And NOW for something completely different.....

These are just a couple spot illos of preteen kids "being active". Rob had done some preliminary poses, and I created the final sketches and inks. It was a fun job because it felt like I was designing characters for fun in my sketchbook- but for a client. Weird. Anyway, here's the lack of process that went into it: Colerase blue sketch and Pitt brush pen inks. Done.

More posts coming for our secret project as well as another BIG announcement or two! Oh, and art to go along with it. Stay tooned! (Corney, I know....)

Chris Sanders-ish

I just got the Chris Sanders Sketchbook that he was selling at the San Diego Comic con. It's nice to have sitting around for a week or so as I'm snowed under with work. I pick it up from time to time and get a inspired. The other day, I did what I wish I did more often, I did a little 'warm up' sketch. A lot of these great comic artists seem to have time for 'warm up' sketches before they start their busy day. I do that and I feel guilty somehow. I guess that's the difference between being the business owner and working for a big company with deep pockets. :) Anyway, Chris is very talented and an interesting person. In my opinion, he's a genius when it comes to story. I'm not always sure they are stories that the average person will want, but they are always well crafted and slightly skewed. I don't mean that in a a mean way, it's just his viewpoint is different from most because of what he likes and doesn't like. 'Course, that's all of us isn't it?

I enjoy analyzing peoples styles and drawing techniques. That's what this sheet is. Just fun.

Testing, testing...

I've been trying to upload some new stuff and Blogger keeps shutting off or just plain not uploading the images. It may just be these perticular images are corrupt or something. This blog is just a test using some image I've posted in the past that I know worked. If this goes up, then I know it's just these images and not a Blogger issue. Sorry, I'm just testing here...

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Shhhhhh!

We at Funnypages Productions have been working on a few projects that we can't talk about for quite awhile now. A few of them are starting to get to a point where we can start "mentioning" them. Probably the biggest one, an anime influenced (note, I did NOT say it was anime) animation series for worldwide distribution, is not quite ready to name, but we have permission to show some images. For this project, Rob and I are co- directing and co-art directing. We have a team of people all over the country contributing to various pieces of the project from Character designs, storyboarding, layouts, and backgrounds. Again, I am not allowed to say what it is just yet, but I'd love to hear what you all think of the characters and backgrounds. I know this isn't much, but maybe I'll post some more soon.

BTW, I'd love to say Rob or I painted those backgrounds, but we didn't. And no, Miah and Heath, they weren't created in Illustrator! Old school or no school!

Mamaw and Bigfoot pages 3

Last one for a bit on this project. I liked how the inks on this page came out. As with before, the first image is the (very) rough pass and then I used that as the basis for the final. I repenciled it in blue on the final board, then inked it. My process is based on drawing a page as few times as possible. I find it keeps me less bored with the progression of the work and it helps me actually get it done. :)

Mamaw and Bigfoot pages 2

Well, this may be all from Mamaw and Bigfoot for a bit. My wife and kids were out of town for a week recently and that is how I was able to get these pages done. They are back now and that means my "free time" goes back to them and sleeping. I will get this story done, but it's gonna slow down a bit that's all. Anyway, this is the roughs and final inks for pages 2 of the story I'm working on for the future PARABLE anthology. I saw Mike Kunkel (Herobear) recently and he said he had been asked to work on this project also. I didn't hear alot of "I'm gonna do it!" in his voice so go to his blog now and bug him to do it, okay? I know I'd like to see what he comes up with! Come on Mike, just two pages or so! Back to Mamaw, someone in the last post asked if I inked these pages or did them in Illustrator. The answer is inked. I used a PITT brush pen for most all of it. I love brush inking, I just wish I was better at it. Guys like Steven Silver and Bruce Timm are just incredible with these great disposable brush pens! They make them look like they were using Windsor Newtons. One day, one day....

Mamaw and Bigfoot page1

Here's a semi-progression of one of the pages from the Mamaw and Bigfoot story I'm picking at. This is the rough and the final inks for page 1. More to come!

