June Birthday Project: Barney - (6 / 25 / 22)

 

OH NO! I POSTED CRINGE! 😩 I'M GONNA LOOSE SUBSCRIBLER!!! 😱

 

Whatever. 😂

In 2022, I started a project-challenge-thing on Instagram where I draw six pieces to tie-in with the character-related anniversaries and birthdays going on in June. I never participate in any monthly challenges, and I wanted to encourage myself to use my traditional art supplies, so I thought it would be a fun thing to do for my birth month. :3

 And, yeah, I drew Barney the Dinosaur for June 25th! 🥳🎂🦖💜🥪🥜🍇✨🎶🏝

I have good memories of Barney during the younger portion of my childhood. One of the highlights of my earliest Christmases involved being surprised with a talking Barney plush. (Ooo, there's a story to talk about at some point. 👀) And I remember having a mini-marathon with some VHS tapes from my preschool teacher. (oo another story 👀) He might even be the reason why I like purple, green and blue so much. 😆 (Or at least part of the reason. He was such a huge freaking deal at the time, there has to be some influence there.)

When I became an older kid, I was under the impression that I had to suddenly hate Barney and anything else deemed as baby-ish since that’s what other kids around my age were doing. I tried to join in on the jabbing and sneering, but it was very short-lived; I couldn’t get the animosity to be real. I remember reaching a point where I was basically like “Why am I doing this? I don’t hate any of these things I grew up with. Despising this stuff doesn’t make me mature, that’s based on how I handle situations. I don’t have to see these characters in a bad light. They’re harmless.”

Even though I had made that realization, I was still very pretty resistant when it came to associating myself with him. When I first started rediscovering a bunch of childhood shows, I had gravitated towards a bunch of Sesame-Muppet related content instead. (It was more acceptable in comparison) The urge to give Barney and Friends a similar deep dive had been coming up on the side for years, every time I came close, I would redirect myself:

"Oh hey! Chuck E. Cheese connections! ANYWAYS–"

"Oh hey! A podcast! ANYWAYS–"

"Oh hey! A YouTube channel dedicated to all sorts of Barney media! 

Wait a minute, I'm not watching this. BACK–"

But then, one day in 2021, I was looking through the explore tab on Instagram and randomly saw a post where someone had created an extremely accurate replica of the show doll. I was like "Wait, people do stuff like this?! That's…really cool! I want to see more!" 👀 

Somewhere in the midst of that, maybe even earlier, I spotted the virtual Galaxy Con panel featuring the original dino voice actors. Thought it was really intriguing that something like this would be held and intended to watch it at some point. I finally watched it as I was working on my “Pilots of a Feather” Delpad drawing. It was really fun! I enjoyed hearing their stories and watching their friendship dynamic. x) It gave me more of an understanding and appreciation of what they, and the rest of their team, did. The video also became a major distraction, lol. 

It later encouraged me to check out some older clips of the show. I just wanted to see clips because I thought I wouldn't be able to sit through an entire episode…until I clicked on the "Pistachio" one. Now I've seen just about all of Seasons 10-13 LMAYO 😂

Before I allowed myself to rediscover Barney and Friends, I was stuck in a steady stream of frustration. It was nice to have something to break that emotion up. It was really nice to reminisce about the time period the show took place in and figure out which episodes I remembered. And catch up with things I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. It’s such a cute show. 🥺 I think my awwing license expired. 😆 Could be previous-target-audience bias or I have high tolerance, but…the show’s really not as bad as most make it out to be. I can understand why someone would dislike it, but some of y’all act like Barney poisoned your water supply, burned your crops and delivered a plague onto your houses. 😭 

Blah, blah, blah, so why did I choose June 25th? Well, it turns out that not one but two of Barney's voice actors share the same birthday on two separate years! And they were both voicing CEC characters around the same time! I thought that was a fascinating coincidence. And being someone who also came into existence in June myself, I felt very compelled to do something with this info. 😂 (...and because I missed every other date where I planned on posting a Barney drawing oop–)

Alternate versions:

  

I was hesitant to add text since that would break the pattern of the other pieces. I also couldn't get it to look right; I’m still not all that satisfied with it. 🤷🏾‍♀️ The first set of lyrics belong to the song “That’s What An Island Is” from the Barney special, “Imagination Island”.  The background in my piece is heavily based on a promo ad I came across for the home release. The second set of lyrics are from a CEC song called “Don’t Hurry to Worry” It was included in the April 1997 Anniversary showtape. I…never realized just how similar both songs sound to each other until I started working on this. :O

I wanted to draw Barney in this goofy / busy Hawaiiam shirt he’s been featured in some stock photos, but I couldn’t get the look I wanted with the brushes. Guess I’ll have to recreate the pattern some other time. Uh…thanks for reading all of that. 😂 I’m going to go to sleep now.

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Tools Used:

Lineart - Le Plume II & Faber Castell brush pens

Flats - Prismacolor pencils

Shading - Digital, Clip Studio Paint (Didn't want to risk it, lol)

Background - Digital, Clip Studio Paint

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