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Description
THE CONCEPT

"NEW MOON rumored to have beaten DARK KNIGHT one day record of $67mil. Tween girls can get shit DONE, man. Send 'em to Iraq and Afghanistan." -- Kevin Smith, via Twitter

I grew up with Disney comics. Through the years, I've enjoyed the works of such artists as Don Rosa, Al Taliaferro, Floyd Gottfredson, Marco Rota, William Van Horn, and the creator of Scrooge McDuck, the late Carl Barks. To me, the stories involving the Ducks are a joy to read every once in a while. They often feel similar to spending time with longtime friends or sitting in front of an old fireplace during a cold night.

As a teenager, I watched the safety net of Disney being torn apart by a menacing wave of Asian culture. Pokémon was the first to utilize its origin (in its case, video games) to create a creature-loving mayhem that made a huge splash everywhere towards the end of the 20th century. Other franchises followed, and soon we would collect trading cards, action figures, Nintendo GameBoy cartridges and VHS tapes featuring our favorite bug-eyed, long-haired cartoon characters. However, the fanboys soon realized they were victims of the very memorabilia they filled their closets with, as all those Saturday morning anime proved to be nothing but long advertisements. As a result, they simply asked for real Japanese entertainment. Thus, the turn of the century saw a remarkable increase in manga books and anime DVD sales around the world.

The West had to do something.

Disney's bubblegum-pop singers weren't enough to distract the underage portion of the mainstream; after all, given the company's family-friendly nature, it was apparent these new talents were made for pre-teens, and only. And, without a doubt, when this target group would eventually reach adolescence, they'd stray away from Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers for something “cooler”, “darker”, and not “too emo-ish”. The East would win again.

Until the very moment an American novel set everything on fire.

Twilight redefined what's “cool” and “dark” for a generation hooked on social network websites and portable media players. Aimed directly at the teen audience, it brought a taste of post-9/11 teen angst to a centuries-old folkloric concept. The artificial beauty was idealized once again by blood-sucking eternal youngsters as sterile as the hands holding the apple on the cover of the first book. The magic of Harry Potter now seemed too innocent, even in its darkest moments.

Granted, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels to begin with, but watching the first film on Blu-ray made me realize how the simplicity of the whole concept started this so-called "pop-culture phenomenon"; you don't aim for a target audience anymore; you make it. Use the power of attractive teens, and you'll have the entire generation drool all over them. Let them find the beauty in perfect, smooth skin, slim figures and six-pack abs clad in either leather goth outfits or simple, casual wear by projecting it straight to their faces.

In my eyes, “Greed” shows the clash between cultures born in the same territory, yet owned by different conglomerates. It also represents the impact of this cultural trend; just as Scrooge needs Edward for what he's worth (literally), Twilight fans need their fix in any way possible. I've read stories on dA about teen girls harassing their friends at school because they thought “Twilight sucks/is the best thing in the universe”. Whether this new frenzy will fade away just like Pokémon or maintain a “saga” status on the same level as Star Wars is anybody's guess.

THE CREATION

...was a total pain in the butt.

Scrooge was pretty easy to make; I drew a pencil sketch, scanned it and created a vector drawing on Inkscape. I used Don Rosa's art as reference, while the 3D shading I applied to him was inspired by Carl Barks' classic oil paintings. The background took about a week to finish, and is a combination of random brush strokes and trees I made on Inkscape.

Edward Cullen almost drove me crazy.

First of all, I still lack a lot of experience in human anatomy, and I found it hard to make a realistic looking body. Plus, even with all the reference pictures I collected from Google, his face seemed impossible to recreate. After a lot of vector pushing here and there, I made an outline on Inkscape that I was satisfied with and transferred everything into Photoshop. After two weeks (if I remember correctly) of hard work, Scrooge and the background looked great. Edward didn't. He was ugly, disfigured, and didn't look like Edward at all. At one point, I found a picture that showed Robert Pattinson at the exact pose I needed , yet I'd always do something wrong.