BIGFOOT sketches

These are a few designs for the Bigfoot character in the 8 page comic I'm working on for the PARABLE anthology I mentioned in my last post. The story is called "Mamaw and Bigfoot" and it's a short story told in rhyme about a little Southern boy that walks to his Mamaw's house to see her and an unexpected visitor knocks at the door. The title kinda tells you who it is, but there's a nice point to the story about how the Grandma excepts this strange visitor that the boy just sees as scary and different. So, above are some designs for Bigfoot that I did with the last one having a strong influence by Rob. The Mamaw design and boy design are Rob's in kinda a simple "children's book" style. I really liked that, so that's what I was trying for in the Bigfoots I did. I ended up grabbing elements from some of the rough ones (noses, feet, hunch backs) and coming up with a goofy looking version that I thought was close enough to jump onto the final boards with. That's all for now, I'll show a couple pages in development soon.

PARABLE! a comic anthology

I've been asked to contribute to a comic anthology called "Parable". It's going to be a Christian world view comic so it may not be for everyone, but it's one that I'm looking forward to seeing completed. They are trying to go for a "FLIGHT" feel and the linup of creators is quite interesting. Very indy feeling (except me), but in a good way! (You know what I mean by that, you know you do...they can draw!) Check out the bios of some of the folks involved and go to their websites: http://www.parablecomic.com/creator-bios/.

I'm trying to squeeze in time to do a 8 page story for it. I'm excited about it because my pally Rob Corley wrote the story and I'm illustrating it. We've never done that before since we are both artists and when I've done comics in the past, they were stories I wrote. It's a story that has a lot of fun to it and has a good message too. I'm hoping to post some of the development of the pages as I do them, but not enough to give away the story too much. (I want you all to buy this thing when it comes out!) More soon.

Thundercats!

This is another unusual oldy. Through the San Diego comic con, I became friends with Alex Sinclair, the extremely talented colorist at DC that works with Jim Lee on most of his work there. He is a great family man and we got along great. He's also a big Disney and animation fan. Because of that, he really had/has a dream of doing "all-ages" comics that have a more animated style. He said he'd love to work with me on a comics project someday. That day came when he was promoted to editor at Wildstorm/DC. One of the books he was put in charge of was Thundercats. I was never a Thundercats fan actually, but it sounded like fun. He had a short back up story he wanted me to do and asked if I'd do some samples of "my version" of some Thundercats characters. That's what the sheet above is. Some yucky stuff going on here and there, but I thought some of you all might like it. In the end, the story that came my way was a back up about an obscure villain and what her origin is. I really had some problems with the story content and they were nice enough to tone it down some. Even still, it really wasn't my cup of tea. The fun characters above weren't even in the story, dang.

THE ACT

Something kinda cool to check out is the new trailer for "The Act". It's actually a video game by a company called Cercropia, Inc. Our company, Funnypages Productions, animated on this awhile back and they are starting to wrap up the project this summer. I don't know how it is going to go over, but it IS interesting. There's really nothing out there like it. It's a "film game" meaning that it should feel like you are playing-and controlling- a Disney style animated film. It is 100% traditional, hand drawn animation created with alot of the same animators and artists that animated LILO AND STITCH, MULAN, ETC. (Cecropia ended up hiring a bunch of the Disney artists that were layed off when they closed down the Florida studio.) All there is is a "PONG" style knob controller and you move it slightly to the left of right. What you are trying to do is control the character's emotions and actions with the controller. SO, if Edgar, the main character, is trying to flirt with this girl at a bar (I'm not sure this is an actual scene, but it was an early test scene) then if you move the knob to the right a little, he turns toward her and smiles. She then reacts to this by turning slightly toward him (the computer controls her actions randomly, I believe) or turns away from him slightly. If she reacts positively, based solely on body language and acting, then you move it to the right a bit more and Edgar winks at her. She may turn away, or touch his knee you just don't know. If she turns away, you go to the left and he backs off. If you turn it WAY to the right too soon, he starts laughing uncontrollably or tries to hug her or something obnoxious like that. That makes her turn off completely and throw a drink in his face or something. I know I'm making this sound kinda racy, but it's not really. They have (at least for as long as we were on it) kept it pretty G or PG. Anyway, check it out here: http://www.cecropia.com/

PS. Rob and I animated some of the shots in the trailer.

