Whiteboard Koala

Crazy Frog Legs

2005-12-13T16:28:00.000+10:00

Of the people in my office, about 30 percent actually got this joke.

Hopefully my hit rate will be better with the collection of good looking, savvy young pop-culture mavens who visit this site.

Heh.

It's been a while since the last cartoon, so let me wax lyrical for a time and fill you in on the random wanderings of my (for want of a better word) "mind".

Firstly, I sometimes meet people who have seen this site, and ask how I draw the cartoons. They're surprised to learn that there's no trick to it -- it really is an actual whiteboard.

So I thought I'd take a second to review my "creative process" [muffled laugh] for you all.

So.. it's the whiteboard in the entry area of the office I work in. I use whatever crappy whiteboard pen is lying around. If I'm lucky there's another colour as well as blue. It takes about one or two minutes to do the drawing. Sometimes I'll do a little sketch first to work out how to fit stuff in.

Then I take a photo with my lame digital camera, and do a crop and "Enhance Color" in Microsoft Office Picture Manager (which is what comes up when I double-click on the jpg photo).

Upload to Flickr.com, write pithy message on Blogger.com, and it's done.

Secondly, I started a blog of stuff that, erm, i am not impressed by. Read the first post here, if my host is online. There may be *slightly* more swearwords in that blog than this one.

And thirdly, I recently received a t-shirt emblazoned with one of my koala cartoons that someone had ordered for me from my own CafePress store. I've pretty much ignored my store since the day I set it up, but the shirt I got is better quality than I expected -- so if anyone has a particular request for something they'd like to see in the store, lemme know while I have a bit of motivational momentum going :).

Ok so that's *way* too much reading for you illiterates that just come here to want to look at the pics. Ooo.. did I type that in or just think it?

Redesign nearly there

2005-09-27T13:55:00.000+10:00

I know it looks lame right now, but i think the redesign and general site tidy up will be finished in a few days.

There's still some schedules taped over the whiteboard so no koalas so far (and I'm starting to wonder if there's a hidden message there), though i was tempted by the local rugby league team's semi-final win last weekend: the final score was 29-0.

How Many Doors Is Too Many

2005-08-29T16:16:00.000+10:00

Heh.

I realise that some of my web audience don't in fact work in the same place I do (Hi Mum!) and therefore might not enjoy the occasional in-jokes I make on this site. To those folk, I apologise in advance for this posting, and submit the following background information.

Recently an additional door was added to one of the offices where I work. This brought the total portals for the room to four. Perhaps Lyn and Sue who work in that office were tired of repeatedly entering their immediate work environment through the same door; now, they can go an entire working week using a different form of ingress each day (assuming that on Friday they feel inclined to scale the wall and enter through the window).

Hence my most recent offering to the hordes (hordes, I say!) of visitors who frequent this humble site, depicting my prediction for Lyn and Sue's office of the future.

My veracity may be verified by these views of the very office in question:

Doors 1 and 2 are sliding doors on the left and right of this picture, taken while standing in Door 4.

Doors 3 and 4, from inside the office.

Doors 3 and 4 again, from outside the office. Note the pot plant, which allows me to pretend that Door 3 is not really a door, and hence maintain my thin thread of sanity.

Thanks to Lorna for the loan of her camera. Unfortunately even a quite nice camera still can't solve the problem of me taking a picture on a slant..

Messing About

2005-07-27T17:17:00.000+10:00

I'll be messing about a bit with the layout for this site. So if what you're looking at seems wrong, it probably is.

With any luck there might even be a new koala sometime soon.

Cheers!

WbK

Training

2005-06-29T16:26:00.000+10:00

My work recently bought a big software application. It's going to take over a year to roll it out, and recently most of the office have been doing preliminary training for it.

I know you can't always tell what i'm trying to convey, so i'll let you in on it: WbK's brain is escaping. Heh.. a big helloo to Mel the trainer too -- sorry about drawing you so small Mel. I did manage to get the hand-on-the-hip thing in.

Anyway, in case anyone is actually following this blog (and has any lingering respect for me as an "artist"), you might be interested in seeing this much more lame first attempt:

(As ever, click the pic to see a big version).

P.S. Notice the careful attempt at drawing in the cerebellum..

Douglas Wood

2005-06-21T14:17:00.000+10:00

Apparently Douglas Wood's kidnappers tried to tell the soldiers that the guy under the blanket was their sick father.

To which I can only assume the soldiers replied "Schhyeah, riiight. We like TOTALLY believe you, doood."

Heh.

Schapelle's Red Bag

2005-06-10T16:00:00.000+10:00

This is inspired by the Schapelle Corby story.

