Tyranasaurus Rex arms

Trapped at a Burger King the other day, I capture this lady in my sketchbook. I liked her "tyranosauraus rex" arms. Heh heh.

Abstraction Distraction: Part 1

Recently, I had a long time client order 23 abstract illustrations from me for a project. It's all pix of their execs. Thing is, they always want vector illos, so they can blow them up really big and hold the resolution. I've done several of these over the years for them, but never this many at a time. In the past, I've tripped, stumbled, and fell my way through the "vectorization" part. Orginally, it was so long ago on the first job, I drew and scanned in my drawings and ran them through an old defunct prgram called Adobe Streamline to vectorize them. Then, I colored htem in Illustrator.



Now, with the later editions of Illustrator, CS2 is the one I have, I have learned to LiveTrace and Live Paint a bit. That's how I did last time's batch. THIS time, though, I decided to bite the bullet and start learning to actually draw in Illustrator. These are a few from the job. Eventually, in the vector illos, I was even able to do several different styles.
For obvious reasons, I call this one more of my "Picasso" style.

And this one I like a lot...I managed a twist you wouldn't necessarily expect, but still retained a pretty strong likeness, I think.

When I get caught up on some more deadlines, I'll try to post some more.

Phil and Amy Parham - 700 Club - Biggest Loser

Here's my cousins, Phil and Amy Parham, on The 700 Club recently. They're keepign the wieght off, doign great, and inspiring other people to do the same. I'm so proud of them!

Odd Rods rule!

I've said it plenty of times. When you find, like I do, that cars, motorcycles, trucks, etc., are just "too mechanical", and really time consuming and tough to draw, just add lots of chrome, flames, and smoke! This theory isn't original, of course, as many cartoonists, especially Big Daddy Roth of "Rat Fink", was famous for doing the same thing. But, until today, I had forgotten "Odd Rods"! THESE are the "car-TOONS" I remember as a kid.
http://www.oddrods.com/home.html

It's a great site, brand new, with an interesting history page, and TONS of images in the gallery.

Plas and Woozy

Just a quickie of one of my fave characters ever... Plastic Man! (and sidekick Woozy Winks).
Animator Andy Suriano did some great character designs of Plas for the failed Plastic Man cartoon pilot that was done a few years back. I thought I'd try my hand at him this time...

Mighty Mouse, The New Adventures - Title Sequence

I always loved this opening.....

John K and Bakshi...what a team.

Recent Work: Pastor

I got this call awhile back from a big church out West who were doing a book and video series for kids. The art director liked my cartoony character design stuff, and hired me to do a toon of their pastor, who would be the star of the series. They were going to animate it in FLASH, though, and I don't do that program. And I didn't have to time to learn it in the short deadline they gave me. So, I had to do some extra "parts" for them to animate (the A.D. knows FLASH himself, so it was cool)
Here's the final version, with the extra arm.
Here's my inked version, with an extra hand I was playin around with. This was in Sketchbook, by the way, and the color was in Photoshop CS2, for inquiring minds.
And here's my original "blue line sketch" in Sketchbook, before I inked it. I would've loved to have had more time on this job, but I liked how it turned out and so did they.

Show and Tell: My Sketchbook!

For the first "Show and Tell" Feature back at my Blogger blog, I figured I'd let you know about MY sketchbook. Hot off the presses:

Lately I've had the chance to work on some projects that I’ve had going on for years, that have been “on the backburner”. Little things like a graphic novel (70+ pages so far….might be finished in the next decade…LOL), and my first sketchbook! It’s full color, and comic sized. The work in it is all from my live gigs, and from life drawings in my personal sketchbooks. It’s all in my character design/animation style that I’ve been doing for so many clients these past few years.

I decided to do print the sketchbook through my good buddies over at www.ka-blam.com . They’ve got a great print on demand service, their books are gorgeous, and you can order it directly from their site at this link:

http://www.indyplanet.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1671

Let me know how you like it! ( I also just added a permanent link to it on my sidebar).

Back to Blogger....

Indecision, Indecision...

Now that Blogger has the ability to "future post", I have decided to come back to my first "blog home" here. Wordpress has some awesome features, but I never found it as easy to use. Believe me, I need a blog that's EASY to post to, if I'm going to keep up with it. Which I haven't over at Wordpress for awhile. Sorry about that. But, I'll TRY to do better now that I'm "comin back home". Stay tuned....

Toon Weekly: Zombie!

Well, ya know, I went around and around on this Toon Weekly challenge again. Almost thought about not participating for the first time. See, I don't like Zombies (sorry, Justin). It's the whole evil supernatural thing. I kinda like the whole "apocalyptic, end of the world, virus that wiped out humanity" zombie, ala "28 Days", but even if I drew with that in mind, it would still look like a "regular" Zombie to the rest of the world. My first thought, then, was to do this:

Zoom Bee!!! Get it?

Well, what can I say? I liked "Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew" when I was a kid, and DC recently came out with a new version of it, which my nine year old daughter has been digging. So, anthropomorphic animals are on my brain. Then, I decided on another angle....


I've had this extreme christian, fallen angel and vampire butt kickin, version of a Punisher/Hellboy type story in my head for years that I've mentioned ever so briefly and cryptically on the blog before. So, I decided this character would be adding zombie butt kickin to his repertoire as well... Kinda sloppy, kinda unclear in spots, but I like the sketchy, almost woodcut look to it. Kinda fits the story, to my way of thinking. You just know that zombie is about to get a hurtin....