Amazing Eddie T.

This is another kinda obscure project I did awhile back. This was for the retired baseball player Eddie Taubensee (spelling could be wrong here). For those of you that are baseball fans, you may have heard of him. He was a shortstop in the 80s-90s for the (blank, man, he told me so many times and I just can't remember- somebody help me here) and was, judging by the posters and baseball cards in his house, really well liked in (blank place he played). I just knew him and his wife as a couple that was in our bible study group when we lived in Florida. Great guy, very nice wife and family. His wife asked me to do this custom cover of him as a superhero for his birthday. This was right after I left Disney after animating on "Brother Bear". I remember it being refreshing drawing a human rather than moose. I like comics, but any comic book artist that looks at this won't be impressed by my superhero abilities, but he sure liked it. Because she was giving him a framed original, I had to do everything by hand including the lettering! I think I did the color after this in markers. It sure was scary adding color to this knowing that one false move and the drawing, inks, everything was ruined! I don't know where the scan of the color version is, but I remember Eddie loved it. Thankfully, he didn't tell all his friends, I'm not sure I really wanted to do this again......

BTW, the image of him in the corner doing the "Psst!" was a game we played one night (and he ruled at) that was a huge crack up but you really had to be there.

Celeb SKETCHBOOK_John Byrne!

Comic book legend John Byrne has become something of a guilty pleasure for me. Everyone says (and I agree) that he doesn't draw like he used to in his hey-day of the mid 80s to beginning 90s and theX-men and Fantastic Four. Agreed. Still, he was one of my first artistic "idols" in comics and drawing in general. He was the first artist that I couldn't WAIT to see his next issue. In the 8os, I would by anything John Byrne drew. If he did one issue of ROM the spaceknight, I bought it! It was that bad. In my humble opinion the day he started writing comics as well as drawing them was the moment his art started to take a backseat. I think he would say that too. I think. It seems obvious he discovered a new love in writing and the art became just one element in conjunction of that to tell a story. I can understand that. Us artists missed the attention he put into the art though. He also got FAST. He could write two books, and draw two others in the time most artist could barely get through one. Again, it didn't make for his best work, but I gotta say even at his WORST Byrne's work is head and shoulders above a GOOD amount of comic book artist's' BEST work. Not everyone would agree with me on that I'm sure, but he still can tell a story in a clear way with EXPRESSIONS on characters and strong poses that make sense. So what if you've seen that hand or that face or that panel again and again from him, it's still better than something that doesn't work, I say.

Enough rant. I'm a little passionate when it comes to BYRNE, can you tell? Anyway, I met him at one of those Disney/ Megacon lunchtime lectures that I spoke of in a past post. There were alot of really strong artists that year (I think that was the year Alex Ross, Humberto Ramos, and J. Scott Campbell were in the group.) . Most were the "new, young artists" that normally I would have really wanted to meet. BUT John Byrne was in the house! He was the first guy I introduced myself to and threw my sketchbook in front of. The hard thing-and what I hadn't thought about- was which character did I want him to draw. When he asked I almost went blank and then, thankfully, blurted out "Captain America". I know he doesn't get that request as often as an Xmen or FF character so I really wanted to see what he did. Also, his run on Captain American is one of my all time favorite comic runs- maybe THE favorite. I don't know why, but that character ever since then has been "my character" (which makes sense to say when you are a kid, no so much now). My favorite, no real reason why. I haven't bought a CA comic since then really. But he (and the writer, was it Roger Stern?) made the character come to life.

Anyway, this is probably my favorite "Celeb sketchbook" illos for the kid and the fanboy in me.

