Glen the Caterpillar Comics

Theme by Anders Norén

Category: 1980’s Nostalgia

Glen’s Training Routine…

I’m not going to lie, this past week has been brutal. I am emotionally and physically completely spent and my life is weaving so wildly out of control I am not sure I will be able to catch myself this time. So I have had to look really deeply into myself and remember what makes this life worth fighting for and as stupid as it sounds Glen the Caterpillar is one of those things. He makes me happy when no one else can put a smile on my face and today he encouraged me not to give up with a shitty Rocky styled 1980’s sports montage. Bless his little rubbery blue heart.

The Making of Glen

I wasn’t sure how to compose this comic. I had a few ideas in my head but I didn’t really know how to show the full set of actions in one panel. I think I did alright… I cut a lot of corners and did a lot of things terribly old school because I just don’t have it in me today to let my Type A personality take over but I don’t think it made it any worse for wear. I got the point across and Glen is as adorable as ever.

Glen Discusses the Unfair Type Casting of Space Spiders…

Oh, it feels so good to be back after this unanticipated two week hiatus! I apologize for our conspicuous absence – it was a combination of technical difficulties and illness but we’re back on track now! And we’re tipping our hats to all you wonderful sci-fi geeks out there. You know we love you!

The Making of Glen

As with everything lately this comic started out as something completely different – a joke about space grasshoppers – but do you know how hard space grasshoppers are to draw?! I THOUGHT mechanical space spiders might be easier but whew… I’m not so sure now! Even so I had fun with this one and with the additional jokes coming from the mouths of the spiders themselves. The sci-fi genre should be careful or these little buggars might unionize and demand at least one series show them in a positive light!

Glen Fixes the Monkey’s Paw

Ah! Another week and another horror related comic! This one was inspired by a spirited discussion on The Monkey’s Paw. It all got me wondering, what would Glen do with a monkey’s paw? What would he wish for? And his very innocent (but potentially horrifically backfiring) answer had to be this! With any luck the monkey will be pleased and won’t curse his remaining wishes… but that’s up to you to decide what happens next.

The Making of Glen

So, since I was doing so well with posting a Glen every week and I am getting into other illustrations and tattoo design I thought it would be a great idea to invest in a gaming PC (which is coincidentally the same kind of PC illustrators use.) And I must say this combined with the better drawing tablet and a kneeling chair is SWEET!! LOVING the new set up! So sleek! So fast! So easy! I must be moving up in the world.

The new PC with its much larger screen has also allowed me to see the details in the things I draw so much better! I don’t know how this is going to play into my Glen comics in the future but for now it’s mesmerizing.

Glen’s Dinner is Stolen by Fluted Mushooms

This week’s Glen has been brought to you by a Julia Child cookbook and a tale of culinary school horror. To think until last week I had no idea what a fluted mushroom was. This explains why in Glen’s world fluted mushrooms are musical…

The Making of Glen

For the first time in a long time this week’s comic came to me long before I had to draw it. I still wasn’t sure how to draw an anthropomorphized mushroom but I think I did somewhat OK. And I admit I did not spend a lot of time on the flutes… but I didn’t think it really mattered. It was really just the idea I was trying to get across.

Glen’s Post Easter Nightmare

I was going to draw Glen being pursued by earless chocolate Easter bunnies but somehow that turned into him hatching all goo-covered out of a Cadbury egg. both scenarios are terrifying and sadly hilarious so I make no apologies.

The Making of Glen

There were A LOT of layers in this comic and it seemed like every time I forgot to make a new layer I had to pay for it by re-drawing whatever it was into a new layer after erasing the first attempt. I am slowly learning how to draw freehand better so everything on this strip was done this way – no tracing! I am content in how far I have come and where I am going. The future of my illustrations seems bright. The only thing I had difficulty with was making a basket that looked woven… which I think I failed but at least it’s basket shaped and no one is going to nit pick at this tiny detail – save for me.

Glen Learns Why the Itsy Bitsy Spider Went up the Water Spout

After a surprise week off I am back and so is Glen! Up to his usual chatting with the other bugs in his world, this time it’s the Itsy Bitsy Spider who seems a bit banged up…

The Making of Glen

As of late I have been really getting into the illustration but most of it has been creating designs to use as tattoos on leather scraps I have. I just want to see if I can grow my talents and make this little doodling hobby of mine actually useful in some way. As much as I love Glen he’s… a poor fundraiser. To date no one has ever bought anything from his shop or thrown me a few bucks for making them smile. It just doesn’t happen.

