Glen the Caterpillar Comics

Theme by Anders Norén

Category: Culture

Glen Fails at a Dad Joke

I admit it – I have been obsessed with my writing lately and not giving Glen the attention he needs. Also writing has been my entire world for a few weeks and it’s burrowed into my brain so deep that I was unable to come up with a plotline for this week’s comic that wasn’t writing related. So here we are! Making bad puns… about writing…

The Making of Glen

Today I decided to draw Glen Old School – in one layer! Using the same tools I would have in Classic Microsoft Paint. It was a fun jaunt down memory lane but only lasted until I had to put in speech bubbles and text which are automatically a new layer. And then I decided a plain solid colored background was boring so instead I put them on the beach. They like the beach. I think. I’m still struggling to get the right expression on these little buggars. Could use some help!

Glen Decides to Give Cupid a Taste of His Own Medicine…

I guess Glen has had a far more turbulent love life than I have previously thought as he’s in a bit of a vengeful mood today – hunting Cupid with his own bow and arrow. Now how he got these items or what he plans on aiming them at he’s leaving a mystery but I have a feeling Cupid is about to fall head over heals for the Kraken… Today might not be the best day to be a cherub.

The Making of Glen

I wanted very badly to have Glen wearing heart-shaped granny glasses today but I wanted them to be translucent like real sunglasses and I could NOT find online how to do this! So I had to make something up.

Basically I took the watercolor brush, warped the opacity, and painted a nice square over Glen’s face. I then took the eraser and drew two hearts, erasing everything around them, and using a red water color brush to highlight the rims. I then moved them around to the best position on his face before drawing in the nose and ear pieces. I’m happy with the result but I feel like there was probably a LOT easier way to accomplish it. I have to get back to trying to learn more illustration skills. I feel like I am not finding everything I need.

I also made the background with heart decorations but it came out WAY too bright and seemed to be too distracting (seen below) from the over all image so I again took that pink watercolor brush and washed the whole thing out. I am satisfied with the results.

Glen dresses as musical genres…

I admit, I’ve been swimming around a void as far as inspiration goes so I decided to go back to the basics and basically use Glen as a paper doll like I used to do as a teenager. Isn’t he a peach?!

I know, these music genres seem really random, and they are! I chose them by which I thought would be amusing to draw. I may have missed the mark on a few but the rest? Adorable. And yes, circus and bubblegum are real music genres, if you don’t believe me ask YouTube.

The Making of Glen

This week’s Glen started with a random image in my head of Glen covered in bubble gum, weeping piteously because it popped on him, but could I make that into a whole comic?! It was a stretch but yes, I managed.

What did I learn? I learned that making a caterpillar look angry is REALLY hard. I need to work on his facial expressions hardcore. Also it’s no easier to put make-up on Glen as it is myself. Fucking impossible. I don’t know how you ladies, painted gents, and other make-up lovin’ folk do it. Seriously. HOW?

Also I didn’t mean to cross dress Glen, and maybe I didn’t, but there’s a little playful genderfuckery in here. I appreciate that. I think so do these musical genres. I still have no idea how Glen ended up looking so feminine in the punk one though… that… I just have no explanation for.

Glen would like to be let in…

I’m not going lie – I had a whopper of a migraine this week which threw me for days so I was not with-it enough to draw and post a Glen on Wednesday. I apologize for all the adult children out there weeping because hump day was missing a certain blue caterpillar.

With that being said it looks like Glen spent those two days wandering the neighborhood like a feral cat… SIIIIIGH.

The Making of Glen

OK, so this whole comic was very spur of the moment and I didn’t spend a lot of time on it… still, this is the first time I attempted drawing Glen behind glass. I hope the little paw and tongue smudges were worth it.

Glen poses for Tarot cards…

This week I was running low on inspiration for Glen until the idea of drawing him as The Hanging Man popped into my head. I thought it’d be super cute to have him all tangled up and discombobulated. And when I drew it I was so happy with how it came out I knew I had to do a full spread – of totally random cards. You see, I don’t know diddly about Tarot.

That being said I sure had fun with this one! Glen is typically adorable and I couldn’t resist drawing a flaming tower, I mean who could?! Was it an unfortunate accident involving a Frankenstein-like experiment that caused this inferno or was the suicidal teddy bear at it again?? I do not know.

Of course now I have shared these four cards I am getting all sorts of commentary. “Now you need to draw THE WHOLE DECK!” “And a companion book! Glen’s view of the Tarot!” And I am struggling really hard not to do this because wow… it sounds like so much fun. I could learn the Tarot while drawing it! And there’s actually places I could print a self published deck these days. But who would buy them?! Glen isn’t that famous yet. Maybe someday…

The Making of Glen

I admit the past few Glen comics were… pretty quick and easy to draw. I’d become a bit lazy or maybe I was just lacking inspiration, I don’t know, but this week I was all in! And I had to do this in SO MANY LAYERS. Thirty-three to be exact and it wasn’t enough!

I learned that illustration can be moved and resized without issue but for whatever reason the text remains stubbornly where you put them. However the little grabby tool that looks like an arrow hovering over a cube works really well to just drag the text wherever. This was so much easier than the cut and pasting I was doing!

I’m also learning how to draw my characters from different poses and angles which sounds easy but wasn’t. Hanging Glen upside-down, putting things in his paws, and drawing the suicidal teddy lobbing itself out a window was difficult! Not to mention remembering how the hell I was making flames before! I think I failed there, honestly, but it doesn’t look that bad either.

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