Harley and Ivy

Nothing too new about this one. This is an older 'sketchbook' sketch of Harleyquinn and Poison Ivy. I think this was the first and last time I drew them. I'm sure I had just gotten all tanked up on some Bruce Timm drawings when I drew this. I still like the Ivy, but we all know I just stuck that Harley in there at the last minute to "complete" the picture! Sad stuff there. It breaks a rule of mine to have a reason why a character is in a pose. She's just bent over with her bottom out! I make me sick!

CELEB SKETCHBOOK_Glen Keane!

Here's the third installment of the Celeb sketchbook, this time it's the great Glen Keane! Here's the story that goes with it:

If you have worked in the animation industry (2D or 3D) or just are a fan of animation, then you have no doubt heard of Glen Keane. He's been a Disney Supervising animator for many years going back to about "Black cauldron" or so. He is on most animator's short list of to 3 best animators in the world. He would be number one on mine. Some animators can create great acting performances with good drawings, others can create great drawings with good acting, but Glen can create GREAT acting with GREAT drawings- like no one else! No doubt you've seen him interviewed on almost any Disney "making of" trailer. He exudes a passion for drawing and the art of animation that is riveting and a call to become better for anyone that is working with him. He's also equally as inspirational in his personal life. He's a kind person, a strong Christian, and a giving mentor.

So, all that said, I was honored to be chosen to work with him on his animation unit for the character of "Pocahontas" for the movie of the same name. I had been at Disney for maybe 8 to 10 years at that point, but all of the animators that wanted to be on that unit had to submit a life drawing portfolio for Glen to review! That never happens. Glen wanted to make sure everyone on that unit could draw the human figure at least to the level he felt he could work with or mold. Very intimidating. Some how, I passed on got on the unit. The actual film was REALLY not very fun (as is watching it for me), BUT working with Glen was a great and challenging experience. Even when it was long distance. After all, I was in the Florida studio and he was in the California one. He would go over drawings that I would mail him (for every scene!) and I would watch video lectures he would tape for everyone on the Pochy unit. And occasionally he would come out to Florida.

All that is just set up for how I got this drawing. See, all through Pocahontas I really wanted a nice (framable) drawing of Pochy from Glen as a memento. I never got the chance. It's intimidating to ask. So, a couple years later, Glen was visiting Florida to do a press junket for the upcoming "Tarzan" for which he had designed and supervised the main character. He had been living in France working with the French Disney studio for a couple years. No one had seen him at Disney Calif or Fl for about that long. This was a great opportunity to say "hey" and finally get that sketch, I thought. Well, I went down to the office he was staying in while he was there and sheepishly knocked on the door. He saw me and said come on in and I small talked with him for a second. He saw the sketchbook in my hand and asked if he could see it knowing I wanted him to. It didn't don on me that he didn't know I was just about to ask for a sketch. He opened it up and started flipping through the pages and saw all these sketches by other artists to me. His face kinda fell and he said, "Oh, it's THAT kind of sketchbook...." I'll tell you, I will never forget how he said that. I felt like I was letting him down in some way. I wasn't the artist he was hoping I was in some way. I hadn't been working on life drawings and wanted him to see my progress since last we had worked together. All of that was in the way he said "THAT kind of sketchbook..". So, he was nice enough to do a Tarzan for me. He did a great job, but every time I look at it, it's kind of a bitter sweet reaction for me. It still makes me want to do better though.....

Thanks Glen.

Mulan 2 comic

This was a 4 pager story I did for Disney Adventures magazine a while back. It was a comic that was to tie into the "Mulan 2" traves- uh--film--that was about to come out. I had worked on the original animating Mushu (as if you didn't know already, everyone says I won't shut up about it...) but this was the only thing I even remotely had to do with the sequel. The editor at Disney Adv. mag got me because he said he had a MUSHU comic for me. He hooked me good. When I saw the script, I found that Mushu's not in it much. By then it was too late, I had committed. In the feature, I only drew Mushu. This had everyone else but ShanYu in it, but I kinda enjoyed drawing all of these other characters that I never got the chance to draw all those years ago. Shang was a little tough, though. So, a quick turnaround later, this was the original pencils for the book. I hope they are in order above. I drew two pages per sheet of stock comic book art paper. Disney Adv. mag is so small, that is still bigger than it will be when published. I learned that after doing a few of these comics for them over the years. One of the inkers finally told me, "Hey, can you do them two per sheet, it makes it go quicker for me.". I think I sold these originals at the San Diego con a couple years ago.

