The Joy of Small

David Milburn

Every now and then, something comes along that grabs your attention. You don’t fully understand why, some people look upon as being strange, or even below your age group. However, you happily ignore any objections, or feelings of doubt, because it brings a huge smile to your face and makes you feel that rarity of things. Joy.

Weenicons do exactly that, bring me joy. I think it’s more because these small caricatures bring nostalgia flooding to the front of my emotions. They bring some classic characters from the days of my youth back into the frame. Characters like the Ghostbusters, The Beatles, Only Fools and Horses, the A Team and so on. Characters I have spent much time watching, listening to and even playing with (I was crazy on the Ghostbusters when I was a kid). But of course, they didn’t stop there, modern characters that have taken their place in pop culture, characters that are easily recognised and ones that are just dam cool. This website is a homage to these characters, and I am so pleased that my own versions of the Weenicons, has found a place.

I started off making my own, because even though there was already a wealth of characters that have been immortalised in Weenicon forms, some of my own personal favourites are yet to find their way. Mainly, Batman. I love this character, so much so I would say it overshadows everything else that I like. There is nothing I don’t enjoy about Batman, the only creation where I love every aspect including the rogues gallery that make up his adversaries. And that was the reason I delved into making my own Weenicons. I wanted to see the Batman alongside the others. There was however, a downside to creating my own Weenicon Batman. That downside? I couldn’t stop! I needed to do more, which you can see on this website and on  http://demilburn.deviantart.com. It was a joy to do this. A joy to see characters I love, like Indiana Jones, Superman, Shaun from Shaun of the dead, Arnold J Rimmer from Red Dwarf take Weenicon form. The way I created theses Weenicons was simple. I simply traced the main outlines, the most common outlines found on the Weenicon designs, and created a template. I did this in Adobe Photoshop 7. The Template is below, and will be available to download on this site.

Weenicon_Template_by_DeMilburn.jpg Weenicon_Template_by_DeMilburn.jpg
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 Then it’s just a matter of unleashing your imagination. Design your Weenicon on paper first, find out what ‘extras’ you may need, example of which the S on Superman’s costume, the Carlsberg logo on the Liverpool FC shirt. All of which you can download of the internet (please be cautious of copyright infringement). Then it’s just a matter of drawing the details, the collars, hair, and costume details. When it came to the hair, all I did was delete the main curve of the head (erase if using a paint programme like Photoshop) and redraw the new shape. Again, you can trace hair from original Weenicons, like I did for some of my own creations. Then comes the fun part, colouring in your design. One of the joys of creating your own Weenicon, is trying your very best to get the colours and costume design as close to the real thing as possible. That is why I’m particularly proud of my Batman, Liverpool FC, Joker, Two Face and the Doctor designs, as I feel I nailed the costumes. The main thing about creating your own Weenicons is to have fun with it. I never expect my designs to go all the way to Weenicon head office and become ones that you can buy, but I had fun creating them and take great pleasure in fellow Weenicon fans enjoy them as well. I will no doubt be trying to create some more in the future (I have been requested to make some Chelsea FC ones) and when I do, this website will be the first to unveil them. I guess that’s about it really. I hope this small article is enough to offer some inspiration, and I look forward to seeing your own creations. If you need to get in touch with me to ask any questions, then please drop me a note at my DeviantArt page (http://demilburn.deviantart.com) or visit my blog at http://demilburn.wordpress.com where I will be posting this article and you can leave a comment.

Dave

Click the picture below for bigger version to use as a Computer Wallpaper! 

 The Flash

Na,Na!! Batman  

Luke Skywalker

He Shoots he Scores 

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