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Meet Mr. Booby
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Meet Mr. Booby

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Hey, it’s been a while since I updated the blog. The reason is that I’ve been drawing.

I joined a two-month drawing challenge that runs from August through October. One small drawing a day Monday through Friday, and something closer to a little comic over the weekend. I also bought a very lovely square blue sketchbook for it. Today is the first day of week three, and I finished early for once, so it feels like a good moment to look back at how far I’ve gotten.

For me, this challenge has three main goals:

  • 🐦 Create an OC (Original Character) of my own.
  • ✏️ Build a drawing habit over two months.
  • 📚 Make two comic series. I love four panel comics like Peanuts, and the old school one or two panel ones. Eventually I want two series: a collection of astronomy jokes, and stories built around my original character.

Mr. Booby
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The original character I created for this challenge is Mr. Booby.

He’s inspired by the blue-footed booby, which lives in the Galápagos Islands. I first noticed them because I was given this bookmark:

A bookmark printed with blue-footed boobies in various expressions and poses

I was hooked immediately. Later I looked up more photos of them online, and they really are natural born cartoon characters, with comedy built right in and the same knack as the animal characters in early Disney animation.

Of course, all creation is autobiographical to some degree, so Mr. Booby inherited a few of my own traits. Or more accurately, the traits and skills I wish I had.

Week One
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Day 0: And this is how Mr. Booby was born!
Day 0: Entrance
Day 1: Mr. Booby plays jazz piano.
Day 1: Jazz
Day 2: Mr. Booby meets Miss Breezy! A little teaser about Miss Breezy: there will be more of her story later, so stay tuned.
Day 2: Dazzled
Day 3: Mostly an exercise in giving Mr. Booby a range of expressions.
Day 3: Pleasure and Sorrow
Day 4: This was August 12, 2026. The path of totality crossed Spain, and I watched the NASA live stream from home. My wish is to go to Spain in 2027 and see a total solar eclipse with my own eyes (wish me luck~). So for now, Mr. Booby got to experience it first.
Day 4: Solar Eclipse
Day 5: I have two Ghibli artbooks, Howl’s Moving Castle and Porco Rosso, and every main character in them gets a character design page like this: the design itself, three views (front, back, and side), plus a full set of expressions. In English it’s called a turnaround.
Day 5: Turnaround
Day 6-7: This was week one’s big assignment, and my favorite one so far. It was inspired by a YouTube video from Mr. Fossil, who did an island series about extinct birds: the elephant bird, the dodo, and the moa. So I wanted Mr. Booby to be reading a book called Birds That We Will Never Meet.
Day 6-7: Birds That We Will Never Meet

Week Two
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Week two’s theme was a flower shop.

Day 8: Mr. Booby visits a flower shop, and I got to practice drawing a lot of different flowers.
Day 8: Flower Shop
Day 9: Mr. Booby repotting flowers.
Day 9: Repot Flowers
Day 10: Week two’s big assignment. Mr. Booby rescuing a flower vase before it hits the ground.
Day 10: So Close!

Since the theme this week was flowers, a few of the drawings don’t have Mr. Booby in them at all. Those didn’t make it into the series.

That’s everything so far. Keep following Mr. Booby → The Story of Booby · full playlist

Wrapping Up
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Two weeks checked off, a quarter of the way along the progress bar. Drawing Mr. Booby brings me joy every time. When I finish one, I take it out to photograph it with succulents, hydreaga or lavender bush in our backyard. It also serves as a nice vehicle to capture the summer of our garden.

To be continued.

P.S. We recently harvested a lot of lemons from our backyard, and Mr. Booby helped me share them with our neighbors.