The Daily Doodles

“Life at Lightspeed”

It’s been almost 5 years since he left, and Josh Miller happily realizes everyone he ever knew is most likely dead… He can finally return home.

Having grown tired of his pathetic friends and family back on Earth, Josh decided to take advantage of the dilation of time created by traveling at (close to) the speed of light, enabling him to easily outlive anyone he had ever met. 

For each year he experienced traveling on his ship, 22 years will have occurred for everyone living on Earth, so over a century has now passed for everyone else but him… and he’ll land back on Earth still a young man, unencumbered with any ties to the past, eager to start anew.

Once he gets home he’ll have a quick crash course to get up to speed on what happened in the past century, maybe make a snack, and then get right to work creating a new circle of family and friends that hopefully won’t be as disappointing as the last group he was saddled with.

And if they’re annoying too, it’s not a huge deal… he’ll just blast off for another 5 years and try again.

(Starring Josh Miller of computer-gaze.tumblr.com!)

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“Waiting for the Train”

Train after train passes by, each more empty than the last and none going where he needs to go, so Kyle sighs dramatically to see if he can make a loud enough noise to echo in the desolate subway station (he can’t).

He refuses to check his phone to see when his train is even scheduled to arrive, since that would show he cares, and Kyle feels the need to passive-aggressively take a stand to no one in particular to prove how much he simply doesn’t care.

Plus it’s more fun to sigh and moan over the train’s assumed lateness, acting as if it’s a huge annoyance, even though he keeps telling himself he doesn’t even wanna go.  Being upset over it at least passes the time while he waits.

Having laid in bed for days, too depressed to move, Kyle somehow dragged himself out of his apartment to go meet up with some of his friends like he had promised over a week ago.  He finds it hard to imagine that people do thisevery day, and that they even look forward to hanging out with people… it’s all such a hassle.

It was exhausting to even get this far with it…!  

His train finally arrives, but Kyle decides he’ll just text his friends a happy lie so he can go back home and be alone.

(Thank you to the Sensational Samantha of other-side-of-the-universe.com for helping me gif this once again!!)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

IT IS THE AMAZING FATMA’S BIRTHDAY!  

Here is a drawing and story I made for Fatma last year.  She’s one of my bestest friends and an amazing artist, and if you don’t follow her main site or her BRILLIANT sketchbooking site, you are a FOOL and should be THROWN OFF THE EARTH.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FATMA!

“To Dream to Be Alone”

Fatma leans over her birthday cake (a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chosen because it is Fatma’s mother’s favourite cake instead of Fatma’s preferred carrot cake), as her 7 siblings impatiently squawk for Fatma to blow out the candles so they can wolf down the dessert.

Her mind wanders as she ponders what to wish for, and the loud bustling of her family slowly fades away as an empty calmness creeps in…

What would it be like to be alone
No one bothering me on the phone
I’d make cheese sammiches 3 times a day
Then sit and eat carrots while I draw away
Finally living life being second to none
I wouldn’t have to care about anyone
No more worries, no more stress
No longer having to clean up another’s mess
I wish I could be, with no friends or family
Just exist by myself as I drink cups of tea…

A loud shriek pierces Fatma’s reverie as her younger brothers start slapping each other, snapping Fatma back to reality.

Fatma blows out her candle, and gets back to the birthday party her family wanted.

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

phoebeswonderland asked: Do you note down gradual ideas for your daily doodles or is each created spontaneously? :)

Heeeeeeeeeeeey Phoebe!

I have what I call my “idea pads”, and they’re just regular ol’ notepads that I write down every idea in… whether it’s an idea for an image (perhaps with no context, just a visual at that point), a line in a poem, a story idea, a line of dialogue, a single WORD, it doesn’t matter… anything can turn into a finished thingy really!

I even keep an idea pad with me when I sleep, because ideas will randomly pop in my head, and I will absolutely, guaranteedly, definitely forget it if I don’t write it down.  The ideas come and go quickly.

When I sit down to work, I’ll open up my Idea Pad(s) and then see what ideas sound the best to me that day.  I also often meditate, to let my brain float around and see what ideas it trips over (I don’t always do that, but it’s a good solution for if I feel stuck).

