Welcome to the Hurtmyhead Comics Archives
This is actually my first time creating a novel-like series on Tapas, for years now I've just been writing dinky old comics where I have to rely on characters to get the words across. In this series, I'll mostly be posting non-comic art while talking about various things like the creative process and my own life, but I guess you already read the synopsis... maybe.
Posted is the thumbnail for this series, I was so proud of the finished product but came to find that it was just a couple hundred kilobytes above the 2 megabyte limit, what a drag... the edited image doesn't look as good, you might not have noticed if I didn't point it out, but the border is slightly darker than the inside of the frame on the top. If you want to enjoy the image the way it's meant to be, it'll definitely be posted on my social media pages, which I'm sure you'll be able to find by looking at my profile if you're interested, wink wink.
Most of my thumbnails and book covers are direct parodies of other pieces of media, mostly album covers. Album covers have always been my favorite form of art because of their wide range of expressiveness, even the simplest of album covers can have deep emotional meaning (whether it's intentional or you just like to attribute your own). This artwork derives inspiration from lots of different places, right off the hop you might be able to tell its color palette and design is very closely related to the cover of the Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is an album I listened to on a whim a few days ago because I loved Good News for People Who Love Bad News so much, both albums are absolutely incredible and I've had both albums on repeat for several weeks now, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank is probably my favorite Modest Mouse album cover, the colors blend very well with the leathery background and the beautiful blimp and anchor just screams what the music is all about, I believe us as people are born to fly, as symbolized by the blimp, but we are constantly being weighed down by ourselves, as symbolized by the anchor attached to the blimps strings, which correlates well with nautical jams having themes of loss and death.
All of that could be bogus, but it's nice to speculate on the meaning of music you enjoy, and sometimes it helps to give music your own meaning for a better sense of security while listening to it, that's why I love We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank so much, on top of being great sounding music, it also makes the listener think. What it makes you think about I don't know, it could be anything, the lyrics and instrumentals bring out your inner emotions and they seem to take over from there.
Now, this album is immortalized forever in my artwork, so I'll always remember its impact on me years later, and I highly recommend listening to it if you're a fan of hard hitting indie rock.
Another few small references I made are in the little character shown in the middle of the drawing, firstly, he's widely recognized as the mascot of Hurtmyhead Comics, Paper Guy! Paper Guy is the very first character I ever created, dating all the way back to grade 6 when I wrote my first comic, how time flies! Way back in the day before I primarily drew eyes as basic black lines, I used to draw them like this, triangles attached to either side of the head, and this was probably the first time I've drawn eyes like that since I stopped doing it about 7 years ago! I'm the only one who'll understand this little callback, but I think it's a fun way to incorporate even my oldest art styles into my newest drawings, they walked so my current comics could run.
It's also been a while since I've drawn a little chibi character with no legs and no arms, I was thinking of that old Streetpass Fishing Game (I think it's called Ultimate Angler) while drawing it because I thought those characters were kind of cute lol, I JUST WANNA DO CATCH SOME FISHES!!!
This turned out to be a lot longer than I expected, maybe I'm a better writer than I thought (for better or for worse)...
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