Merry Christmas!

Today's my favorite day of the year. Spending time with family, and celebrating the birth of my Lord, Jesus Christ...wow, I love Christmas! Here's to you and yours...may God Bless you all!

Yeti

Yes, the rumors I true. When my good buddy and MAD illustrator Tom Richmond was in town two weeks ago, I did, indeed, get talked into riding "Everest". Hated it. But I always hate rides like that. However, the Yeti on the ride ( the silhouetted one in the beginning, not the end one, cause I was closing my eyes, screaming like a little girl, and rededicating my life to God by then), was GREAT! So, in honor of my having ridden Everest for the first and last time, this week's challenge over at my CC Blog is the Yeti! I've already contributed a few of them, but this one is my fave. Looks a bit like Illustraotr again, but I was playing with vectors in Photoshop this time. Could've spent more time to "finish" this one, but felt like drawing it quickly this time around. MAybe I'll finish later.

Trick or Treat!

On the blog for my caricature concession company (my "real job"), Caricature Connection, we've started a weekly challenge for all of the artists. So far, unfortunately, there's not a lot of participation. I'm hoping that changes. I am going to occasionally post some of my challenge entries over here as well, to share them with you guys. I hope you like them. This first one is from this week's challenge, Trick or Treat. I've been reading Amid Amidi's amazing book, CARTOON MODERN, and was inspired by it to do something very design oriented. I thought it might be fun to show you the stages I went through here for this piece. In my continuing quest to be able to be "paperless", I drew this all digitally, on the Wacom. The first sketch (the one on the bottom) was in Photoshop, then I colored it. Then, to try another style, I colored over my lines (this is the middle one). I liked it, but it still looked rough to me. So, I imported it into Illustrator as a template, and traced over it with MANY, MANY layers. I think about thirty of them! It was a lot of work this way (surely there's an easier method?), but I really kind of like the final piece.

McDrawing 1

One of the highlights for me of the recent NCN con was the seminar by my good friend Steve Silver, character designer of TV's Kim Possible (and other shows). He talked a lot about keeping a sketchbook, drawing from life, yet cartooning it. I'd already been doing that to a degree, inspired by talks with him, both at the cons and privately, over the years. Since the con, though, I've been sketching like crazy. I don't eat out as much as I used to, since I've been working out the past few months, but I do eat out more than most people, I'd guess (it's more quiet and peaceful than eating at home, with a two month old here). So, whenever I'm out, I've been taking in my sketchbook. And it's been helping.

You know, I've been working a lot at gigs as usual, and stay very busy with freelance still, but I ALWAYS make time to practice and to study my craft. I recommend it to all artists. Ted and I talk about this a lot. We don't just draw while we're on the job. We eat it, sleep it, etc. I, and Ted in turn, learned this from people like Silver and Tom Richmond, both of whom are insanely talented and very successful in their fields. Also from Joe Bluhm, who is also insanely talented and whose crazy success is coming...he's still young. I feel privileged to have people like them who are my inspirations, whom I can also call friends. Swimmers swim. Weightlifters lift weights. Runners run. Accountants..uh..count. You get the picture. Drawers, I mean..ARTISTS, draw.

Okay, enough soapbox. You get what I'm saying. Anyway...here's a recent drawing from a fine dining establishment I frequent that I like to call McDonald's.....

Savage!!!

I always loved all the pulp hereoes as a kid...Tarzan, The Shadow, and DOC SAVAGE, the MAN OF BRONZE! Here's a sketch from one of my sketchbooks last year that I colored in Photoshop tonight, just playing around.

Mighty 1

Another character, from a story I've been tinkering with for, oh, about TWENTY years.....Maybe he and his story will see the light of day one of these decades...
Yeah, I know, a little bit darker style than I usually do. It's fun to change gears every once in awhile. These are all just bascially quick sketches, with some grays added in Photoshop. They're rough like sketches, but I kinda dig 'em that way.
I think the rough, dark, scratchy style kinda makes sense for the story. Yes, there's even a cyclops in it. Man, I wish I had time to do this story justice....

Running Super

One of my funny superheroes I've been playing around with developing for a few years now....
Just a quickie sketchbook sketch with some Photoshop color thrown on. About all I have time for right now. There's some cool lines and "Flow" here in his body, I think.

Hulk

I love drawin' superheroes...