Here’s what my collection of Idea Pads looks like—

The pad in the upper right is my first Idea Pad, and it lost it’s green cover long ago.  Most of the ideas in that one are bad, and I tend to not look in it much.

In the lower right is a sketch pad, where I sometimes do a test sketch of a drawing.  You can see some lil’ monsters on the page I’m showing, and I’ll likely make them into a dancing GIF sometime.

The red Idea Pad is my second one, and I still look into it pretty often.  It’s falling apart though, and I got pages held together with paperclips.

On the left, the yellow Idea Pad, is my current one that I am filling up.  I like to have each Idea Pad be a different colour, if I can.  Here is a random page, to show you what an Idea Pad looks like on the inside—

I usually do ‘test sketches’ on the left, and ideas on the right, though I doodle all over every page with silly faces or whatever.  You can see the origin of a few ideas I actually used on this page, such as The Sea of Dead Children and 7 Days a Week.  Most of the ideas I write down I won’t actually use, BUT they often lead to ideas I will use someday, so it’s okay.

The pink Idea Pad on the top is reserved for a not-so-super-duper-secret project: my first illustrated book, “The Last Girl on Earth”!  I’ve been focusing a lot on that lately, and hope to finish within a few months.  If I do a Kickstarter like I plan to do, I’d likely include a reprint of the entire Idea Pad for the book as one of the gifts to give to people who donate.

(“The Last Girl on Earth”, is set in the near post-apocalyptic future, and is about a 9 year old girl who LOVES the post-apocalypse, loves killing mutants and scavenging for air and supplies, and thinks anyone who makes a big deal out of it is a whiny baby.  There’s more to it than that, but that’s the gist of it.  There’ll be more posts about it as I continue on the project!  It’ll basically be a “Daily Doodles”-ish story, stretched out for 20-sumthin’ pages.  Fully illustrated, etc etc… I hope everyone ends up enjoying it!)

SO YEAH!  To answer your question, Phoebe, I jot each idea down and use them for my Daily Doodles, though if I get a spontaneous idea that I like better, I go with whatever I think is best :-)

Have a good weekend everyone!

—David Michael Chandler

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“A Different Life”

The whirring of the ceiling fan blends into a silent soothing hum, as Kyle feels himself get lost in the hypnotic blades circling endlessly above.

The cool gentle air brushes his arms and face, but it doesn’t feel real… as if he’s not meant to be here, right now, in this life.  An empty sensation creeps over him, one he has felt in the quiet moments of night, and he senses what could only be his soul hovering above his shell of a body.

Could he have had a different life?  One without a job, three kids, and an understanding wife?  To think of his life now, it doesn’t feel like his own… like he’s just a passenger on a train following tracks laid down long before he got here.  He can’t even quite articulate completely what is tingling in the back of his brain, but it’s there.

He can see himself on an airplane, flying somewhere, anywhere, alone… but that doesn’t quite feel real either.  It’s just another “this”.

And maybe that version of him on that airplane feels the same.  Nothing changes. 

Reality sucks back into his consciousness, as he hears his wife and kids playing in the hallway, their existence reminding him that he forgot to go to the grocery store for eggs and cereal.

(Gif’d by the Spectacular Fatma of fatmalovestodraw.tumblr.com!)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

“The Long Journey Across the Galaxy”

After hearing the hiss and click of the last hibernation tank as it pressurizes and seals in his shipmates, Harrison Daniels quietly lifts his lid and makes sure everyone is frozen in their pod…

In 31 years when they finally reach the asteroid belt they’ll wake up, but for now the coast is clear.  He has the room to himself.

As there’s no oxygen being pumped into this part of the ship (since everyone is meant to be in their tank, frozen for the journey), Harrison quickly grabs a spare oxygen mask and climbs up onto the round windowsill overlooking the galaxy.

He’s not sure why he snuck out of his tank, but as he watches the distant field of stars stream by as the mining ship rockets along at lightspeed, he’s glad he did.

