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Author: C.P.

Life goes on…

Life goes on…

Despite the disasters, natural and man-made,  recent or on going, Vegas keeps rolling along.  This city offers a very unique brand of escapism and sometimes that’s exactly what is needed. In my tiny way I get to help with that. For a moment, when I reveal my caricature to the customers everything falls away. It’s just them, laughing at a silly picture of themselves. Just for a second there’s nothing else going in the world at all. All is Right.

Enough the the vaguely melancholy. On to the silly.

This week I was working on a witch for a Halloween themed sample drawing and the lady in the hat comes up to me and says, “I want to be on a broom!” I was happy to oblige. Her daughter joined her for the drawing  They weren’t the most sober customers I’ve had, but the were certainly a lot of fun.

The best they could do

The best they could do

Someone better would have handled things differently. Someone smarter would have known exactly what to do. He was only who he was, so he just did the best he could.
So when the gun shots rang out he didn’t have a better plan.
He just shielded her body with his.
It was the best he could do.

#VegasStrong

*      *      *

I live in Las Vegas. It’s been a week, give or take a few hours, since a guy decided open fire on thousands of people at a concert. I want this to be the last time. I had friends at the event and while I didn’t loose anyone I know a few folks who did. I don’t know what I can do. However, I do know that to do nothing is wrong. I’ve had this bit of flash-fiction (maybe non-fiction) kicking around my head for a while, so I decided to drop it here. That’s not the end of it for me, just the end of me posting about it.

One more thing. Don’t get hung up on the pronouns. They are just stand-ins, generic terms. Use the ones are correct for you.
I truly hope no one ever has to find out who the heroes are in their lives this way.

Muscles may be less buff than they appear.

Muscles may be less buff than they appear.

I had this couple come to the caricature stand this past week. I like the way it turned out so I thought I’d post it.  He asked for a extra muscle, so I obliged. He said when he came back next year he’d have those muscles. To balance things out, next year he gets noodle arms.

A sticker for grumpy people.

A sticker for grumpy people.

You know what they say about best laid plans of mice and me often going ka-plowie? Well just as I started getting this site together I had a ka-plowie. A family member falling deathly ill. So naturally everything takes a back seat to that. I am grateful now with said family member recovering I can get back to my best laid plan: My next post here.
What? I didn’t say it was a important plan, just the best laid one.

I couple of months ago a friend of mine was having a rough day at work in her customer service job. She said she wanted to hand out MDKs all around. Originally ‘MDK’ is from the wonderfully terrible movie Demolition Man. It’s been adopted by music and gaming nowadays, but its not really a pleasant thing to hand people. Go look it up. I’ll wait.

As you can see ‘MDK’s are a little on the violent side. While I can’t condone violence I can condone stickers! For no other reason than to cheer up a grumpy friend I whipped this up in Adobe Illustrator. This sticker that could be handed out to anyone who “needed” one. Who could say no to a cute sticker like this?

 

Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash
Hi! This is me.

Hi! This is me.

I’m C.P. Franklin, artist by day, gamer by night and writer by necessity. I’m a professional caricature artist, making silly drawings of tourists. That’s right, I make fun of peoples faces for a living. Not a bad gig if you’ve got the guts to do it. Like most other artists, I do graphic design on the side. Logos, illustration, menus, you name it. I draw other things too. I dabble in fan art. Lately I’ve created emotes and emojis that don’t exist but should. For me art is both profession and hobby, which is fine by me.

I’m also a gamer. A pc gamer. A female pc gamer. Yes, we exist. Yes, I built my own rig. No, I won’t post the specs. It’s not fancy. Having said all that to verify my gaming identity, I must admit, when it comes to PvP games I am what’s known as a filthy casual. I play a little Overwatch. I play alot of Heroes of the Storm. I’m a tank player. For those who are non-gamers, that means I protect my teammates and set up flashy plays for others. Not much glory in it, but the tank is the backbone of the team. I’ve been know to play support/healer rarely. It’s less fun for me, and a lot more stressful. I like my single player games too. Light games where it’s me against the world, like Don’t Starve or Terraria. I’m also a sucker for a good puzzle game as well. And I love fighting games, I’m not great at those, but beating up pixels is the best way to relieve stress.

Now, the bit about being a writer. I’m a writer because I can’t seem to escape writing. There are stories I want to tell. Actually it’s more like there are stories in my head that demand to be told. This is highly annoying because writing is hard for me. Spelling is annoying and grammar seems impossible, but I have to get the words out of my head for mind maintenance purposes. They can, and do, make me a little crazy if I don’t get them out. This craziness happens with artwork too but that seems much easier to manage. Sometimes I need to do one, sometimes I need to do the other.

So welcome to my little piece of the the internet where I’ll share my art, my thoughts, and any other strangeness that I might create.