Monty Python Holy Grail with Mice...again

This week's post is in honor of the 40th anniversary of Monty Python & The Holy Grail. I was asked to do a commission back in July for Boston Comic Con of a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but with mice. I'd done a Mouse-parody of that film before (with all the knights fleeing the killer bunny), but since then I've changed my commission policies to not do "mice-as" pieces. However, I bent my rule, because A) The final image does look like something out of the pages of Mouse Guard and B) I love Monty Python and that movie and couldn't turn down the chance to revisit the characters...as mice.

The scene: Arthur knights Bedevere and invites him to join him at Camelot as a Knight of the Round Table. This is just after Bedevere conducts a medieval-logic-chain on how to prove someone is a witch (the result being they must weight the same as a duck).  I started with the components on copy paper: Arthur and Bedevere (paying careful attention to the costume details from the movie), the woman who was dressed as a witch, a duck (I figured the duck bit would still be funny since this time the duck is obviously much heavier than the mouse) and the Terry Gilliam draped Medieval scales).

With those components scanned in and assembled into a 7" x 7" composition (with the duck's head breaking the border) I printed out the assembled composition and taped it to the back of a sheet of 12" x 12" Strathmore Bristol and inked it on a portable LED Light Pad at a friend's house with Copic Multiliners (the 0.7 and 0.3 nibs mainly). These inks were the final commission piece delivered at Boston Comic Con for the customer. But I got a good scan of it before I handed it off.

And then, partly for fun, and partly because I think this piece will find it's way in to the 2016 Sketchbook, I colored it in Photoshop. I colored it live for an audience on both Periscope and Ustream. Sorry if you missed it, I didn't record it. But follow me on Twitter for updates of when/if I do more live art brodcasts online.

2015 Appearances:

Art-Bubble Comics Festival: Copenhagen: Nov. 14-15
2016 dates coming soon.