CAMP GETS REPUBLIC GUNSHIPS - Lunch-bag - 2012

For the last day of camp, I have to do something a little extra-special, which involves caricatures of the camp counselors, who drive the camp vans, my son (and his friend Ty) and something cool - Gunships!
I came up with my idea yesterday around lunch time, did some little thumbnail doodles of the concept and then last night I sketched the final composition, the caricatures of the counselors heads and then got down to drawing it on the bag, the brown bag I've been saving for a week.
It took a while to get it all done - the black pen bleeds a lot on the brown paper so drawing those little caricatured heads was a semi-disaster.
The fun thing was waking up this morning and my son shouting "What-is-it-today?!! What-is-it-today?!! What-is-it-today?!!....", as he took off running, his brother chasing along behind him all the way to the kitchen to see today's bag. I told him last night it would be something cool, and think he was more than pleased. Big smiles and laughs ensued.
Goodbye, Summer Lunch-bag Season. I'll see you again, for double-duty next year, when both boys will be going to camp.
MAY THE FORCE (and the lunch-bag) BE WITH YOU!

JAWA's LITTLE HELPER - Lunch-bag - 2012

Something cute for the lunch-bag today: A JAWA father and son working together, Mom calls them in for lunch. I don't know where the idea came from. Last night I thought, I've never drawn a JAWA. So, it was decided in my mind I'm going to draw a JAWA doing something. It started with the big Jawa, and then I doodled a box in front of him, which then became an R2 unit, and then I added the little kid Jawa holding up a missing piece of the droid. Somewhere in the sand there's bound to be that droid's head.
"Hooteenie!"

EMPEROR'S NEW SANDWICH - Lunch-bag - 2012

Also known as... SANDWICHUS-INTERUPTUS.
An evil Emperor has got to eat too, you know! I had a doodle in my idea book of something very much like this. I thought it was a neat image to have a hand holding one of those hologram thingy's with the hologram doing something funny or interesting. Kind of graphic. Kind of fun. Of course, when I went to draw the little hologram gizmo, I couldn't find a picture of one. I looked online, but I wasn't exactly sure what they call the thing - a Holo-projector? You'll get lots of image of R2-D2 projecting things. I looked through my son's STAR WARS magazines and books that are nearby and found nothing where you could actually see the thing. So I gave up and just drew it like it is seen on the bag. What'cha gonna do? You still get the idea. Later on I thought it might have been interesting to have made the hand an alien hand instead of a Clone's. This one still made my son laugh.

CLONE SAYS "ARF" - Lunch-bag - 2012

... and the foliage says "Sandwich!"

It almost like the Clone is playing "Marco-Polo."

It was Monday night and I had very little free-time available. Lunch bag needed to get done, had a hockey game to get to, 'actual' work to do... It was a busy night.

I say to my son at bedtime, "I'm drawing a Clone tonight, which one do you want?"

Son says, "ARF Trooper. The RED one." Then he runs out of the room to the action figure bag in the den and grabs me the little ARF Trooper figure. Then he goes to bed.

Short on time, I draw a cartoony ARF Trooper, using the action figure and a picture from the "CLONE WARS Character Encyclopedia" for reference. Bag gets done nice and quick! Dad goes to play hockey. Later gets some work done. All is well.

LEGO: ORDER 66...PICK-UP! - Lunch-bag - 2012

Last week of camp! 

For Monday's bag I did my first LEGO bag of the lunch-bag season.  I've been toying with an "Order 66" gag since last summer. I wish I could have rewritten Palpatine's dialogue, but I was in a rush and wrote it in with Sharpie, and then had regrets about it after. I thought later to add a line about the toy that that came with his meal. But, there wasn't enough room in his balloon to even write one in. My son didn't understand what my joke was anyway. FAIL! FAIL! (STAR TREK claxon sound effect!) So, I explained to him that Palpatine is at a fast food restaurant and the guy at the counter is calling out the order number and contents of the order. Dead stare. Grade = F+ for good spelling.
With more time, I think it would have been a much funnier lunch-bag. Oh well. At least it carried it's chicken sandwich well.
Maybe I'll take another stab at it next summer?