CELEB SKETCHBOOK_Frazetta!

Gotta get out of here but I wanted to put up a new Celeb Sketchbook image. This one is probably, honestly, one of the LEAST impressive drawings and probably one of the MOST at the same time! It's a sketch by FRANK FRAZETTA!

Long story short, during the earlier days of the Orlando MegaCon we, Disney Animation, started a nice relationship with them. The deal was that we would give exclusive tours of our animation department to guests of the comic con if those guest, in return, would do a Q and A with the artists at a lunchtime panel in our studio. AND me being one of the biggest comic book nerds in the studio I ended up MCing the panel discussions. I kinda loved that. Because of that, I met and became friends with many comic book professionals. Some of which, I still stay in contact with. (Like animators, they tend to be really nice folks. Though sometimes a little rough around the edges- like Tod McFarland.) Like I said, it was a sweet deal and the comic guys loved it too. Most of them were big Disney fans and in the beginning of our annual "program" we really gave them good tours.

This drawing came from the all time BEST year our our 'relationship' with Megacon. That was probably the second-ish year it was around and they had an incredible guest list. AND a lot of the artist that came and did the tour the year before must have told all their artist friends how cool it was. What ended up happening was that we had John Romita SR, Todd McFarlind, William Stout, J. Scott Campebell, a bunch of Image people, and way more that I can't remember! It was awesome! Then, without anyone knowing it, in walks Frank Frazzeta! You just don't see this guy often. He and the whole group were being toured by me so I ended up back at my office (of course) and showed them some of the experimental animation I was doing on the just being developed "Mushu". During the tour Frazzeta's "handler" would tell everyone as they came up that he MIGHT give an autograph but no sketches! I was giving the tour but thinking the whole time how was I gonna get a sketch! I would have been fine with an autotgraph, but I came up a plan. It was risky but once I saw that he was into seeing some of my animation and such, I quickly asked him to sign my sketchbook and handed him it and a drawing pencil. "Sign your sketchbook?" You don't sign sketchbooks..", he said. He got it right away. Then he asked for a thicker pencil. He said he hated drawing with thin pencils. (It wasn't that thin, it was probably a 4B pencil, but he liked huge pencils.) I grabbed him one quick and he did the drawing you see above. His "handler" said that he never does that and I better hang on to it. Like I woundn't. He ended up having a pretty massive stroke a couple weeks later. I heared he stopped drawing and painting after that. This may be one of his last sketches.

Because of all that, it's probably my most treasured drawing.

Sorry about the bad writting and mispelled things like Frazzeta and McFarland, I know they're wrong, I'm just trying to get this story out quick!

DD in COLOR

Local artist (to me, anyway) Mike Meredith has offered to color a couple things of mine in the past. He was nice enough to take the Daredevil drawing a couple blogs back and color it using Illustrator. He said he did most of the work in under an hour. (Gotta learn this program!) He also said this isn't complete in his mind, but he just really couldn't put much more time into it. (Man, I don't rate 1 and a half hours?) Anyway, I think it's looking good and thought you all might want to see it. I'll do another Celeb sketchbook next. I got some good ones coming...

