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.