COMMANDER WOLF SMASH! - Lunch-bag - 2012

I said good night to my son one night last week, but he stopped me before I left, and told me exactly what he wanted to see on his lunch-bag - "Make a Clone smashing two droids together and he's saying... "Clankers! Easier than Sandwiches!""
So, that's exactly what I did. I chose the Clone (thank you Clone Wars Action Figure for your help) and added the little "The Clone Wars: Justice Files" bit to it.
What does the dialogue mean, exactly? I asked him the next morning if I understood it correctly: "...he's saying that the Battle Droids are easier to destroy than a sandwich?" YEP! My son seems to smile a little bigger when I've drawn up an idea that he came up with.
And a happy camper sets out for more adventures, bag in hand, a smirk on his face.

Commander Cody - Lunch-bag - 2012

Nothing silly with this bag today - other than it being a lunch-bag. I hadn't done a "cool" bag in over a week, and since the Clone Commanders were an idea on my mind earlier in the day, I went with it, and did something a little more dramatic.  It all came together, from doodle to finished bag in a pretty short period of time, which is a nice thing for me.
There's something about Commander Cody's colors that I love - Orangey-yellow, white, grey and black... it just appeals to my brain.
I made up this view from what info I could gain from a few pics that came up on a Google Image search. I inked it with a big black magic marker, and pulled out my old Prismacolor markers for some quickie coloring. Done! Got to bed at a decent hour. And it looks close enough to the Clone Wars Cody, that my boys knew who it was and seemed pretty excited about it.
I usually don't use white bags 'cause the white is so stark. The brown bags have that nice neutral background I like, but I have to use pencil crayon to get colors to show up well enough. But, I'm down to my last brown bag, so... I've started dipping into the white bags. The Color shows up nice! As a result, I can get sucked into coloring out to the edges a lot more. It worked out well for this one, though.

THIS IS DEATHSTAR I & II - Lunch-bag - 2012

Back to the Dav Pilkey format for this lunch-bag (though the drawing isn't exactly in his style.) I joked about this idea with my son over the weekend. A couple days later, I made a doodle of it in my sketchbook with the text loosely worked out. Then, at bedtime last night my son said the whole thing to me, almost verbatim! I thought he'd been looking in my sketchbook, but turns out he just remembered the whole thing! I was pretty floored. And so, at his request, I turned it into a final lunch-bag for today.

I threw the Bothan's bit and the little ships in for a little more silliness.

I hadn't made a typo in quite some time. But I did last night and covered it up - wrote the same word twice. That's what happens when you're a tired lunch-bag maker.

MOUSE DROID - Lunch-bag - 2012

When I was 8 years-old and I first saw "STAR WARS", as it was called then, the bit with Chewbacca shouting at the little mouse droid and scaring it away made me laugh. It's still a funny gag. The droid beats a hasty retreat and Chewie looks at Han and Luke and shrugs a "Why not?" look at them.
Once I drew the droid on the bag I automatically drew a thought balloon for him with this idea in mind: This is just before he crosses paths with Chewbacca. He's pissed-off with his job. Tired of getting kicked, getting shouted at. If one more thing happens, that's it, he's on the next shuttle out of there. And then he's curious about that Wookie coming his way. Too curious for his own good. Like our kitten here at home.

And, I shoe-horned the word 'sandwich' in there with "Finding the best Sandwich on Coruscant." Hooray!!

