Author: dave-o

Sketch of the Week: Conan(ii) (Dec 18, 2025)

A pencil sketch of Conan the Barbarian, based on a still from the 1982 film

My son advised I share this sketch of Conan the Barbarian (taken from the “What is Best in Life…?” scene—video at the bottom of this post) because I could also share my first stab at it, from back in September:

Sketch of Conan seated and delivering his "What is best in life…?" speech.

Here is the actual still I was working from:

A still image from the movie Conan the Barbarian, showing Conan (Arnold Schwarzenegger) seated, shirtless, and surrounded by other figures in a dimly lit setting. Candles are burning in front of them. Conan is delivering his "What is best in life…?" speech.

Why is my latest sketch better than my first stab?

Well, first off, I’ve loosened up on my fixation with line, and leaned more deeply into value. Like, honestly: there is no such thing as a “nose” as a discrete part of the face. It isn’t like the eye. The thing we call a “nose” is this notional region in the middle of the face defined by areas of shadow and highlight. Every time you use a line anywhere in drawing a nose, you end up with something cartoonish. Lips have largely the same issue: unless someone is wearing pretty heavy makeup, then the lip really isn’t delineated in the real world nearly so sharply as it is in our minds. In my latest sketch I used almost no lines on Conan’s face; I built them up using layers of graphite, and also paid attention to the levels of value within each value, making more intermediate stages. It helped to think of it in this manner: that I’m “building up” the face, not “drawing” it.

But it’s more than that, because I’ve also (just barely) gotten smarter about composition. The first drawing got problematic because I tried to capture the entire scene as shown in that frame. This entire film is full of beautifully composed shots, every frame worth its own Frank Frazetta oil painting. I didn’t have the space for that on the page, nor the skill in my hand and eye. In the newer sketch my reach doesn’t nearly exceed my grasp so terribly: I had room to capture just seated Conan at the proper scope and detail, and I did so.

And, finally, I didn’t shy away from the awkward face Conan is making in my screen grab; I leaned into the awkwardness (rather than trying to smooth it out and glass it over), and as such got much closer to capturing something sort of lovely and ineffable in his posture. I don’t know what that is, but I see it more and more often in my more recent sketches, when I get them right. It’s present in the lame buck, and the close-up of the thinking man’s gorilla, and the Florida turtle. In my head, I think of it as capturing the dignity of the thing in the world, being just exactly what it is.

Anyway, this is the final Sketch of the Week for 2024. Thanks for playing along!

Merry Xmas! Please beware of “suicide cables”!🎄🔌🙅‍♀️

ANNUAL REMINDER:

‘Tis the season to hang your Xmas lights—and, for many people, to hang one strand backwards and instead of pulling it down, head to the hardware store in search of an “adapter” that is colloquially referred to as a “suicide cable.”

DO NOT DO THIS!

I’m not kidding around. If you don’t kill yourself with such an arrangement, you can easily kill some hapless person who stumbles across your work later.

Sketch of the Week: The Lame Buck (December 10, 2024)

A lame buck has been taking shelter around my mom’s place, and she snapped a picture that she shared with my sisters and me. He’d maybe been nicked by a car? Not bloody, but he had one leg he wasn’t using at all, just hanging limp, and was mostly spending his time bedded down. When she took the picture I used as the reference here, she was probably only about a yard away; he was right outside her TV room window.

What really struck me was how visible his ribs were. I didn’t imagine this story ending well for the buck, but a few days after I drew this she saw a group of bucks come and visit him, and then they all left together. This guy was still hobbling, but he was using all four legs and keeping up with his brethren.

The day after that I slow cooked an entirely unrelated buck’s shoulder for my wife’s extended family, who all came to visit for a day. #PureMichigan

Sketch of the Week: The Thinking Man’s Gorilla (December 3, 2024)

Due to a split decision/ranked-choice vote, this week’s sketch is the thinking man’s gorilla (based on a blurry snapshot from the Columbus Zoo):

A pencil sketch of a thoughtful gorilla

My son favored either the gorilla sketch (above) or the sketch of my wife in a bucket hat (below) Meanwhile, I preferred either the gorilla (above) or this sketch of my wife based on a photo we took this past Halloween (way down below). Thus, despite an abundance of qualified women, we wound up with a gorilla on top. Democracy is an imperfect system.

an aloof woman in a bucket hat
my wife in a bucket hat
a smiling woman who likes her bangs
my wife humoring her husband

Sketch of the Week: Little Florida Turtle in a Tank (Nov 26, 2024)

A pencil sketch of a small semi-aquatic Florida turtle with a spiky shell and quiet dignity.

I saw this little guy in a display tank at a ranger station in Apalachicola, Florida. To me it was a “fancy slider” (in Michigan you mostly see painted turtles–which tend to be big–and red-eared sliders, which are this guy’s size, but with a smooth shell). But apparently he’s really a Barbour’s map turtle. Like the sliders and painted turtles I’m used to, he has extremely pretty yellow pipping all along his body (which I didn’t even try to capture). What I was really taken with was that spiky shell, and his tiny dignity.

A photograph of a small Barbour's map turtle in Apalachicola, Florida.

