The Daily Doodles

Anonymous asked: Do you allow submission stories, like, sending you a link or a story you might like?

Sure, anyone can send me anything!  A link, a drawing they did, their story, whatever.  Just use my “Submit” link to send me sumthin’ (it’s on the home page of my site, next to the “Ask”).

HOWEVER (and my Submit page goes over this), everything on my site is written and drawn by me only and I only, only, only will be posting my own work.  So if the goal is to get me to post someone else’s work (like, someone else’s words and my drawerin’), I really can’t do that.  

I love checking out people’s sites though!  Especially if they create their own content.  I am an Editor here on Tumblr for the #Illustration, #GIF, and #Artists on Tumblr tags, and every day I always make a point to feature people who I’ve never seen featured before. 

Please feel free to point me in your direction to check out your work, or ask me any questions you may have.  

If ya ain’t sure how the “Editor” program works, and what “features” are, here is the short explanation—

There are dozens of “official” tags on Tumblr, such as #Fashion, #LOL, #Science, #GIF, etc etc.  Each official tag has Editors, and the Editors are chosen by the staff of Tumblr.

Each Editor gets 10 features a day in each tag they edit for.  So, for example, since I edit 3 categories, I get 30 total features.  When an Edtitor “features” a post, it goes to the Explore section of Tumblr, under the corresponding tag it was featured under.

Being featured helps give your work exposure, and possibly a chance at appearing on the Tumblr Radar (that is also chosen by the staff of Tumblr, but I don’t know any specifics).  It’s basically a great way to get your work noticed by people who don’t follow your site, and to gain new loyal followers.

As always, ask me if ya got any questions, and I hope you’re all doing well! :-)

Love,
David Michael Chandler

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One of my favourite sites, Stranger Dimensions, did an awesome write up about me and my site!

You can read it here: A SPACE BETWEEN DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES: The Daily Doodles.

It was a very nice surprise, as I actually do read Stranger Dimensions daily when new posts are delivered to my Gmail each night, and about a week ago I was scrolling down the newest email, reading about many of the weird, paranormal, science-y news they report on, when suddenly I saw one of my drawings! :-o  I certainly wasn’t expecting it.

If you’re into news about scientific discovery, time travel, ghosts, aliens, the paranormal, and basically everything cool and fun that is known and unknown in the universe, I think you’d love Stranger Dimensions too. 

(And also, if you’re like me and you grew up listening to Coast to Coast AM, I KNOW you’d love Stranger Dimensions).

Thank you to Rob Schwarz for the great article! 

—David Michael Chandler

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Anonymous asked: What inspires you to keep creating?

That’s a great question!  I have to admit, I don’t know if I have a satisfying answer.

It’s not something I think about, really.  I’ve always been doing SOMETHING creative… well, in high school, I was more of an athlete, but I was always drawing all over the desks and walls; pretty much everyone in my immediate family is creative so it’s just one of the things we ‘do’.  

At my university, I started focusing more on truly being creative.  I was lucky enough to run the student TV station on campus for 4 years, and I had a really, really, really, really awful comic strip in the student newspaper, published every 2 weeks.

So, during that time, most of my day to day work involved creating something or other… for the TV station especially, I had to create an hour of original content each week, so I learned a lot about how to finish stuff, how to work on the fly, and most importantly I learned how awful I was.

That’s one thing that almost everyone doesn’t quite realize when they start trying to be creative… they kinda know what they wanna be, what they wanna create, but in the beginning you’re just an awful version of what you’ll eventually become :-)  I cringe thinking about the first thingies I made back then, but I had to do the really crappy work so I could improve. 

You really gotta get out there and DO the type of work you wanna do, and let the world see it, to figure this whole “being creative” thing out.  It’s easy to sit back and kinda smugly think about how much better your work would be than the junk you see around you, but if you’re not actually making anything to prove it…

That’s why I always tell people who ask for advice that the only real trick to being creative is to keep being creative.  And finish work!  Then, learn from your finished work and move on.  I haven’t met anyone who wasn’t awful at first, and even everyone’s favourite artists and authors did relatively embarrassing work early in their careers.  It’s just how it goes, and ya gotta get over that fear of making horrible work so that you can learn how to make stuff you actually like.