Plus, the Wacom tablet I used was so old that Windows Vista didn't recognize its drivers anymore, thus disabling the pen pressure. Its surface became rugged after a lot of unsuccessful tries, and I ended up wielding the tablet to move the cursor, and click the left mouse button to draw. Yes, I am left-handed, yet I can only use the computer mouse with my right hand. You can see I had quite a problem. I drew Edward's face over and over and over again, wondering what was I doing wrong all that time. I even broke to tears and told myself to “finish the damn thing”, before giving up on the project for an entire month.

In November, I installed Windows 7. I was fascinated by how it improved on Vista's faults, and I was lucky enough to have a DVD provided by my laptop's manufacturer, Acer, containing all the drivers I needed. Everything was installed and worked like a charm, and so did the Wacom tablet, though the aforementioned problems were still present.

And then, it stopped being recognized by my computer.

The worst obstacle I could think of had happened, now that I was at the hardest part of the image; make a convincing impression of Edward's face. I used input by my family and friends on several parts of the image, but all the help in the world didn't seem enough. I even went to dA chat boards annoying the heck out of everyone by whining about “not being able to finish my project”. It seemed impossible. But I kept doing it, over and over again, going back and forth between my references.

Yesterday, I said to myself, “he kinda looks like him now”. And that was it. No more work on this thing. An artist must always know when to stop. It seemed appropriate to leave Edward and focus on the finishing touches. The completed picture still isn't that good; there are numerous things on it that need to be fixed. And maybe this will happen, some other time. Now, I have to move on.

While I was retouching Edward's ear, I listened to “Never Think” performed by Robert Pattinson himself. He sings in a calm and passionate tone, while he plays a sad melody on his guitar. If the production process of this picture was a movie, I'd put this song on its end credits. It felt as if Pattinson assured me that from now on, everything was going to be all right.

And, boy, was he right.

Scrooge McDuck: © Disney; Twilight: © Stephenie Meyer, Little, Brown and Company (books), Summit Entertainment (films)

Description
THE CONCEPT

"NEW MOON rumored to have beaten DARK KNIGHT one day record of $67mil. Tween girls can get shit DONE, man. Send 'em to Iraq and Afghanistan." -- Kevin Smith, via Twitter

I grew up with Disney comics. Through the years, I've enjoyed the works of such artists as Don Rosa, Al Taliaferro, Floyd Gottfredson, Marco Rota, William Van Horn, and the creator of Scrooge McDuck, the late Carl Barks. To me, the stories involving the Ducks are a joy to read every once in a while. They often feel similar to spending time with longtime friends or sitting in front of an old fireplace during a cold night.

As a teenager, I watched the safety net of Disney being torn apart by a menacing wave of Asian culture. Pokémon was the first to utilize its origin (in its case, video games) to create a creature-loving mayhem that made a huge splash everywhere towards the end of the 20th century. Other franchises followed, and soon we would collect trading cards, action figures, Nintendo GameBoy cartridges and VHS tapes featuring our favorite bug-eyed, long-haired cartoon characters. However, the fanboys soon realized they were victims of the very memorabilia they filled their closets with, as all those Saturday morning anime proved to be nothing but long advertisements. As a result, they simply asked for real Japanese entertainment. Thus, the turn of the century saw a remarkable increase in manga books and anime DVD sales around the world.

The West had to do something.

Disney's bubblegum-pop singers weren't enough to distract the underage portion of the mainstream; after all, given the company's family-friendly nature, it was apparent these new talents were made for pre-teens, and only. And, without a doubt, when this target group would eventually reach adolescence, they'd stray away from Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers for something “cooler”, “darker”, and not “too emo-ish”. The East would win again.

Until the very moment an American novel set everything on fire.

Twilight redefined what's “cool” and “dark” for a generation hooked on social network websites and portable media players. Aimed directly at the teen audience, it brought a taste of post-9/11 teen angst to a centuries-old folkloric concept. The artificial beauty was idealized once again by blood-sucking eternal youngsters as sterile as the hands holding the apple on the cover of the first book. The magic of Harry Potter now seemed too innocent, even in its darkest moments.

