How Sweet To Be An Idiot

This is one of the greatest pictures ever of Jimmy the Idiot Boy. I guess it was drawn either by John K. or Jim Smith. It's staggeringly complex, and presents a tough challenge for anybody who's trying to replicate it. I made few attempts earlier today, just to understand the basic construction behind it. I made plenty of mistakes with various small details, so I decided to leave it for few days, and just use the original black & white drawing from John's blog for a coloring exercise:




This is a quick drawing inspired by "The Turtle Food Collector", and I haven't used any comic panel as a reference. I like Jimmy's expression here, but dislike the whole drawing - I made too many mistakes: the construction of the face, and the whole left hand for example. The left eye also looks weird and incorrect, though it adds something peculiar to the whole expression. Jimmy looks like he's trying to hypnotize the bug. Maybe I'll return to this drawing later, and add the real backgrounds.




Here are some of the recent attempts to do my own expressions of Jimmy the Idiot Boy, without using any of the reference drawings. I made dozens of such drawings and sketches of Jimmy or George Liquor, but I'm not too satisfied with them yet. I need to practice much more, to get a better grasp of both characters.