CELEB SKETCHBOOK_Lassiter

I had a great idea the other day. I can't post that much these days because alot of the work we are doing is keeping us busy with stuff we can't talk about or show....so I gotta get creative keeping up with this blog at times. I was thinking about a Glen Keane story I'd like to share soon and a drawing he did in my personal sketchbook that goes with it (coming soon), then I realized that I may want to post a few of the drawings in the sketchbook. This is one of those black sketchbooks that people take around to cons and get artists they are fans of to sketch in them. I never did this until one year I was going to Calif. for a work trip with Disney. I realized I was going to be seeing some of the best artists in the world, why am I not "documenting" this visually. I don't like taking pictures with artists I'm a fan of, but a sketch from them is so much more memorable to me- and something I would treasure forever. So, I got the sketchpad. Turns out, the next couple years I met alot of famous artists between the comic cons, working at Disney, and becoming a member of the National Cartoonist Society. The sketchbook is about 5-8 years old now and not quite full, maybe 20 more pages left. I forget about it for a year or so, then meet someone and dust it off for a sketch. BUT it has sketches from some of the best animators, comic book artists, and comic strip cartoonists in the world! It took a long time and a lot of guts to ask some of the more intimidating ones, but it's a treasure I'll never part with! So, from time to time I will post a sketch and a story of meeting someone that I am a fan of. I think you all will like it to. First up: John Lassiter!

I just read this great article that was in Fortune interviewing John. He has such a great personality and warmth about him. Here's a great comment he made at the end of the article:

" Let me tell you a funny story. I took the family to see this film one weekend - I'll go to see almost any film that's good for the whole family. And so we're sitting there watching this film, which I won't name, and there are long stretches that are just not very entertaining. My little son - he was probably 6 at the time - was sitting next to me, and right in the middle of this dull section, he turns to me and says, "Dad? How many letters are in my name?"

I must have laughed for five minutes. I thought, Oh, man, this movie has lost this little boy. His mind has been wandering, trying to figure out how many letters there are in his name. So I told my wife, Nancy, what he said, and she started laughing, and then the story went down the row through my whole family, our four other sons, and we're sitting there as a family giggling and laughing.

And I thought to myself, If ever a child anywhere in the world leans over to their daddy during one of my movies and asks, "How many letters are in my name?" I'll quit."


I've been fortunate to meet him a few times during my career at Disney. On one of those times, I got the nerve to ask him for at sketch. Most people don't think of John as an artist, but he went to CalArts (same as me) and was in cleanup at Disney way back when. He was standing in the hallway just outside my office when we small talked and he sketched the above drawing. I think we were taking about CalArts and working on student films there for some reason, because he sketches his character from his student film (on the right) and the ant (can't remember his name now) from "A Bugs Life", which was just about to come out when he did this. (I think he was at Florida Disney doing a press junket for that film, if I remember right.) Not one of the best drawings in the Celeb Sketchbook, but he's one of the nicest guys to put it in there!

Bloggedy blog

These are sketches from a meeting we went to last week. Rob was doing the "presenting", so I was doodling. I don't know about you, but when I sketch on a page I do two things: 1) I have to fill it up. If I have a big drawing that I start with (in this case it was the girl), then I will start figuring out shapes that will fit in around it and 2) if the first sketch doesn't turn out the way I like it, I stop doodling. Sad to say, but I've finally 'awoken' to this fact. I'm not a great doodler anyway, I just don't have a love for it. I love to draw, but I have to have a reason. That's also sad, but I think it's because I like perimeters. I like to have a goal, say, of drawing a funny dog. With that "assignment" in my head, I can draw a bunch of different funny dogs, but without it my pencil just lazily slides around the paper without motivation. Rob, and other people I know are just the opposite. They can doodle cool little drawing and characters without even knowing where they are going. Rarely, I will do that and I will have something I like on the other end. Now you know my problems. Sharing is fun.