This has been a massive story in Australia -- in fact the country might not be ready for jokes like this.. but if you haven't heard about it: Schapelle was found guilty of importing several kilos of weed, and now she's been sentenced to 20 years in jail in Indonesia.

She claims that someone else put the drugs into her red boogie board bag. It seems likely that the drugs were being moved between Australian cities by airport baggage handlers, and this batch just wasn't picked up at the other end of her connecting flight.

Boy would it suck to be an Australian baggage handler right now.

Winter in northern Queensland

2005-05-26T13:46:00.000+10:00

It's coming into winter where I am, but luckily i live in the glorious tropical north of Queensland. Still, the lower temperature has meant that i've had to change my habits somewhat.

The truth is i can't actually find my left slipper, so in the mornings now i have five warm toes, and five cold ones. Oh well.

In other news, I'm going to pick the winner of the pope caption contest soon -- so you've only got another day or two to get your entries in.

Happy Birthday

2005-05-12T14:41:00.000+10:00

It's someone's birthday soon in the office.

Heh.

..they're tassles. Spinning. Sheesh, you'd think you people never went to a strip club or something.

Mother's Day

2005-05-03T16:19:00.000+10:00

I so can't draw girl koalas.

The main thing i was trying for here is the really big eyes. they look ok i think, but the amazingly accomodating tree in this picture might be stretching the envelope of believability. I had to add a couple of leaves just to make it look a bit like a tree and not, say, a closeup on the contents of a used tissue.

Now 31% More Fun!!

2005-04-27T21:33:00.000+10:00

Notice how much fun you're having just reading this, even though there's no actual koala drawing included?

I've changed the site slightly so that you can see everyone's comments, glaring and naked, right on the front page.. just like a car driving round with the front grill and bumper taken off, and you can see right through to the radiator. (Or am I the only one who thinks that makes cars look kind of lewd..)

So at least now I can be slightly less embarassed about using a Blogger template right off the shelf, even though I theoretically sort-of make web pages n' stuff for a living.

I promise a new drawing real soon.. as soon as I can think of one. Please feel free to suggest stuff -- lame jokes are my staple. Also note that the field is still wide open for the Pope picture caption contest.

Too Late for the Pope's Election

2005-04-20T11:01:00.000+10:00

I drew this yesterday but didn't have a camera. Then this morning Ratzinger was elected Pope..

Oh well, i'll remember to work faster next time there's a papal election :).

I couldn't think of a good caption for this. I've been advised that it doesn't need one, but to me it looks a bit like a punchline without a joke.

If you want to waste some time, post a comment with your caption. best one (or, if it comes to that, the only one) wins a prize*.

* here i'm using the word "prize" in the metaphoric sense.. or maybe i'll send you a signed WBK picture! Yeah, that won't cost me anything! ..err, did i say that last bit out loud?

ANZAC Day

2005-04-15T15:39:00.000+10:00

Here's a nice picture about ANZAC Day.

Not funny though, unless you count the sad effort i made at drawing a slouch hat. Didn't notice it? I'll wait while you look again.. if you think high-res will help, click the picture for a giant version.

doo de doo de dum, rum pumpa dum (goes the elevator music in my head)

Yes, that's it -- the picture in the frame hanging on the tree.

Waiting

2005-04-12T12:59:00.000+10:00

This is what I drew while I was waiting to think of a good ANZAC Day picture.

He's supposed to be tossing cards into a hat, which, according to some american movies i have seen, is what you do when you can't think of anything else to do (and you have a pack of cards .. and a hat).

I had been talking about maybe doing some of two-up game for my ANZAC picture, so when I did this one some observers thought it was supposed to be ANZACy (but that I'd stuffed it up so badly that it didn't make sense). They were nevertheless very kind in their compliments. That's why I had to add the text -- it makes clear the intention that my poor illustration couldn't convey on its own.

Easter

2005-03-24T22:12:00.000+10:00

I had to think about this one, it was a bit hard to get the geometry right.

The actual idea was that koalas don't really fit into bunny suits, so it's supposed to look like he's struggling to get in. That's why the basket is knocked over, see? Now it all makes sense.. anyway i sketched this one on paper before putting it up on the whiteboard, but i still couldn't get it right -- my koala's right arm ended up twice as long as his left. Oh well. Lucky i'm not paid to draw.

Valentine's Day

2005-02-14T11:27:00.000+10:00

Here's the first koala i photographed, for Valentine's Day.

I originally drew just one controller, coz, y'know, I'm lazy.. but the idea of the koala bringing flowers to his Xbox that he always plays on ALONE seemed a bit creepy. So I had to draw in a second cable and make it disappear under the coffee table. See, the koala sometimes has company when he plays on his games machine.. now, that's not creepy at all.