Brady Shake

I drew this one of Brady at "Five Guys' Burgers and Fries" yesterday .She's drinking a Huge milkshake. That's a supercool "Omnitrix" bracelet from the supercool cartoon "Ben 10" that she's wearing. We were on our way to a local comic book show (where we saw Thomas! He and Barry and Jenni were displaying all their incredible looking books and showing off the amazing product they're producing through their printing biz), when we grabbed a bite to eat together here. Oh yeah, she's got her Batman Tshirt on too, but it's not quite visible. Yeah, she's definitely my kid....the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. A true comic geek already. Just a whole HECKUVA lot cuter than me. (thank God she takes after her Mommy). Anyway, I kinda liked how it turned out, so I thought I'd share. Just a rough sketch....

Funny Faces Comic

Anybody who knows me knows that comic books have always been my first love. When I was a kid, I dreamed of drawing Batman, Superman, all the big guns for Marvel and DC. As I got older, though, I decided I really only wanted to do my own characters. My good friend Ted Tucker and I even used to self publish our own book, Lunar Donut, many years ago so we could do that kind of thing. The book was doing pretty well, for a small press title, until real life set in, and we went back to our "day jobs" of drawing caricatures. But I'm still the biggest comic fan you're likely to meet.

For the past few years I've been very involved in the National Caricaturist Network, and have written and drawn an autobiographical strip (another love of mine) for their magazine, Exaggerated Features. the strip is entitled "Funny Faces". Sound familiar? After a few years of this, I have enough pages in the can that I'm thinking of printing up a comic of all my strips so far.
Here is a very loose mock up of a cover idea. Input appreciated. I'm about 85% sure I'm going to do this soon. Just a little concerned of being stuck with more boxes of comics in my garage...Lunar Donuts have been in there for years.....

Brady Number Fun

My daughter, Brady, did this sketch today, and I thought I'd share. She tells me it's of a line of people waiting at a movie theater concession stand. There's a lot going on here, and it takes a minute to look at, to appreciate it all. What impressed me was that there were people of varying heights, varying races, and varying clothing and hairstyles. Plus, there's some really good hands here. Not to mention that there's background! There's a checkered floor, a counter with a cash register on it, a movie marquee with times on it above their heads, and way in the back (perspective!), there's an arcade with a driving game in it. Good grief! I don't do backgrounds NOW half of the time. And she's not even EIGHT yet!
Keep reading, though, because this gets weirder.

David Cowles, a friend and huge inspiration of mine(www.davidcowles.net), was in town with his daughter a few weeks ago to see Disney. We had dinner with them one night, and Brady bonded with them over a game of "number fun", drawing on the "To Go" bag as we waited for our check. What you do is someone draws a number, and gives it to the next person, who has to figure out how to make it into a drawing. I was surprised that Brady was holding her own with them. At the end of the meal, David promised Brady to send her some "Numbers Homework" in the mail. True to his word, a few days later, a small sketchbook arrived in the mail, each page with a different number on it. Some were easy, but some were pretty hard...like the number "seventeen"...SPELLED out. I was impressed again with Brady's creativity, and she did about half of the book in one sitting (she'll finish it soon, David, and we'll send you some of the drawings!). SO....I decided to give her a project of my own. We have a "Summer Fun Sketchbook" that we're keeping this year, and I gave her some "Number Fun" pages to do in it. This drawing of the crowd at a movie concession? It started out as the number "Fourteen". See here for yourself:

Here it is again, superimposed over the final image:
I was impressed with the drawing itself, for the reasons I pointed out, but now I was speechless. I have no idea how she came up with all of this. Wow

More Travel!

Here's one from the latest batch of the TravelSlut drawings. She's put this character I designed on business cards, stamps, all kinds of stuff now. And the websit's soon to follow. It's cool when a great client really likes your work and runs with it, using it like this.

Super!

I LOVED this movie! Is it perfect? No. Is Routh as good as Reeve in the part? No. However, all in all, this is a really good film. Not as good as I would like, but much better than I had hoped for. I really thought they were gonna butcher it. But Bryan Singer has created a great film, and a fitting homage to the first two Superman movies from the 70s. Please, if you haven't see this film yet, go see it NOW! And if you have, go see it AGAIN! We can't let something like Pirates of the Caribbean 2 beat it at the box office.

Bride

Same client as the Silhouette Girl above. This one of a bride. I am experimenting with the colored lines technique. Kinda like it. Everything's so girly and pink about these drawings. But that's okay...I'm secure in my heterosexuality. And, oh yeah, I DO realize this one looks like the "Teacher" character from the educational products company, with just slightly different proportions. Well, she recently got married, is all! Now the kids will have to call her by her new name.