Granted, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels to begin with, but watching the first film on Blu-ray made me realize how the simplicity of the whole concept started this so-called "pop-culture phenomenon"; you don't aim for a target audience anymore; you make it. Use the power of attractive teens, and you'll have the entire generation drool all over them. Let them find the beauty in perfect, smooth skin, slim figures and six-pack abs clad in either leather goth outfits or simple, casual wear by projecting it straight to their faces.

In my eyes, “Greed” shows the clash between cultures born in the same territory, yet owned by different conglomerates. It also represents the impact of this cultural trend; just as Scrooge needs Edward for what he's worth (literally), Twilight fans need their fix in any way possible. I've read stories on dA about teen girls harassing their friends at school because they thought “Twilight sucks/is the best thing in the universe”. Whether this new frenzy will fade away just like Pokémon or maintain a “saga” status on the same level as Star Wars is anybody's guess.

THE CREATION

...was a total pain in the butt.

Scrooge was pretty easy to make; I drew a pencil sketch, scanned it and created a vector drawing on Inkscape. I used Don Rosa's art as reference, while the 3D shading I applied to him was inspired by Carl Barks' classic oil paintings. The background took about a week to finish, and is a combination of random brush strokes and trees I made on Inkscape.

Edward Cullen almost drove me crazy.

First of all, I still lack a lot of experience in human anatomy, and I found it hard to make a realistic looking body. Plus, even with all the reference pictures I collected from Google, his face seemed impossible to recreate. After a lot of vector pushing here and there, I made an outline on Inkscape that I was satisfied with and transferred everything into Photoshop. After two weeks (if I remember correctly) of hard work, Scrooge and the background looked great. Edward didn't. He was ugly, disfigured, and didn't look like Edward at all. At one point, I found a picture that showed Robert Pattinson at the exact pose I needed , yet I'd always do something wrong.

Plus, the Wacom tablet I used was so old that Windows Vista didn't recognize its drivers anymore, thus disabling the pen pressure. Its surface became rugged after a lot of unsuccessful tries, and I ended up wielding the tablet to move the cursor, and click the left mouse button to draw. Yes, I am left-handed, yet I can only use the computer mouse with my right hand. You can see I had quite a problem. I drew Edward's face over and over and over again, wondering what was I doing wrong all that time. I even broke to tears and told myself to “finish the damn thing”, before giving up on the project for an entire month.

In November, I installed Windows 7. I was fascinated by how it improved on Vista's faults, and I was lucky enough to have a DVD provided by my laptop's manufacturer, Acer, containing all the drivers I needed. Everything was installed and worked like a charm, and so did the Wacom tablet, though the aforementioned problems were still present.

And then, it stopped being recognized by my computer.

The worst obstacle I could think of had happened, now that I was at the hardest part of the image; make a convincing impression of Edward's face. I used input by my family and friends on several parts of the image, but all the help in the world didn't seem enough. I even went to dA chat boards annoying the heck out of everyone by whining about “not being able to finish my project”. It seemed impossible. But I kept doing it, over and over again, going back and forth between my references.

Yesterday, I said to myself, “he kinda looks like him now”. And that was it. No more work on this thing. An artist must always know when to stop. It seemed appropriate to leave Edward and focus on the finishing touches. The completed picture still isn't that good; there are numerous things on it that need to be fixed. And maybe this will happen, some other time. Now, I have to move on.

While I was retouching Edward's ear, I listened to “Never Think” performed by Robert Pattinson himself. He sings in a calm and passionate tone, while he plays a sad melody on his guitar. If the production process of this picture was a movie, I'd put this song on its end credits. It felt as if Pattinson assured me that from now on, everything was going to be all right.

And, boy, was he right.

Scrooge McDuck: © Disney; Twilight: © Stephenie Meyer, Little, Brown and Company (books), Summit Entertainment (films)