Mr. Frothy
Frenchy
(click any picture for a larger version)
DustinCropsBoy (or DCB for short) is my little cartoon grasshopper mascot and, in a way, my alter ego. I came up with the idea for him somewhere in the early 2000s as a counterpart to my friend Dave's mascot "Mr. Frothy" (Frothy is a mug of froth - no beverage, just froth). Back then Dave and I were getting the screen printing business (and various other enterprising ideas) started. We called it Frothco after Mr. Frothy. I wanted my own mascot for the business to represent me, as Frothy had represented Dave. I toyed with the idea of all sorts of inanimate objects and various animals until I came up with the idea of a grasshopper. I'm not exactly sure why I thought of a grasshopper, but I did.
The next problem was what DCB would wear. Around this time both Dave and I were following the band Rasputina around. The costumes they wore on stage were Victorian inspired. I decided to look up adolescent boy clothing from this time period and from that search I came up with this picture of the little French boy you see in the top right corner. I thought the sailor outfit was perfect and I really loved the hoop & stick he had as well. I decided this was the look I wanted. Since my drawing skills were even worse than they are now I had Dave draw up the first DCB. And here he is:
So now that I had my own mascot, I needed to name him. That was the tricky part! For years I used the name DustinCropsBoy as my online handle for various forums. The name came to me one day while watching Star Wars for the billionth time. Any true Star Wars geek will recognize it as Han Solo's response when Luke questions why he doesn't outrun the gunners on their tail. Han's retort: "Travelin' through hyperspace ain't like dustin' crops, boy!". I was looking for a Star Warsie type name for one of the geek forums I frequented and that just struck me as a funny name to use. It's dorky, but in a subtle way. So anyway, I liked the name and in the end thought it would be a good epithet for my new character. I also found it kinda ironic that he'd be a crop dusting boy - as crop dusting is often used to rid the crops of destructive grasshoppers.
Over the next couple years DCB went through a few minor design changes as he made appearances all over promotion material we created for the business:
As the business changed names from Frothco to Monkey in a Dryer and the site changed it's look to the "1930s Sears catalog" style that it has now, Frothy was out and DCB made fewer and fewer appearances on the business's promotional materials. Dave was no longer involved in the business and went on to do his own thing, therefore it didn't feel right for me to be asking him to continue to draw DCB. I needed to learn to draw DCB on my own!
In November '05 I decided to give a new purpose for DCB by creating a comic strip for him. I named the strip Lemon Firecrackers. The reason behind the name was I thought the term 'firecracker' seemed like it could have been a 1930s slang term for a quick & witty joke (kind of like the term 'crackerjack' was slang for 'a really great thing'). I'm not at all certain if 'firecracker' ever was a slang term for a joke - but it sure seemed like it could have been. Since the jokes in my strips were dreadful - I added the "Lemon" part to indicate that the firecracker was a dud - like a defective car is often refered to as a lemon. Turns out there is actually a cookie recipe called "lemon firecrackers"... who knew?
My 1st attempt at drawing DCB by computer tablet
Anyway - I had a million (awful) ideas for strips, but the time it took me to scrawl even the crude drawings I did and the actual work I had to do for the business, I found very little time to keep the strip updated with any regularity. I still manage to get a few out a year (in the winter months when I'm not as busy). My drawings of DCB had improved ever so slightly - but I still prefered Dave's version considerably more than mine.
Costume made by my friend Holly
Being a collector and admirer of toys, I had tried a few endeavors at capturing DCB in 3D. The first attempt was with an "urban vinyl" version of him. I had found a company in Hong Kong that would prototype and produce vinyl figures at a reasonable price. I sent them the sketches of what I wanted and gave them a half down payment. A few email correspondences back n' forth and the next thing I knew I had an actual figural version of DCB in my hands. I gave them my final down payment and everything was all ready to go. Then they hit me with the bad news... the antennas and arms that THEY sculpted were going to be too thin to reproduce in vinyl! I couldn't believe it. How did they not realize this while they were sculpting him? They sent me my money back (minus the prototype fee) and that was it. Now all I have to show for my time (and theirs) is a very expensive resin figure that is slowly disintegrating on the dashboard of my car.
My second attempt at a 3 dimensional DCB was a stuffed cloth doll. This time I was in more control of the project - as I made him completely by myself. He was made up of 20 individual cloth parts that I screen printed, cut out and assembled by hand. It was a grueling task and I ended up making only 5 of him, but that's still 100 pieces (!). I was pretty happy with the results, but if I had to do it all over again - there would be a few tweaks I'd do to the design.
I also created a few papertoy versions of DCB. The first was on a Cubeecraft template, the second on a Foldskool Hero and the 3rd on my own template creation I call Pally Pal. You can get a download of the PallyPal one in my papertoys section.
Recently, with encouragment from my good friend S.britt and an assortment of pictures of various cartoons of the 1930s, I sat down at my computer and forced myself to finally create a drawing of DCB on my own that didn't appall me. Here was the result:
Cover of my upcoming coloring book
A few minor tweaks along the way and I finally ended up liking the way he looked... even more than the Frothy versions!
So what's next for DCB? Well, I have a few more toy and promotional ideas that I'm always thinking about in the back of my head. I also started a coloring/activity book I'd like to finish up someday. And, of course, I have that terrible comic strip that I'll hopefully have time this winter to add to. That's all. Thanks for reading.
Yer pal for life ~dcb
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