Ah, I figured they were different clients, different markets, so I decided to use my default pretty blonde girl again. Actually, if you've ever seen my wife, this looks like a cartoon version of her alot, ao that must be where that "template" comes from in my head.

Silhouette Girl

Just wanted to see if this thing still worked! Been awhile since I posted. This is a simple job I've been working on, some spot illos for a repeat client. She had a clip art of this kind of thing, a girl walking her dog, (the bottome one, with the pink around it) and wanted me to redesign it, with my own flair. Mine is the larger one, with the cell phone. Yes, I know it's"Barbie-esque". That fits in with the client's corporate image.

Class FINAL

Here they are, all of the characters, including Gary, in their final incarnations. You can see, the client eventually went witht he Asian Gary I preferred. I really loved doing this project, as it is the kind of cartoon illustration I want to do more of. Even thought the Gary design, in particular, was a bear, going back and forth a bit, the client turned out to be a real pleasure to work with. I can't wait to see what they do with these little guys!

Big Group

Besides the Class thing, and tons of events I've drawn at lately, this has been my big time consumer lately. Yes, there are 26 (!) people in this one. About half of the faces were drawn digitally, the rest drawn traditionally and scanned in. Of course, it was all colored digitally,a nd will be emailed out to the client.

Now I gotta start on the 68 people group......

Class 6

Believe it or not...the client LOVED my "throwaway" idea of making Gary Asian! Go figure! He even decided to change the character's name to Ming, to reflect the new look! I was against this name change, however, as it reminded me of Ming the Merciless, from Flash Gordon. But, hey, it's not my character...it's the client's, right? Regardless, I still refer to him as Gary, just 'cuz I like it better. Anyway, the one drawback to this "Asian Gary", the client felt, was the eyes I'd given him. OR lack thereof. He thought it might come across as racist. So, he ordered a sketch of Gary with pupils showing. I also changed his nose a bit, to reflect his Asian look. I really liked version seven, with the small eyes, but waited to hear what the client thought....

Class 5

I finally finished this project for the client, and all turned out well. However, there's a lot I haven't told you about the design process, still, since I've been so busy with everything lately. Let's try to catch you up over the next few days or so on Gary. The next stage in character design for Gary was that the client asked to see him now without glasses. Remember, the original request was that he be overweight, with glasses and braces, dressed very nerdy. JUST like Carl from Jimmy Neutron, remember (see earlier Class posts). Now, he's skinny, no braces, and no glasses. By this point I was so confused as to what my client wanted (remember, though, he is a very nice guy and has been paying a small fee for each of these revisions), and was really upset that now Gary was truly looking like Alfalfa. I'd went from a Carl ripoff to an Alfalfa rip off. On a whim, I just said to heck with it and threw in another, unasked for sketch that went in yet ANOTHER totally different direction....I decided to let him see what Gary might look like if he were Asian....

TO BE CONTINUED......

McD's

Tonight, I remembered to take my sketchbook with me when I ate out. Finally! Brady (my daughter...you know that) and I walked in, and there were three obnoxious teen boys ordering in front of us, at McDonald's. I still don't understand why, exactly, but one of them had a guitar with him. Goofing around, he was just wildly strumming on the thing, making up nonsensical lyrics...while I was trying to order our food. Grrr. I did say something to him, since I couldn't hear myself think over his "playing", and he did apologize and tone it down. But, the entire time we were there, he and his three friends passed the guitar around and "played". I guess they were just being silly...I looked, and there were no teen girls they were trying to impress. Maybe they were high, come to think of it. Anyway, weird scene. I drew one of them, shown here, very quickly in my sketchbook, and when I got home just now threw some Photoshop color on it.

I'll try to remember my sketchbook more...

Brady's Blog

For any of you who know me, my daughter, Brady, is the apple of my eye. She was born with lots of orthopedic issues, most of which she has overcome (thanks to lots of doctor's visits, surgeries, and mostly prayer). For that reason, she's never been able to run around and play as much as "normal" (hate that word) kids. But, man, can she draw. She's got a real cartoonist's eye, talent, and sense of humor. She says she's gonna take over the family business one day and draw caricatures like Daddy. So, fairly regularly, she and I do training exercises together. I have set up a new Blog for just her artwork. Check it out sometime.
bradyparham.blogspot.com

This is her drawing of National Caricaturist Network luminary and good friend, Joe Bluhm.

From recent Gigs

Here's a pic from a recent gig I did.