"IT'S A SNACK!" - The Lunch-bag - 2012

As often happens, I had no idea what I was going to do for this bag. My doodles of Boba Fett went no where. I was momentarily lost... and then.... without warning.... Ackbar popped into my head. It was 11:30. I scribbled quickly, and stopped inking at his word balloon. I left the others in pencil till the morning. Then with little time before my camper was out the door, I finished the other word balloons, snapped a couple of pictures on my phone, and then it was gone. Off to camp.
What you don't see is Ackbar continues talking on the other side saying "Hey, Come Back!", continuing to rhyme with his earlier dialogue. I had intended the to fill the back-side with Ackbar comments, but missed the opportunity. Another day perhaps. Another bag.
I saw some pretty funny Ackbar iterations on the web: A chalkboard Ackbar at a coffee shop saying "It's a Frapp!" Another with the Admiral standing in front of a map saying.... obviously.. "It's a map!"

It's endless fun!

CAPT. REX and CAPT. REX - Lunch-bag - 2012

A nice Hawaiin Punch for scale!

"Welcome aboard! This is Capt. Rex in the cockpit!" - Ahhh, STAR TOURS... me love you! Paul Reubens's voice as the droid pilot for the original STAR TOURS ride at Disneyland will forever be in my consciousness. So, when CLONE WARS came along and there was another Capt. Rex, a clone Capt. Rex, I used to make this little joke with my son about the two Capt. Rex's being in the same place at the same time, and the confusion that ensued. Poorly illustrated here for his lunch-bag entertainment. I didn't get started on this bag till around 1am, after playing an hour and a half of ice hockey. I flipped the pages of Stephen Sansweets' "The STAR WARS Vault" book and ended up stopping on the STAR TOURS page and decided quickly that Rex would be the idea for the bag. I did a quick sketch in my book and then speedily sketched it on the bag. There were moments, Sharpie in-hand, that I was asleep while working on this image. I'm amazed it doesn't have horrible black Sharpie scribbles all the way down the length of the bag. In the process I had forgotten to leave room for Rex's word balloon, and had to fudge it in there. Not one of my best, but it'll do. Bag done. Off to sleep.

Makes me want to go press the buttons on my STAR SPEEDER 1000. I think I will.

SCOUT TROOPER ZOMBIE - Lunch-bag - 2012

STAR WARS  ZOMBIES Continues...

A request by an 8 year-old (The one who lives in my house) for a "Zombie" Trooper, any kind of "Zombie" Trooper was made. So, I went with the Scout, 'cause they were my favorite from "Return of the Jedi." Plus, I had this idea a couple nights previous about an Endor setting for the Trooper zombies. And so, you get a post-Jedi Scout Trooper who has risen from the dead, with a little, freaked-out Ewok watching from a tree in the background.

Come morning, 8 year-old very happy!

THIS IS LUKE AND LEIA - Lunch-bag - 2012

Another Pilkey-inspired lunch-bag. What can I say? They are just fun to do. And as long as it makes the boys laugh, or smile at the silly drawings, all is worth it. But, before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story...
Occasionally, I have to explain the references and pronunciation with a lunch-bag like this, 'cause the boys are more used to watching the Clone Wars show, the Ewok Specials and the LEGO shorts than the original films. I'll have to work on that.

THIS IS DARTH VADER AND CAPT. ANTILLES - Lunch-bag - 2012

The Zalvin boys love Dav Pilkey's "Captain Underpants,""Super Diaper Baby" and "Ook and Gluk." And I love reading the books to them and doing all the voices. The guy just writes funny stuff, with running gags that get used between all the books he does. Including the one I used for this Pilkey-esque STAR WARS lunch-bag - The "This is (characters' names here)..." gag. First you tell the names of the two characters, and then you follow that with who the character on the left is, and then who the character on the right is, each followed by two descriptive things about the character. Then it ends with "Remember that now."
So, here's the STAR WARS version of that gag, featuring Darth Vader and Captain Antilles from "A NEW HOPE." It takes a little bit of time to come up with the character designs using someone elses drawing style, but I've got plans for more. Best of all, it made my son laugh.
Remember that now.