So, right now, I don’t really have one thing I can point to that inspires me to keep creating.  It’s a big part of who I am, and I do it without thinking about doing it.

Also, the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to establish a decent sized audience here on Tumblr is great motivation as well!  Knowing that people will for SURE be seeing whatever work I post, and usually liking it, is great motivation and inspiration.  The response and messages I get from people like you is amazing.

Plus this is sorta’ my career and all… I never planned on being an illustrator since I wasn’t that good at drawing, and I still got a lot to learn, but I know the only way to get there is to keep working and creating.  Having the ambition to make a living at this is great inspiration, I guess.

The other thingies come first though!  I think that before we can think about a career at this sort of work, you gotta learn how to finish and show your creative work, and gain an audience.  Everything else falls in line after that.

I hope that answered your question decently enough :-)  I’m always bad at answering questions about my inspiration, since most of this is just ingrained in me.  

I know that if you wanna be creative, then you have to create.

Take care Mister or Misses Anon!  And thank you for the nice question :-)

Love,
David Michael Chandler

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“Comfiest at Home”

Even though it’s Saturday night, and everyone is out
Janel doesn’t get what all the fuss is about
She hurries back from work, gets her home-clothes on
And prepares to party by herself, from midnight till dawn.

With a strong internet connection and plenty of books on the shelf,
Janel can come home and just be herself.
No need for the hassle of her stupid friend’s egos,
Because she has hours of illegally downloaded movies and shows.

She can listen to music while relaxing in her bed,
Or maybe post pics on her blog of pretty people who are dead.
There’s enough food in her fridge to last her the entire weekend,
So Janel can just stay inside, where she doesn’t have to pretend.

She wishes them well, those who feel the need to join packs and roam
But Janel has always been comfiest, when she can just have fun at home.

(Starring the Awesome Janel Vaughan of spacytigre.tumblr.com!)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

Anonymous asked: Do you have a twitter account?

Hey there Anonymous!

I do indeed have a Twitter, you can find it @thedailydoodles!

Also, I have the other normal peripheral thingies to funnel folks to—

MY FACEBOOK!  I post Works in Progress of my illustrations, simpler doodles, maybe complain about something that doesn’t matter… I follow my heart!

MY SOCIETY6!  You can buy you some prints, cell phone covers, caskets, etc! Lemme know if I am missing anything you want on there, too.

EDIT: I forgot Instagram!  I am DAVIDMICHAELCHANDLER on Instagram, it’s my real damn name and I am a boy :-o

Hope that helps, thank you for the question! :-) I get asked it a lot and this gives me a nice way to shove my links down people’s throats without being annoying (^__^).

Have a nice weekend everyone, go get ‘em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
DMC

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Anonymous asked: Are any of your doodles based on real people/people on tumblr?

Hey there!  I haven’t answered an anonymous message in a few months so I figured I’d reply to this one since it just came in.

Do I base these drawings and stories on real people?  No, not really.  Part of that is because I want every idea on here to be MY idea, my own story that I create, so basing them on real people isn’t that fun.

I DO draw real people in the drawings quite often; those are part of my “Star in a Doodle” thingy where people can be drawn and written into their own illustration and story, and can even own the original drawing! :-o  It’s a helluva deal and you can read more about it here—

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT STARRING IN YOUR VERY OWN DAILY DOODLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The fact that people want to be drawn in these poor illustrations means a lot to me, and I love that most even want to own the original drawing.  The one downside is that it can take some time for me to create the specialized drawing and story though, since I want the imagery and story to fit the person perfectly and I don’t have much spare time and etc etc… but, I love them and they’re fun to do! :-)

If my stories are based on anyone “real”, it’s only in a general way.  Like, I’ve done stories making fun of how whiny people are online, but that’s not about ONE person or anything (and I doubt the whiny folks are self aware enuff to know they’re being ridiculed).  I also don’t do stories from my own real life since I think those type of stories are prone to only being interesting to the person they happened to :-)

(That is not to say that people who do write about their own experiences and about people around them is BAD, it’s a totally fine way to create work and it’s just not how I do things)

I try to make everything I do on here be my own thingy, for better or worse, and this is also one of the many reasons I don’t collaborate or post anyone else’s work on my site (most of the other reasons have to do with how petty and hateful I am).