Sailors

I don't know if I posted this or not....I hope not. I have to bring in some CD's I have at home for some fresh, new old stuff! That's coming soon, get excited! New to you hopefully. This sailor lineup of characters is a drawing I created for my character design book that I will NOT start "selling" in this blog. I'm being good. Anyway, the story behind it is that this is is based on an assignment that our character design teacher (the great Mike Giamo) gave us when I was at CalArts. The goal was to design 5 characters that all had very different shapes and sizes (and personalities hopefully) but were all wearing the same costume or uniform. For that assignment, I designed cowboys (and a cowgirl, naturally) but since I had a "cowboy" theme already running through my book (buy it at AMAZ--oops, I caught myself!) already, I changed this image to sailors. I remember someone in the class did a good one with sailors so that stuck in my head. My brother did "chefs", I recall. You can do it with almost any job that they wear an outfit that is similar , but it works best when they are all wearing identical outfits. Five different construction workers doesn't work as well, because they would all wear different shirts, pants, belts, hats or no hats. You get it. I think it's more of a challenge to have the exact same elements to the unform, so you can really play up HOW they wear it as different. Like the scarf around these sailor's necks. Anyway, hope this is new to some of you!

BTW, yes, the guy on the right is a version of Rob, but he isn't as short as I would have made him normally. I had a short guy already drawn, so I just stretched Rob so I'd have more variety.

Daredevil!

This is another oldie, but I still kinda like it. I really like the characters with the simple, iconic costumes and Daredevil is one of the tops of that list! (Marvel side anyway.) I'm a big fan of the old Gil Kane Daredevil covers, some of his best work in my mind. This was originally done in with some red pencils, so some stuff showed up better than this B&W version. Maybe one day I'll do this up in Illustrator (making a few "updates here and there) and color it up! Probabably not, but woud'nt that be cool? Any extra drawing time goes to new stuff, not going backward, so it's pretty doubtful it will ever happen.

T-shirt design

This was a quickie "freebie" t-shirt design for our church youth group for this summer. They wanted 'cool' and all that. Why did they come to us then? We're pushing 40! Anyway, they threw us these words that were important to them and said "go for it". Rob came up with the rough sketch of the characters and then I did up the final. We tweaked it some more past this point (above) but I don't have that one. Trust me, anything you don't like here got fixed and improved! Oh, and I KNOW this could have been done easier in Illustrator! Thanks Heath, I knew you'd mention it. I gotta learn that thing, I know, Iknow.....

Gertie the Goldfish

This was an unused cover for what was going to be the second book in a series for Naomi Judd's "Gertie the Goldfish" children's book. We illustrated the first book and designed the characters. They wanted "Disney style" so that's what we gave them. (What's that hiding between that line? Do you see something?) Anyway, they asked us to do up some sketches for the second books cover and then once they picked one (Rob did some, I did some) we were asked to do up a final cover image for their catalogs and websites. We did. A couple rough versions I did are above and the one they picked was inked by Rob and colored by our colorist of choice, Jon Conkling. Again, they like that airbrushy look so that's what they got. After we finished it all, they told us the book was canceled. It happens. ( I said "it".)

NEW sketch page!

NEW is the key word here. These are actual sketches-all on one piece of paper- that have been created within the last week or two. I promised this a blog or two ago and today is the day! ACTUAL drawings that are not for a job, by me, that aren't two years old! This doesn't happen every day. The one of the girl head and the bald guy head were sketches I did while me and Rob were doing a photoshoot of us at our desks. We had to "pretend" to draw so I thought I'd ACTUALLY draw. This is what came from that. After this, back to old stuff I'm sure.

Bottom feeding

Hey all. Hope you all had a good weekend. Rob and I have been super busy (are you getting tired of hearing this?) so I had to work most of the weekend. Lots of drawing getting done, just nothing that is "blogable". Anyway, this is another old sketch page from when I had time to draw for fun and/or could draw things that didn't have NDA's attached to them. Ah, those were the days. I do have another sketchbook from a few years ago, I may pull out some of that stuf too.....hmmmm... I may never draw again. Actually, I have a new sketch page that I add a sketch to every so often. When it gets "ripe" I 'm gonna post it just to show that I still draw for fun sometimes! BTW, the eagle character was a character design for a client that had a phone company (though I don't know if it's still around) and the girls were just for "fun".

M J Parker

Got....to....get....something...up...on ...blog! Anything....