Digital Painting

The latest results of me playing around with my wacom and practicing painting digitally. Not finished, but coming along....

Man, I look mean here....I'm really not mean, I'm just drawn that way!

TravelSlut

Okay, let's take a quick break from the Class project. No more kid drawings today...only slut drawings. Yep, TravelSlut. That's this lady's business name. She wears enormous wigs like this, and she wanted a cartoon of herself done in this persona, to use on cards, website, etc. This client, despite her unusual business name, was a lot of fun to work with...no fuss, and loved the drawings I gave her. I need more clients like that! I like that I'm getting more and more of this kind of stuff, more pure cartooning and character design work. I'm gonna have to do a MAJOR revamp of my personal website soon to reflect this.

Class 4

First, before the "skinny Gary", the client wanted to see a 3/4 view of "Fat Gary", so here's that one. I think it turned out pretty well. Not sure why Gary is such a sticking point with these guys, but oh well! Beside him, you'll see my "Skinny Gary". Or, as I prefer to think of him, "Gastric Bypass Surgery Gary".

Or Alfalfa from "The Little Rascals". Whichever one you like.

Class 3

So, when they got the "African American Gary", they decided that although they liked the race change for SOMEONE in their cast of characters, they didn't like it for Gary. They then emphasized how they REALLY liked the original version they sent. Which was, of course, Carl from Jimmy Neutron. They explained how he was perfect, from the funny hair, to the big glasses, to the freckles, etc. So, basically, they still want Carl. So, my dilemma became "How do I give them Carl WITHOUT giving them Carl?" After playing around for awhile, I sent through these sketches. The first is basically Carl, but with Alfalfa from "The Little Rascals"s, hair. On the second one, I tried to change it up just a bit, and pushed the shapes more, making him more graphically strong. On the third one I did that even more, but really went far away from Carl. All in all, the second one was my favorite. It was the client's as well.

Until he showed his wife. Now, they want to see a skinny version of "Gary/Carl".

See, isn't character design fun?

Class2

So, I was thinking, how can I make this character look like Carl, but NOT make him look like Carl?
I got to looking at their character breakdowns, and realized that all the characters were white. Wait a minute....that's not realistic, I thought. So, I made the character, Gary, black. I thought he turned out quite well, actually.


To be continued....

Class 1

So, I've been doing some character design for an educational company lately. They're really cool, and seem to really dig my stuff. I'm coming up with a teacher and four kids for them. I hate when clients contact me who have NO idea what they're looking for. However, these guys may have had too good of an idea. Anyone recofnize the image above? Yes, it's Carl from "Jimmy Neutron". Well, they wanted one fo their characters to look like him. Okay, THAT's a problem, I thought....

To be continued next post....

Batsam

This is of a friend of mine from the NCN. Just felt like doing a quicksketch of her while I warmed up today. Kinda like the punk rock girl thing.

Don Blake's alias

Don't know why, but this guy came out of my pen while I was procrastinating from working lately.
Funny thing is, I don't even like Thor. But he was fun to draw. Yeah, I know I didn't draw his hammer. Hammers aren't as fun to draw as people.

SUCK

I learned so much about drawing funny from illustrator Terry Colon's site. Go visit it and learn : http://www.suck.com/daily/97/11/07/
Don't let the title throw you. "SUCK" rocks. He's right on with everything he says. Plaid really is funny.

Feelin' Biblical

On break at work yesterday, I sketched this one. Threw some color on it today with Photoshop, and thought I'd share. Was feelin' kinda bad because I had to miss church to do the gig, so I guess that's why this drawing of the most famous giant of all, Goliath, came out of my hand. Also drew a David with his slingshot that I haven't colored yet. I'll try to get around to it soon, and post it as well.

Digital...Finally

Woo Hoo! Finally! I've been coloring digitally for a few years now, but I've always just taken my drawings and scanned them in to do so. I hate doing it that way, though, because it takes so much time to scan them in. Over the past few months, since I got my larger Wacom, I've started to do things here and there like touching up some of my lines, directly on the tablet. Plus, I've been doing a bit of sketching on the Wacom whenever I could (free, sketchtime is basically nonexistent with my schedule as it is these days, though).

Anyone who reads my blog will see that my first love is comic books and cartoon illustration, but many of you may not know that my "day job" is drawing caricatures. I own and operate caricature concessions where I have trained the artists, but I myself also go out and draw at parties/conventions about five nights each week, and I also get a lot of "studio commissions" from different companies and individuals to do caricatures for gifts, etc. Sometimes I get to do some fun ones that are a bit artistic, but mostly people just want a safe, cartoony drawing. I'm happy to oblige.

