MUSING ON THE ORIGINAL JESSICA RABBIT

I've had this new pic on my desktop for over a week, and it was teased on Instagram a few weeks ago. It's a pinup of Jessica Rabbit, the classic character from the "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" cartoon that dates back to 1988, although she was also presented in a book titled "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?", which was published roughly back in 1981. Jessica was created by the author Gary K Wolf.

I'm including an older Jessica Nurse pic that I did back in 2009, just to show a comparison, and my art style evolution over time.

 


Although it is claimed that Jessica was inspired by a cartoon gal shown in an old Tex Avery cartoon from 1943 [titled "Red Hot Riding Hood"], in my opinion the original human inspiration for Jessica Rabbit may have been a lady called Julie London [shown on the right], who was a redhead gal and a sultry singer that lived from 1926 - 2000.
In fact, one of Julie's sultry songs titled "Why don't you do right" was performed by Jessica Rabbit, in the 1988 cartoon.

From my research / reflections, a couple of things stand out about Julie...
1. She was very laid back and calm-natured
2. She was short & cute, standing at 5 feet 2 inches tall.
3. She had hair... lots of hair, that stood on her head like some sort of reddish crown [Google "Julie London" and you'll see what I mean].
4. She had a deep raspy voice. And there are few female singers who have that kinda tone and sound good.

On the other hand, Jessica Rabbit was tall and junoesque, meaning that she was like a busty Greek goddess. Jessica did have two voices in the cartoon [shown as a clip below]; and one voice actress [Kathleen Turner] would provide her regular speaking voice, while there was someone else that would sing for her. Some fans see Jessica as a classic shapely milf and others view her as an animated muse.
Frankly, I just see her as... Jessica. And you can hear her sing over HERE


While doing my research, I did listen to a few of the classic tracks by Julie, and they were... like an aged wine.... sweet and sensual, and yet tasteful. I liked some of Julie's songs better than others of course. And the song "Cry me a River" that Justin Timberlake sang in 2010... well, Julie London had an old song with that same name back in 1955, which was very different, in terms of its message and its solemn tone.

Nevertheless, inspiration for a comic character can be drawn from a living or a late muse, a cartoon character or even real person, as long as they inspire the artist.

I know that for a fact, since my popular DSNG gal Elena Eden, was created as an original character, way back in the early 2000s. But later, as I kept drawing her, I was inspired by the physique of Coco Austin, the wife of rapper IceT.
That's all for now. Don't forget to Like and Share...
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THE DSNG CUSTOM AHSOKA TANO ACTION FIGURE TOY!

Those fans who follow me on facebook and Instagram were aware that I was working on this project. And today I present to you the finished custom Ashoka Tano toy! Any hobby can be time consuming; and this one took a while, roughly 2 - 3 weeks, because I was learning along the way, and trying out some new things.

For those who don't know this female Star Wars character, Ahsoka [pronounced Ah-so-kah] was introduced in the 3D animated cartoon series called Star Wars: Clone Wars [which ran from 2008 - 2014]. She was the young spirited padawan apprentice of Anakin Skywalker, before he joined the evil Emperor and the ways of the dark side. Per her alien race, she is a a Togruta female, having orange skin and three thick octopus-like hair strands, which don't move freely. FYI, I had to shorted her hair strands in my toy model, and her people can also have blue or red skin tones [Like Shaak Ti, who was drawn in this blog over HERE].

Yet Asoka did make a cameo in the new Star Wars: Rebels 3D cartoon that commenced in 2014, but I didn't keep up fully with that series, since in my opinion, in comparison to the Clone Wars series, it took roughly 5 steps backwards in terms of the overall art style, the character design models, the storyline and the choreographed action scenes.
Although she is a highly skilled Jedi, Ashoka Tano has never been featured in any of the 7 or more Starwars movies, to my knowledge. And at the end of the 2nd season of the Star Wars: Rebels 3D cartoon, she was supposedly Missing In Action, after a battle inside a Sith temple against Darth Vader [Anakin] on the small planet named Malachor. But of course we all know that she's still alive :)

 

 

 

The base body of the Ahsoka toy was the Marvel Legends Wasp figure, and I used the hands from a Black Cat toy. I used the same base mold for the lovely Elena Eden toy, which was previously shown over HERE.
Ashoka's boots were taken from a Marvel Legends Mockingbird toy, before they were customized. After sculpting some details like her top segments and her belt, I used the Tamiya Gray Primer Spray to coat her body... although I still had to add more details after that, as her design evolved in my mind. And I had to make a custom hair sculpt for her, which I pained carefully, in order to add most of her tribal marks and her blue-colored hair marks.
And yes... baby got back....
I finally painted her by hand, since I find that process to be very therapeutic. For the colors, I used Tamiya Flat Brown paint for her straps, DecoArt Metallic Purple for her boots & gauntlets, and Vallejo Game Air Warlord Purple for her combat bathing suit. Her skin tone was a custom orange that I got by mixing about 4 different colors, including orange, white paint and Vallejo sunny skin tone. Both of her swords were custom-made and painted light-blue and white.
The one tough thing about this toy is that it's extremely difficult to make her stand... hence I use a figure stand in a lot of the pics ;)

  

 

 

  

  

 After I was done, I used a Taskmaster toy [also from the Marvel Legends series] as her opponent for a small light-saber duel, which I presented in the photos above. And of course she kicked his ass and stomped on his face, because the heroic Jedis always win in the end... at least I think so, until some old crooked Sith jackass gives the goddamn command for Order 66 - LOL.
Stay tuned for more via Facebook updates!

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