His mind struggles to comprehend the enormous scope of the galaxy stretched out before him, and while he feels a deep connection to it all, it also leaves him feeling totally insignificant.  His problems, his worries… they couldn’t matter.

Thinking back, Harrison realizes he’s never actually been alone his entire life.  Family, spouses, friends… and in 31 years when they reach the belt, he’ll never have a moment to himself.  All he has is this, right now.

He tells himself that he has to do this again, somehow… for longer than just a few hours.  It’s nice.

But, he has responsibilities still, and everyone will notice if they arrive at the asteroid belt and he’s the only one who has aged the 31 years (not to mention, he has no food— the hibernation tank is meant to nourish him as as they travel).

Taking one last long look out the window, Harrison gets back into his tank, and goes to sleep.

(A very special thanks to Kyle Harter for giffing this for me!)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via elgarabatodeldia)

“The Orbit of the Burial Moon”

It’s been 3 years since The Boy Who Was Born in Space buried his parents on that tiny moon, and for the third time in those 3 years, the Boy has found himself somehow crossing paths with the moon yet again… even though the Boy, his Robot, and their ship should be hundreds of parsecs away.

While at first the Boy assumed that he was subconsciously going in circles because some part of him wasn’t yet ready to leave his parents behind (the spaceship’s onboard educational videos he’s been watching have led him to believe this was a possibility), his Droid quickly calculated that the moon was actually a tiny orphan planet; a rogue planetary mass that wandered the galaxy with no set orbit, and its path through space had happened to correspond with their own.

However, now the burial moon has entered an actual orbit as the tiny spheroid gets pulled between the gravity of a distant gas giant and a nearby red terrestrial planet, causing the moon to complete a dizzying full orbit every 31 seconds.  

His parent’s final resting place had finally found a home.

The Boy knew that one might indulge themselves in believing there was some sort of poetic significance in discovering that his parents’ burial moon was an orphan (just like the Boy himself is), but his more logical side knew that the universe is simply a series of events without meaning, and this was just one of them.  

The parallels between him and the burial moon are a mildly interesting curiosity, but crafting some sort of life narrative out of random chance… it’s folly. 

The Boy finds himself wishing that it WAS his subconscious bringing him back to the Burial Moon over and over, because then at least it’d show he’s feeling something for them… like a normal boy.  It’d be nice to know he missed them, on some level, and that perhaps his parents’ burial moon finding a home could be a good omen for himself.

But, he knows that the galaxy doesn’t exist just to give one Boy’s life “meaning”.  The universe doesn’t work that way.   

The Boy Who Was Born in Space joins his Droid back on their ship, and never returns to the burial moon ever again.

Posted 5/16/2013

(Thank you once again to the talented Samantha from Other-side-of-the-universe.com for helping me GIF this!)

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“The Blank Tape”

Simón Martínez presses his nose against the TV’s monitor, his hot breath fogging the glass, as he tries to position his face as close to the television screen as humanly possible.  

He remembers doing this during his bored moments as a child, thinking he may find something secret being broadcast that he’d miss if he was watching from the couch like a regular person.  

The static fills the screen with its never-ending frenetic dance, never stopping to stay still even for a moment.  Simón focuses on just one black or white dot, trying to track its trail as it hops wildly across the screen, but each time he loses the poor thing as the rest of the static overwhelms it.

Having found this blank VHS tape in an ancient box that he forgot he ever had, Simón hoped there was some sort of lost treasure from his childhood recorded on the cassette… but nope.  Just static.  He guesses he was saving it to record something special, something special that never came.

But still, for whatever reason, he actually likes it this way.  The static is somehow soothing, filling his field of vision with the endless movement while the white noise quietly hisses on and on.

The magnetic tape inside the cassette *snaps*, and Simón hears the gears of the VCR grind to a halt as it struggles to eject the broken VHS.  The picture goes black.

Simón unwinds the magnetic tape from around the VCR’s reels, the strip crinkling in his hands, and throws the useless blank tape away.

Posted 5/10/2013

(Thank you to the extremely talented Samantha of other-side-of-the-universe.com for helping me gif this!)

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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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