever they want.  They don't care how they look, sound, or smell.  If they want to toot, they toot.  If they want to lick, they lick.  If they have to poop, why yes they'll just pop a squat right next to you and make uncomfortable eye contact as they make little grunting noises.  But their lack of self consciousness is also what makes them so great.  When they're excited to see you they show it with their entire wriggly bodies.  Who cares if you're on a conference call, they want to give you slurpy kisses!  Sunny and Rosy always make me smile and laugh no matter how bad a day I'm having - and this is why my pugs make me so happy.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

9/11