#29: Choice, trust, and growth

Hello purveyors of fine chaos,

Sooner or later, it was always going to be Thursday. Like it is now.

This week’s cartoons first take us on an unexpected path to enlightenment, before taking us to an instance where trust can have unintended consequences and, finally, arriving at a place where hair style just doesn’t work out.

Looking to the skies,
Chris

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Caption: “To achieve true enlightenment you must first successfully choose three ripe avocados.”

Avocados, eh? They’re one of the great mysteries of the world.

Every now and then my partner will ask me to go to the store and buy avocados and every time I do, a feeling of terror grips my mind. How will I know if they are ripe? Have I squeezed hard enough? Are they too squishy? What if I get an unripe one?

And then, what if your path to enlightenment depended on it?

A little artist’s note: The ‘wise elder on a mountain’ cartoon is a well-worn path and one that I’m happy to walk down. Or up. The challenge with this cartoon was trying to work out how detailed to make the background. More and more I’m finding that my foregrounds are getting a level of detail I really like, but then I’m holding myself back from doing the same with the background. It’s not that I don’t want to, but that the more detail I add to the background, the more distracting it might become for the foreground. And, also, the more time it takes which I often don’t have. Hence why we have some very simple mountain lines here. Oh, and avocados. Many avocados.

Caption: “I have trust issues.”

What if you didn’t trust anyone?

Or, more importantly, what if you didn’t trust anyone, but you also enjoyed kayaking in a big boat? What if all those oars just sat there, unused? What if you just had to row yourself?

The answer would be something a little like this.

A little artist’s note: It turns out that kayaks are actually pretty hard to draw. But, to be more specific, it’s not really the kayaks, but the people in them. The way people sit when they row, the hand movements and hand locations. The locations of the oars themselves. They all sit in some very odd locations and this is reflected in the way people look and move. You’ll also see that the head of the fella in the middle of the second kayak is on a weird angle and, while at first it looks a little odd, it’s actually like that because he’s at that point in the stroke.

Or, it’s because I didn’t draw it properly. We’ll never know.

Caption: “Awww, but I spent all summer growing out my bangs.”

There is so much about dinosaurs that we just don’t know.

Like, did they grow facial hair? Did they grow out their hair in bangs? Were they style gurus and we just don’t recognise it?

Actually, they probably didn’t do any of those things, but just imagine if they did.

A little artist’s note: This is somehow only my second dinosaur cartoon, and I can’t quite believe it. But a few things of note here. The first is that drawing a stegosaurus is actually pretty difficult. I mean, look at all those things on its back? It’s quite a complex beast. And then, look at its goatee! And, if that wasn’t enough, take a look at that brontosaurus rocking those bangs! Just rocking them.

Thanks for reading MiddleSquiggle!

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