Thank you for the question!  I know I got more asks I ain’t answered yet because I had no internettin’ for a few days, and I promise I’ll reply to them shortly :-)

I hope everyone is having a great 2013 so far and that all of your enemies have been shot in the face!!

Love,

David Michael Chandler

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Anonymous asked: hi:3 i really like your blog, i was wondering if all the illutrations were yoursO: because i really love them♥ and i also whant to ask, how do you do them? i mean, do you do draw them or yoy use a type of program etc... kisses♥

Hey there, thank you! :-)

EVERYTHING on my site is done by me, yup!  All of the illustrations and writing and whatnot… the one part I ask friends for help with is with the gifs, because they’re much gooder at computery things and I don’t even own Photoshop.  SO, I tell them what I want, and they do it better than I even hoped because they’re geniuses :-)  Fatma, Kyle, and Chiara are the great artists and bestest friends who’ve helped me with my giffing.

Other than that, everything is done by me. :-)

And in answer to your other question, everything is done by hand!  I use mostly Crayola coloured pencils now, with some bits here and there done with dollar store markers and highlighters (I used to use markers more often, but I really didn’t like how it was looking). 

Here’s my basic process: I pencil my drawing with a regular ol’ mechanical pencil, then I ink it with some Micron pens (I am not that particular with which inking pen I use, though I know some have their favourites… I use whatever I got).  After it’s inked, I colour everything by hand with the coloured pencils and markers, and then sometimes I will re-ink a few touches because the coloured pencil can dull the sharpness of the linework.

I think I am pretty consistent with my method now, though it took a while to learn how to draw (long time readers can remember how bad my first 200 drawings or so were), and especially how to colour.  I’ve messed up on almost every drawing.

After the drawing is all coloured and I am happy with it, I load it up onto my laptop, open up Picmonkey.com and then round the corners of the picture :-)  I know it’s not an essential part of them, but I like it. 

I think I am trying to make it like a childhood photo, or at least my childhood, and I think this old picture of me as a kid kinda influences it—

I liked the warm glow of it, and the rounded corners, and I guess I went for “that look” without even realizing.

After the corners are rounded, I then post the drawing and the story together (usually the story, or at least the idea for the story, comes before the drawing… but not always.  And often, however the drawing turned out influences what the story is).

And then I hope they do well! :’-o  Because I am not cool and I care if something does poorly.

Thank you for the question, and for making it about something that is handy to answer publicly :-)

MY APOLOGIES FOR THE SLOWDOWN OF DAILY DOODLES THIS PAST WEEK, I am working on something for my site’s 2 Year Anniversary, and plan to post it Monday! 

Kisses to you Admiral Anon!  I love you.

And I’ll thank you again on the official “2 Year Anniversary Post” post, but thank you everyone who reads these things and has helped support me creatively over the last 2 years as I tried to make these into something that I can do sumthin’ with.  It really means a lot to me, and creating this site is one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Love,
—David Michael Chandler

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Anonymous asked: what do you look like ?

Hello anon! 

I get asked this every once in a while by anons, and I tend to not answer it since it’d clutter up the site and I figure if someone REALLY wants to see my face they could find it pretty easily, but it couldn’t hurt to do it once— however, you could always just click my FAQ that I got at the bottom of every single post I do, if ya wanna see me.

But since I’m a nice boy, I’ll do the work for ya!  Here is me:

And here is a bonus picture of me and my nephew, Cooper:

I am a standard bald boy, a lil’ over 6’1”, and held together by steel and vengeance. ^__^

I hope I passed the test of what I should look like!

Love,
David Michael Chandler

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Anonymous asked: I totally thought you were a woman for no particular reason. I am mind blown. I now look at your art with a new perspective. Ugh I am so sexist. LOVE this page though!