Glen gets Trapped Back in Time…

This week I decided to rely heavily on nostalgia and draw Glen in an old video game like we used to play in the 80’s. I remember them well… We had a Nintendo at the time with those big clunky cartridges, I think three or so which we owned, always having to blow the dust out of them so they might work. There’s just something about the aesthetics of these classics and the weird beep music that gives us all pretty vivid memories. Even though I have been drawing Glen for a long time he’s still not quite that old so I had to send him back in time a bit… and well… time travel is a tricky business.

The Making of Glen

Going Old School to make pixel art was a blast. It really reminded me of the days I started drawing Glen in classic Microsoft Paint. I wasn’t very meticulous about it though. I know I could have been, coloring in every pixel one at a time… If I had the energy or time for that I would have happily done so but these days I’m short on both so I cheated a little bit. I shrunk the canvas size so I cold make a grid of single pixels and proceeded to draw almost normally and use the fill-in tool instead of coloring each individually. And then so you could see it at a decent size I enlarged the whole image. I think it’s halfway decent considering. I also hand drew all the lettering which was… oddly difficult but it gives it that Old School feel I can’t get enough of.

Glen Visits the Local Library…

Happy Monday everyone! I hope Sunday’s Valentine’s celebrations have found you well – even all you beautiful single people out there (both willful and not.) I know with the ongoing pandemic we’re all a bit… shut in. So why not daydream about the summer reading programs most libraries host for small children? And have a bit of ice cream while we’re at it!

The Making of Glen

Big news! I have decided to invest in Glen a bit and have upgraded my Wacom tablet with a Gaomon tablet that has a screen. To anyone who doesn’t illustrate things on the computer this doesn’t sound like much but it’s a HUGE improvement. I no longer am experiencing lag when I draw and it’s made the whole process all the smoother and more intuitive. I am excited to see what I can do with this. As you can see by today’s comic I already accidentally learned how to give Glen and his friends a healthy glow. Now let’s see what other trouble I can get into!

Glen’s Christmas Tree Waits for an Ambush…

Did you know this week is Christmas?! I didn’t! Between all the Covid restrictions I’m not really celebrating this year so it slipped my mind…. but with that being said Glen’s kids sure didn’t forget and they are up to their usual mischief.

The Making of Glen

I really pushed myself with today’s comic. I knew what I wanted to do but was at a loss on how to illustrate it. I decided I had to step back and draw the tree like a artificial Christmas tree is built – with a tinsel covered pole in the middle holding up several layers of branches also wrapped in green tinsel/pipe cleaner? I drew the base and then copy and pasted it several times on different layers, making sure to shrink each successive layer to make that lovely pine tree shape. And then I decorated it and added Glen’s kids between the layers so that it’d look like they were in the tree. When I finished that I copied the whole thing and threw it behind an opaque black fill-in to make it look like the lights were out. I tried to make the Christmas lights glow but somewhere between all the layering I wasn’t sure how to accomplish that… Even so I am super happy with how this one came out.

Recently I have decided to try harder not just with Glen but my other illustrations. For instance I am trying to illustrate a book of dreams I wrote down and I am having a lot of fun with it. I also continue to dream of animation so who knows where I will go from here. My artistic ambitions continue to grow as I teach myself new skills.

The Boxes are Always More Fun than What’s in Them…

I’m not going to lie – since the holidays I have doubled my efforts to stay in place and as a result I am lacking a lot of inspiration. I need muses! But alas, all I have is Amazon boxes… Eureka! That’s it!

The Making of Glen

Yesterday, when I drew this, was one of those days everything was coming together easy as pie. I came up with the idea of making Glen a box fort and then everything else followed. I didn’t have to do anything particularly new but I was surprised how much depth I could get just putting boxes in front of boxes! And in any event this was a little tip of the hat to my inner child. I am really enjoying drawing Glen lately and wonder if I shouldn’t be stretching my wings a bit and trying some animation!

Older Posts