Happy Thorsday from Me and Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grand Uncle Thor

After the slaying of the Cumberbatch from my last post, I was feeling pretty confident that, with blood, sweat and many eraser nubbins, I might just be able to draw whoever I'd like to a reasonable degree. So in between writing, gardening and my Day Job Thingy, I launched myself into a series of portraits of my favorite movie characters.

To celebrate #Thorsday, I HAD to attempt Chris Hemsworth in the role of my family's demi-god ancestor-- a superhero forged of stardust, steel and quality hair care products.

I also chose Mia Wasikowska as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, in armor, preparing to fight the Jabberwock. (And -- major ALICE IN WONDERLAND NERD RANT-- I love this movie, but I'm sorry, Mr. Burton-- the creature is NOT a "Jabberwocky." That is the name of Lewis Carroll's poem. The dragon is the "Jabberwock." It's right there on the page. This bugs me every time. I understand taking liberties with the plot to create a new film, but there's simply no reason to tweak the name of the Jabberwock. It is totally non-frabjous and someone needed to say that... Ahem.) Look-- Alice looks concerned about it, too.

Post-Alice, I decided I would tackle two favorite character actors at once, by drawing Paul Bettany and Alan Tudyk as Chaucer and Wat from A Knight's Tale. Interestingly, it took me less time to draw both of these guys than it did a single Cumberbatch. All drawings for me are now going to be evaluated for their difficulty on the Cumberbatch Scale.

I've been wanting to draw Paul Bettany, anyway, because if my There Goes the Galaxy books ever became movie fodder, he would be my very first choice to play my character Rollie. Sometime, if I'm feeling brave, I may try to draw him in the role. He really only needs the orange eyes and madder hair.

Another film I've watched a million times is Ever After, so I decided to draw Drew Barrymore in the scene where she's headed off to the ball. I had to use two different reference photos to get this right since the photo of her costume didn't show her face clearly and at the angle I wanted.

And my FAVORITE of the bunch is this Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. I wasn't sure if I could pull this one off, so when the drawing actually began looking Depply, it was really exciting!

I post all of my drawings as I become happy with them on my Pinterest account here: 

http://www.pinterest.com/jennthorson/doodles-and-illustrations/

So if you enjoy them, I hope you'll follow me there. (After the many hours of drawing I've done, I'd be all excited to see folks repinning something other than that one pink moth photo I pinned off of someone else six months ago.)

Ah, but such is the Interwebs. :)

Happy Thorsday, good people!

WWMD: What Would MacGyver Do?

Technical whiz. Humanitarian. Mediator. Mullet fashionista... In the 1980s, MacGyver was many a teenaged girl's Renaissance Man.

At least, among my circle of friends.

I was reminded of this recently, as conversation with some of these same friends-- recently reconnected due to the Seven Degrees of Separation Known As Facebook Stalking-- drifted back to the Swiss-Army superman we'd loved so well.

It was really only a matter of time.

MacGyver had absolutely topped our list of 80s heroes. Michael Knight of Knight Rider wasn't bad, but somehow deep-down we knew any guy who'd wear a black leather Member's Only jacket every single day, and whose best friend was his car, was just not relationship material.

I'd had a mysterious crush on Mike Nesmith of the Monkees-- the sarcasm, southern accent, sideburns and green wool hat was an acquired taste, I'll admit.

Harrison Ford was a particular favorite, too-- at least once I overcame the Kid-Brain Observational Barrier that prevented me from realizing Han Solo and Indiana Jones were actually played by the same person. (I don't exactly recall why it took me so long to figure this out. I can only say it was the same inconsistent value-assessment issue that caused me to think that Roddy McDowall was the Greatest Actor Ever because he played Cornelius in the Planet of the Apes films. I couldn't understand why he wasn't earning Oscars for this.)

And Johnny Depp as Tom Hanson of 21 Jump Street was a perennial on that list, prized not just because of his innate Depp-ness, but because that show was actually preachy enough it got my mom's Stamp of Approval.

But MacGyver.... Among my friends and I, MacGyver was a unifier. Someone we could all agree on.

Discussions around the lunch table covered all the normal drool-drenched fluff that hormonally-charged teenaged girls would dwell on. But inevitably, we would linger on MacGyver's impressive problem solving skills.

Yes, while boys would debate who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman, we would evaluate how our favorite TV hunks would get out of various jams.

"Who would be able to break out of prison first, Michael Knight or MacGyver?"

"Michael Knight would just call K.I.T.T. who would roll through the brick wall and bust him out."

"Yeah, but then the cops would know he broke out and be looking for him right away. MacGyver would weave his paper napkin from his meals into a super-tight string, and use it to either get the keys to his cell, or fashion it into an elaborate pulley-winch system, which used physics to bend the bars enough for him to get through."

(Science class was always disappointing to us, and I blame MacGyver. We never did cover making a bomb out of chewing gum, a can of baked beans, an aerosol hairspray can and a lighter. He set an example our teachers couldn't hope to live up to.)

In fact, no one quite compared. The A-Team members needed the whole team, a blowtorch and large plates of metal that happened to be lying around once a week, 15 minutes from the end of every program.

Magnum P.I. had personal connections.

Remington Steele had luck and Laura.

The Six-Million-Dollar Man had superpowers and a price tag.

Yes, when compared side-by-side to our other heroes, it seemed MacGyver was the only one who could get by entirely on his own innate wit and mechanical skill.

If we were stuck on a deserted island with only one TV leading man, we all agreed, you couldn't do much better than being stranded with MacGyver.

Plus, he's the only character from my youth that's had the distinction of becoming a verb.

Note: this post is dedicated to my high school lunch table friends, and was MacGyvered together from Grape Fruit Roll-Ups, duct tape, Superglue and a lot of coffee.

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