Hahaha :-)  I take that as a compliment!

To me, I think the way I draw is kinda “boyish” for whatever reason. but I also know I am a grown boy so perhaps I am biased!  I don’t only do stories from a male perspective though, so maybe that’s why… I think men and women obviously both have the same concerns, problems, worries, etc, so I don’t find it hard to relate to that even if the story and drawing isn’t autobiographical (which they pretty much never are… I’m too shy to write about me).

I know it’s kinda the nature of this stuff that if I do a drawing and story about a sad girl, then people may assume I am a sad girl :-)  I don’t mind it at all!  If ya can’t tell my gender from the work I do, then hopefully it means it was successful at telling that character’s POV.

Or maybe it means something bad!  Whoooo knooooows not meeeeeeeee…

If anyone wants to see what I look like and read a lil’ bit about me, just click here to go to my FAQ!  There you can see my actual human boy face!  And learn some basics about me!  :-o

I hope you’re all doing well tonight, and thank you for the question Mister or Misses Anon!

Love,
David Michael Chandler

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gallerylefey asked: Interesting David. Can you tell us some more about the concepts you come up with, sources and so on and how you how you compose your brilliant verse.. does it go around in your head all day??

Hey there!  Thank you for the question, and your awesome compliments :-)

I can’t really say where I get the concepts and ideas from, or why I do the types of stories I do… besides that they just happen to come to me.  I tend to think that people are either creative or ya ain’t, and if you’re creative then you can work on better focusing your ability to think up new ideas.

If you wanna make up stories or draw stuff, you can’t wait for inspiration to hit.  You gotta sit down and do it, and figure out whatever methods that work for you that enable you to use your creativity.  Everyone is different in how they get themselves to work, but EVERY professional makes themselves sit down and DO it.  So, that’s all I do too.

I often meditate and let my brain bounce around if I ain’t sure what I wanna do, or if I feel stuck on an idea.  I also flip through my idea notebooks, where I now got over 1000 different story or image ideas, and see what catches my eye or inspires a new idea. 

I always make sure I write every idea down, because otherwise I will forget them.  And I don’t use an idea if I think it’s too similar to something I know of.

Not that everything I do has never been done before, of course.  I try to never reference anything directly and I don’t wanna use anyone else’s ideas, but I’m still standing on the shoulders of thousands of creative people who’ve come before me… my science fiction stories, ghost stuff, robots, whatever, all is building upon stuff more talented folk have made in the past.  But that’s true for anyone who creates things, really.

Sometimes I might do something that recalls a movie/book/TV show that I wasn’t aware of, but it’s never on purpose.  I think it’s more fun to just make up stories myself, though I don’t think there’s anything wrong if someone likes to reference popular thingies and whatnot for their own work.

Growing up, I loved stuff like Tintin, E.C. Segar’s Popeye, R. Crumb, Pogo, Little Nemo in Slumberland, Tony Millionaire, The Simpsons, and since I was friendless until halfway through college I was always renting as many movies as I could every weekend.  I’ve always been a fan of exploitation and B-movies, along with the regular classics everyone loves.

I hate silence so I always have music or something else on in the background, EXCEPT when I’m doing one of my crappy rhymey poems :-)  It’s just easier to think up the rhymes and get a basic rhythm down if I’m not listening to something.  And the way I create my verse is the same as anything else— I just sit down and think it up!

In my family, we often do silly stuff like sing to our pets and do dumb rhymes, so I think it’s become second nature for me to find rhymes and make silly “songs”.  I felt really guilty when I started doing my rhymey poems, because they’re so easy for me… I usually don’t trust stuff I do if it’s too easy.

Even though I say one must sit down and force yourself to create if you wanna be a creative person, inspiration CAN hit at random times, and for that reason I always have my notebook and a pen on me… ideas are bouncing around in my head all day, and ya never know when one you actually like will pop up.

I wrote too much once again, and I apologize, but thank you very much for this question!  And the photography on your site is great, everyone should check it out.

Take care!  And I’ll be posting a new Daily Doodle tonight, so everyone come back in 2 hours! :-o
—DMC

10/8/2012

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