This is another "oldy" of MJ Parker ( you know, Spiderman's wife) looking longingly out to the sea for some reason. This was also eventually inked by great inker Howard Shum. Anyway.....

Back....to....work......must...draw.......

SUPERGIRL

This is an older drawing, but hopefully one that not many people have seen. It's my version of Supergirl. With a little Bruce Timm influence thrown in. I think I did this as an Ebay drawing. Howard Shum ended up inking this and I think it's still on his website. Anyway, she's another character I liked drawing.

Lil' Red

These were some sketches for a commision piece I did awhile back. They are of Tex Avery's "Little Red Riding Hood", or whatever she is officially called. She was fun to take a stab at. I did the final in color but I'm not sure I have a scan of it anywhere. Oh well....

The '03 sketchbook pt.4

This is another page of sketches from Waaay back in the day in 2003 when I did my first sketchbook for sell at San Diego Comic Con. It sold well and fast (I printed 100 of them), so I did it again the next few years after that. Always a good seller. Anyway, I did the Opp. Forces image on the left for some add or something and the others are sketches just for this thingy. The "Reese Kirby, stock car driver" drawing was just making it up as I went, but I still like the name.

More Mermaids!

These were a couple sketches I did as different concepts for the "Mermaid" image I did a bit ago for Drawergeeks. I just got back from a trip to NY over the weekend and I got the chance to "finalize" these sketches a bit. I ended up going a little "simpler" on the one I picked (seen in an earlier posting) with just one mermaid and a little less--uh--sultry. Also, the other one had more of a story to tell. These are just poses, which isn't as interesting to me. They were still fun to do and I thought I'd show some of the "warm ups" that went into the final one I chose. "Scribbles. Just scribbles" as a friend at Disney would always say.

Opp. Forces COLOR!

I wish I could say I pulled this out and this is mine, but I can't. Fact is the very talented and nice Adam Street took my inks from the last blog and offered to color them! It looks sweet. The depressing part is that MY color version of this image, which was going to be old school in markers and colored pencils, got ruined! I over did it and hate it and AAUGGHHH- didn't keep a hi-res scan of the inks! SO, I'll have to start over. My little quicky illo is turning into a longy! I don't have to time and can't use Adam's wonderful version because he only had my lo-res version to use. I don't know what's gonna be on the cover at this point. Sigh.

"Cartoonist!" cover design

I'm a member of the National Cartoonist Society and have been honored by being selected to be interviewed as a feature story for an upcoming issue of "The Cartoonist!", the newsletter mag for the NCS. For this they've requested a piece of art for the cover. Just a sketch or something. A lot of the questions were concerning my comic book "Opposite Forces" so I thought I'd make the cover feature them. (No copyright problems either). This is a little of the process. I did a really scribbly rough ( and a few others before this that I didn't want to scan), then refined it more on another sheet in blue (like giving Alexis a neck), and the last one here is a inked version. Now why I inked it is still a mystery to me because I don't want to Photoshop this, but render it more "by hand" with markers and colored pencils like the "Mermaid" piece a couple blogs ago. Problem is, I drew this on some real ratty photocopy paper that didn't even take the inks too good. Markers aren't probably going to work on this tissue paper. I will most likely resketch this on a better piece of paper and just render the thing a bit more sketchy (something else I originally wanted to do) with the markers and pencils. I MAY try to color the inked one to see how it looks also. It's ready to go anyway. Not everything on the inked version got better as you can see, maybe another good reason to do another. I'm just lazy, I don't want to.

Sketches v3

Here's some more. This one has one of my first Captain America's too. I love this character, too bad he has been drawn and written so poorly for so long. He's kinda like Wonder Woman or Thor or Blondie. Everyone knows the characters, but noone reads the comics anymore. They need a good live action movie with tons of effects that al four of them can be in. That'll bring them the bling bling. I think I'm a little tired.

More sketches!

These are oldies but some of you all haven't seen them, I'm thinking. Just odd sketches in different styles that I like to draw in. I think they are different styles anyway.