Anyway, last week, a big project came in that needed thirty separate caricatures, and they wanted them colored digitally and emailed to them. Well, I figured now was the time to force myself to "take the plunge". What you see here is my first ever, COMPLETELY DIGITAL, from start to finish, drawing for a client. No paper at all. Still working on getting my lines as smooth as my "paper work", but it's coming along, I think....

Agreda!

No artist should live in a vacuum. I scour the internet everyday for artistic inspiration. Every now and then, I'm going to reccommend other artists on this blog. This guy, Jose Ageda, is one of my favorites. His stuff rocks. If you haven't checked out his site yet, you have to! His colors, his cartooning, everything is just so perfect.

http://homepage.mac.com/agreda/iblog/

Brush Pens

Hey, one of the many cool things about Japan was the multitude of brush pens available. I came back with probably fifteen different kinds, for a total of probably 100 pens. I can't wait to try them all! This pic is of one of them. I found the pic on Google.

Home again, home again....

Well, we're back! This past week was an absolute whirlwind. I don't even know where to begin. I am severely jet lagged right now, though, so I'll make tonight's post quick. Here's a pic of me and the fam in front of one of the cool temples. This one in Akasaka (sp?).

Japan

Yep, my wife finally talked me into it. We're going to Japan this Friday for a week. Plan to check out some caricature stands that some Japanese friends of mine run, and hopefully even buy some cool art supplies we don't get here.

The only thing that's getting' me down? The 14.5 hour flight, straight from Atlanta to Tokyo. Oh man.....

Creating Characters with Personality!

Just got this book in from Amazon today. Wow, I love it! It's the best book out there on character design. Tom Bancroft, the author, started out at Disney Animation, and has worked for tons of clients over the years. I did a pinup for his comic book, Opposite Forces, a few years back, and had the pleasure of meeting him for lunch one day when he still lived here in Orlando. I'm happy to say that not only is he incredibly talented, but he's also a really, really nice guy. Turns out we knew a lot of the same people, including my good friend, Steve Silver (another character designer, of Kim Possible fame). Tom actually mentioned this book to me back then. He'd just begun working on it.

His book is now a great addition to my ever-growing library, and I HIGHLY reccommend it to any cartoonist, whether you be a caricaturist, animator, comic strip artist, comic book artist, etc, etc. Not only is it the best character design book out there, but it, along with the Ben Caldwell Action!Cartooning books, are the best cartoon how-to books out there, period , in my opinion (don't even get me started about how much I dislike most of the Christopher Hart books). You really owe it to yourself to purchase one. Thanks for writing it, Tom!

Hang ups

The next step for these abstracts caricatures was that since I sent them as vector images to the client, he could blow them up as big as he wanted. He did this, had them mounted on foamcore, and now everyone's caricature hangs over their desk. Here's a photo of them (the guy looking out of one of the cubicles is the client). I think they turned out cool, and they all loved them. He contacted me just last week about doing some more.

Office Abstracts

So, this job was from a client a few months back. I believe it was for a Michigan insurance agency or something like that. The client wanted to do something for he and his office mates that would make their department stand out. So, he commissioned me to do abstract caricatures of each of them.

Racer 1!

Had a client recently who wanted some generic superheroes. This one is a variation of one I had on my site for a previous client. They liked it, so I changed the costume a bit. Superheroes are such fun to make up. I'll try to post the others as I finish them. I even gave 'em "working names" as I've been drawing them. This one is "Racer 1"

Busy day

Busy today. Haven't had time to scan anything new in. Have been working on a couple of autobio comic book stories that I'm pleased with. Like I said before, I do a strip called "Funny Faces" for the NCN's magazine, and I'm hoping to get enough of them done so I can compile them in a comic book in time for this year's annual convention. Good thing it's not until Fall! Still leaves me a little while.

Shazam!

Here's a quickie. I've had lots of private emails so far from people who've already stopped by the site, but no comments posted here yet. Truthfully, don't even know if that function works.
If you stop by here and like what you see, post a comment for me and let me know, okay? Cool!

Geronimo!! etc.

Here's some character designs for an old project that may eventually see the light of day. Geronimo, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon. Historical figures are fun to caricature.

Batman!

Another old one, this time playing around with the Dark Knight. I love doing cartoony versions of superheroes...