#ragdollcartoons

[josiebelladonna]

I ran my cartoon of Dave in all his flyaway glory through the Andy Warhol editor I don’t know about you guys but I’m getting some serious Hanna-Barbera vibes off of these

[josiebelladonna]

“Hi, I’m Carl. Have you ever been painted?”

[josiebelladonna]

“What’s today, Thursday? I could never get the hang of Thursdays”

[josiebelladonna]

There’s always been this cold, vulnerable portion of my psyche that’s almost always afraid to come out, mainly because it’s a part that people usually deny exists--and by people I mean my own flesh and blood. It’s funny, I’ll say something like “there’s a monster instead me” and they’ll go “no, there isn’t”, like God forbid you or anyone else ever has to see another side to me. It’s a dark well of tormented rage that glares back at you with big dark eyes that seem to follow you wherever you go. It’s a twisted sense of violence that I think intimidates some people because you can sort of see it on my body and on my face. It seems so unlikely in a soft looking person such as myself, but it’s there. It’s there and it wants to harvest you alive and it doesn’t care who you are, either.

There is a monster inside of me and the world has forced me to keep it inside and that’s why I’m so angry all the time. You can’t ever truly imagine me angry because it’d be such a shock to you and you deny my right to feeling that way, telling me to “be happy! enjoy life! be confident!” when I really want to cut out your tongue for walking all over me with your cliche dogma. You tell me how to live and you say you’re a fan of me, but where are you when I actually present something? Where are you when I post something I actually feel proud of and then I check back to see no one liked it as much as I do? Do you really like what I have to offer? because I don’t think you do. I think you just say that to make me feel better about myself. I don’t see you reading my books or asking me about my artwork: the latter used to happen but I’m lucky to even have someone hit my ask box and tell me to fuck off anymore.

But you know what? I can’t keep myself out of this. I let you walk all over me. I let you eat me alive. I let you put words in my mouth. But then again, you have to remember I wasn’t that smart then. I’m still not that smart, but at least now I know when I crank out a piece of art or writing, it’s my way of telling you to shut the fuck up and pay attention for just a minute. I like to think of myself as someone who’s forever young, someone who tries to find the innocence in the darkest of affairs, and someone who doesn’t give a flying fuck whether she’s “adulting” or not.

I want everyone to know this: any kind of art--doesn’t matter what it is, either, illustrating, painting, writing, playing an instrument--is a personal affair, and when a cold, vulnerable person such as myself shows her passion to the world and tries to connect to you, to truly sincerely connect to you, through her imagery or her words, and you can’t even so much as lift a finger to say you hate it, don’t sit there and scratch your head wondering why she’s considering quitting the art world and why she’s considering killing you softly with what she has for you. The world I live in is pathetic, truly pathetic, and I’ll never understand why the hell it preaches that I have to prove myself to it. I’ll never understand why I’m not attractive enough as is and why I have to go out of my way to speak to people I’ll end up resenting anyways.

You all go ape shit for Godawful abstract art or realistic art that looks as though the person who made it took a piece of tracing paper and winged it from there, but when someone authentic and different comes about, you are dead silent. It’s like you’re afraid of the darkness and the primal feminine nature that resides within me. I’m in no way saying I’m better than those people--far from it; like what I said earlier, everyone’s better at art than I am, so I’m not saying that at all--but rather I want to know why this is so hard for people to understand.

“Mori” is Latin meaning “to die”, hence Morissa and the incredibly lame pun about not being able to stare at her in the face

[josiebelladonna]

My cartoons are so soft and so round but dammit, they fit Soundgarden so well

[josiebelladonna]

Ah, stippling, we meet again; thou art a monotonous bastard.

You sure know how to make glitter look like... well, glitter.

You’re giving me a million reasons..

Lady Gaga in pen and ink and markers

[josiebelladonna]

30 Day Rag Doll cartoon Challenge - Day 2: B&W

My beloved archer 🏹

[josiebelladonna]

30 Day Rag Doll Cartoon Challenge

By the way... 

Rag Doll Cartoons - a collective of cartoons created in December 2006 by American illustrator H.C., or nirvhannah. They parody real life people and also spawn original characters. The name itself originates from the Aerosmith song “Rag Doll”, and the Circus part from nirvhannah's loony, twisted sketch comedy-meets-dark comedy sense of humor. The cartoons are known for their round, full moon like faces that are 99.9% of the time turned to the side (which, a handful of people say is a stab at Disney), displeased facial expressions majority of the time, manga style hair, and paper like bodies that give the impression of softness. They're seen either in big bold jewel tones, soft mellow colors, or monochrome, and are said to be “still waters run deep” yet adventurous illustrations based off nirvhannah herself (even her parodies)

Yeah, I’m cheating because I made my first ones in late 2006, but I didn’t get them going until early 2007, so this year *technically* marks 10 Years of the Rag Doll Cartoons (I even came up with my own hashtag! #ragdollcircus10).

Every day for the next 30 days, you will see a new cartoon doing whatever it is that is written here (so either follow me on here, on Instagram, or on Twitter). I studied some 30 Day Art and Character Challenges, and melded together the ones I thought I could potentially do (not all of them are entirely easy: some of them can and will take me out of my comfort zone, but that's just the beauty of it).

Day 01 – Self portrait Day 02 – B&W Day 03 – All colors of the rainbow Day 04 – “Freaky Friday” switch Day 05 – Melancholy Day 06 – Angst Day 07 – Apprehension Day 08 – Hope Day 09 – Amorousness Day 10 – Psychedelic based Day 11 – Alone time Day 12 – Slumber Day 13 – Parodies Day 14 – Genre breaking Day 15 – Silhouettes Day 16 – Favorite medium Day 17 – Mixed media Day 18 – Watercolor only Day 19 – Graphite only Day 20 – Based on a dream Day 21 – (Pluto in Aquarius) Ivan and Zelda's house, inside and out Day 22 – (Pluto in Aquarius) the Allison house, inside and out Day 23 – (Pluto in Aquarius) Angelica's house, inside and out Day 24 – Something ghostly Day 25 – Something lively Day 26 – Something mostly… red Day 27 – A color I don't use often Day 28 – A figment of my past Day 29 – Mirrored Day 30 – Anything goes