Our Most Important Thanksgiving Traditions 🦃💀

I repost this (or a variant of it) every year. This is a year, and so I repost. QED. After all, without our traditions, we are as shakey as a fiddler on the roof.

1. “What do Jews do on Thanksgiving?”

I wrote this essay a few years back, as a little bonus for the folks kind enough to have subscribed to my newsletter.  A good friend, Chris Salzman, was gracious enough to make something pretty of it. I relish the opportunity to reshare it each year, and I’m doing so once again.  Every word here is both true and factual—which is a harder trick than you’d think.

You’ll be 15 minutes into that Lesser Family Feast in Michigan when your mother-in-law will turn to you and ask:

“What do Jews do on Thanksgiving?”

You should be prepared for this sort of thing in Michigan. But even though I’m warning you in advance, you still won’t be prepared.…

(read more: IN MICHIGAN: A PRIMER, A TRAVELOGUE)

2. “As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”

THANKSGIVING TURKEY GIVEAWAY! (WKRP in Cincinnati) from Tony DeSanto on Vimeo.

I repost this every year, because I love this gag, and because watching this on TV—and rehashing it with my mom and sisters each year—is one of my fondest holiday memories. But it is, in my humble, a damn-near perfect gag. That’s saying something, because I find single-camera laugh-track situation comedies almost entirely unbearable to watch. If you wanna read more of my thoughts on this specific gag and what it can teach writers, you can do so here.)

3. “…your people will wear cardigans and drink highballs; we will sell our bracelets by the road sides…”

4. ♬♫♪ “Caught his eye on turkey day / As we both ate Pumpkin Pie … ” ♬♫♪

5. The Alice’s Restaurant Massacre (in four part harmony)

I’m a child of the 1980s, so most of my nostalgic holiday memories are TV-related. 🤷‍♀️

I hope your T-day is good and sweet.  Gobblegobble! 🦃💀

Sketch of the Week: Lake Michigan Sunset (Nov 20, 2024) plus a Thanksgiving treat

Both kids unanimously voted for this sketch, which is based on a photo I took in the summer of 2020:

A pencil sketch of a beach scene at sunset. Small figures are visible in the foreground.

My kids are the small figures playing in the surf near the middle of the image, but that isn’t why they chose it; they both really liked the play of the light on the water and the shadows on the beach.

I have to admit, I’m pleased with how the light on the water came out, too.

As a bonus, I’ve got another sketch from the joke that featured the meditating warrior squirrel from last week. Here he battles a vicious wild turkey:

A pencil sketch showing a noble warrior-monk squirrel samurai closing in to do battle with a vicious wild turkey.

We’ve Always Been Here, and You’ve Never Liked Us: Exploring Michigan’s First Jewish Burial Ground

It’s my town’s bicentennial year, and the local library graciously granted me the opportunity to write about The Old Jewish Burial Ground here—which was, in fact, the first Jewish cemetery in the state, despite being a fair distance from the Detroit Metro Area (which is where most Michigan Jews have lived).

SPOILER ALERT: the old Jewish burial ground is mostly underneath a big university building that was built in the 1930s, long after that first Jewish community had mysteriously left entirely of their own free will and not for any unpleasant or embarrassing reasons.

An advertisement with the headline "OPPOSITION TO JEWS," which ran in every issue of the Michigan Argus newspaper (Ann Arbor, MI) from fall 1851 through spring 1852.
An advertisement that ran in the local Ann Arbor newspaper (spring 1852)

Kudos to the library, who agreed to go forward on this endeavor, even though the working title I pitched it under was “We’ve Always Been Here, and You’ve Never Liked Us.”

A sign displayed by anti-Jewish protestors outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI (spring 2024)
A sign displayed by anti-Jewish protestors outside a synagogue in Ann Arbor, MI (summer 2024)

Sketch of the Week: Creep (Nov 14, 2024)

A pencil sketch of a j-horror-style female figure lurching toward teh viewer, long, stringy hair obscuring her face.

This week my son was entirely undecided; he liked everything. I was also pretty pleased, so here’s the full spread for the week:

A sketchbook spread with five sketches: a lake-side landscape with heaped cumulus clouds, an upset young woman sitting with her arms crossed, a meditating fat man, a lurching j-horror zombie-like ghoul woman, and a fleeing man looking over his shoulder.

I did the creep and her victim on different days, and wasn’t as pleased with how he came out, which is why he’s cropped out above. Both of those figures are based on reference photos from The Pose Archives, which I adore.

Tuesday is Yú in a scene from Karuto / Cult.

Monday is a composite of a stretch of beach north of Fisherman’s Island State Park (FUN FACT: most of it isn’t an island; it’s the lakeshore, and may now be entirely inaccessible due to climate change) with some cumulus clouds in my neighborhood. I’m not anywhere near where I want to be with clouds yet.

Wednesday is from a stock photo that’s been kicking around my phone for ages; I used him as a model for a six-limbed samurai squirrel back in June:

A pencil sketch of a squirrel-like warrior monk sitting cross-legged with its large, bushy tail forming a circle behind it.

The squirrel was part of a joke either with my son or with my mom and sisters; I can’t really recall how I got there. A lot of what I do is the result of off-handed jokes gone too far.