THE ZOMBIE TROOPER - Lunch-bag - 2012

More brains? Nope. Maybe a PB&J? My son asked for a Zombie Stormtrooper and since he hasn't offered up many requests the last couple weeks, I was obligated. I guess he's at that age where 'Creepy' is cool. We had seen a little maquette of a Zombie Stormtrooper at a local collectibles shop and he never forgot about it. So, I have to give Gentle Giant the credit for this bags' inspiration. I had planned go cartoony with it, once again, and somehow I got myself stuck doing something a little more realistic and running out of time to start over. Because it came out kind'a creepy, almost too creepy, I added the silly protocol droid conversation balloons to take the edge off of it.
This morning, when my son saw the bag I got a "Cool, Dad!"
Son happy!

CLONE CAPT. REX - Lunch-bag - 2012

I wanted to do something cool this day for my son's lunch bag, and I thought it would be neat to do a really close-up view a Clone helmet to show the wear and tear it has received. I really love the design Filoni and his team came up with to keep Rex looking unique from the other Season 4 "REVENGE of the SITH" style Clone helmets - A hybrid of Rex's old helmet and the new ones.  So, I did a sketch of this in my ideas sketchbook using a picture in my son's Clone Wars magazine and a bunch of pictures of Rex I found online. I did my best to extrapolate this view from those images and this is about as close as I can get to making it accurate on the fly. If I had all the time in the world to do these, I would have put a different helmet on the other side like a mirror reflection. Maybe Cody?

SANDTROOPER - Lunch-bag - 2012

I love the Sandtroopers! Out of all the Stormtroopers, these dirty, scuffed-up guys wearing the backpacks and colored shoulder pauldrons, carrying the big laser rifles were just the coolest.  I did this bag the night of 4th of July. I was exhausted after having a busy day prepping the house going to the movies, prepping some more, and then friends and family came over for dinner, drinks, desserts and the fireworks. Many different drink concoctions were had.  I should have drawn a lunch bag on the 3rd, but I had to work that night. So, at 11:15, instead of going directly to sleep like a normal person, I worked on this lunch bag. It was going to be one of my cartoony troopers but some how I ended up going a little more realistic with it.  I was too tired to come up with witty dialogue, so "Sandwich!" is all he got. And then finally... sleep.

BIG WALKING CARPET - Lunch-bag - 2012

I like drawing these cartoony STAR WARS characters. It's just plain fun. And, it speeds up the whole lunch-bag process. I come up with a scenario or quote from one of the films, then doodle in my book, then make lunch-bag. Bing, Bang, Boom! Obligatory 'sandwich' joke included, free of charge. My five year-old asked me what it said, so I read it to him. "It's not very funny, Dad." was his response. Sometimes, I said, it's not the words that are 'funny' it's the drawing that's supposed to be 'funny.'  Yeah, whatever! Write some funnier shit next time! And get me my waffles, would ya!

HUNGRY SPACE SLUG - LUNCH-BAG - 2012

Hungy Space Slug - Well, long story short, every summer at camp, the campers and the counselors come up with a name for their group. By popular vote, my son's camp group came up with the name "British Zombies Who Eat Crumpets." Or something very similar to that. He hated the name. Some other kids from a different group made fun my son's groups name. He hated it even more. So, to make light of the whole "Crumpet" dilemma, I made this lunch-bag. Eat up ol' Space Slug! Jolly good! My son tells me crumpets taste horrible. Where he had one is anyone's guess. Possibly at the Tam O'Shanter? Maybe?!?

WHERE'S MY JEDI? - Lunch-bag - 2012

Here's a little mash-up lunch-bag: Disney Mobile's "Where's My Water?" with good old "STAR WARS." I've spent the last year drawing these characters for the mobile game from Disney Interactive's Mobile division, so my boys are more than familiar with Swampy, Cranky and Allie.  I did this lunch-bag the other night and he thought it was pretty funny. It was a good way to give him something he wasn't expecting and still get a little STAR WARS in there.