Old gig...clients that don't listen

Drawing caricatures live is not only one of the main parts of my job, but is something I really love.The interaction with guests, the energy of live events, the immediate gratification from the audience watching..there's so many positives that I rarely talk about the negatives, since they're so few. One negative, though, is clients who won't listen. I do gigs an average of 3-4 nights PER week, every week. And I've done that for at least six or seven years straight. Before that I did a few a month, still. So, doing the math, that's over 1200 events I've drawn at. That's not bragging, it's just stating the facts, and it's to prove a point- I certainly can learn, and am open to learning new ways to do things....but I kind of have an idea about what I'm doing now. I'm not even talking about the art...I'm talking about how to run a gig. How to set up, how to control the lines, etc. One of my biggest pet peeves in this business is working with "party planners" and/or the end clients, who think they know more about how to run my end of the event than I do.
The gig that these pix are from, about a year and half ago, are a case in point. My company had already done this Project Graduation gig for a local high school for a few years in a row, and everything had gone really well. UNTIL this year. They let a different lady at the school run this year's event. She was a "professional party planner", she told me, and had her own ideas of how to run things. UGH. I usually bite my tongue pretty well when dealing with hard to deal with clients, but this lady was just very combative and a real know-it-all.
One of the key things I do at gigs is have multiple caricaturists set up in one area. We have many, many multiple artist gigs. There are room layouts that make it prohibitive at times, and I understand that. But, I HIGHLY suggest in our contracts that with multiple caricaturists, they should be split up into groups of no less than two. Preferably more.
This creates a real "scene", letting us entertain the spectators/those in line, more effectively. A good gig caricaturist is as much or MORE of an entertainer than they are an artist, even. Think about it....do you separate the members of a band? Doesn't make sense to set the guitarist on the other side of the room from the drummer, and then the singer on the other side, does it? Why are caricaturists any different? I don't understand that thinking. Setting artists together ALSO lets us run off of one line, and cuts down on people getting more than one caricature drawn, or getting on two or more lists at a time to "see which one their name comes up on first". Then there's also the lesser important reason of the artists being able to take breaks easier in this arrangement. Yes, I take breaks. So do bands, so do DJs (in between songs). So do stiltwalkers, magicians, and every other kind of entertainer I work with. Why shouldn't the caricaturist? We work harder than a lot of those entertainers, and are usually told we were the ones who "made the event" for the group, so we should get the same breaks, and do. But, that's another soapbox.
AS you can see here, this lady had a lot of distance between each caricaturist, AND had our line so far behind us that they couldn't see anyone's picture getting drawn. She effectively killed any and all entertainment value. You can see Joe Bluhm here in this photo, by the way. A great friend and a renowned caricaturist. He and I were there, along with two other of my best buds, Ted Tucker and Kenny Durkin I believe. Two other great caricaturists.

My point is that she had a lot of talent here, but with her stubborness and being unwilling to listen to me about how to set up the event, the kids couldn't really "get into" the entertainment, as we were never able to build any real momentum and actually ENTERTAIN with how things were set up.

Most gigs go great. There's no doubt. Usually people WILL listen to me. Then, ever so often, there is the client who will say, when they find out that I have definite ideas of how to set everything up in order to maximize the amount of people who can be drawn and therefore give them their money's worth, " Do it your way. I certainly wouldn't want anyone telling me how to do MY job. You're the professional here, not me.". Man, I love when that happens. And invariably, the event turns out well. I don't tell someone else how to do their job, and I don't appreciate when they do it to me.

This particular event didn't book with us again this past year, but I didn't really care. IF they call to book again, I'll ask if the same lady is setting it up, and I won't be working this event, if so!

You're a Wonder... Wonder Woman!

A NCN buddy of mine, Sam Gorrie (see the links to the side), was talking about her infatuation with all things Wonder Woman recently, and asked anyone that would to send her a pic of the Amazonian princess. Since I've been under the weather lately (for over a week), and barely able to work, it seemed like a good time to sketch a bit in the old sketchbook...I didn't expect to give her the new snazzy harircut, the long (?) pants, or the cool little tennis shoes, but sometimes you just cant' control what comes out of the pen! Kinda like it, though...

Toon Weekly: Clown!

Man, this week's Toon Weekly challenge baffled me. "Do a clown, but without a red nose, big shoes, all the normal clown stuff", is basically what it called for. "Like the first clown ever", or something like that.

Well, I talked it over with my bud Ted, and he and I had almost the same exact idea for how to fulfill the assignment. ... a caveman clown, going with the FIRST clown ever thing. So, since I asked him, and he was therefore the first one to voice it , I figured I'd just have to come up with another approach.

No such luck. So, I decided since I was stuck on the traditional clown image, I'd just draw it for my entry, focusing on some color hold stuff in the lines, and playing with a cool background effect.
Here he is, looking all clowny.

Big CC Bash!

Caricature Connection....the next generation! We recently had a big bash for our caricature artists here in Orlando, where everyone could bring their families. We had drawing contests, cash prizes, pizza, and a really awesome time hanging out. Here's a couple of pix of some of our gorgeous, talented kids:

My daughter, Brady, is the blonde in the center. Some of you may know Kenny Durkin, one of my best pals and a great artist.... his two kids, Alex and Kathy, are to the right of Brady in the photo. Alex is a "mini-Kenny". One of the great things about the CC Bash was seeing all of our talented offspring at work drawing alongside us "old people".
There's some real talent in this group, gang. And how cute are these three, to boot? They're all in 3rd and 4th grade.
I'm thinking of offering shifts to some of these kids as soon as they get fifteen!
Seriously, they're talented AND just all around, great kids. WE must be doing something right, know what I mean?
Look out, world!

Christmas Booty

I realized I never got around to posting about some of the cool items I was blessed with this Christmas. I'm not bragging, now, I'm just sharing how cool some of these things are, in case you want to add them to your own collections. First off, anyone that knows me knows that the PERFECT gift for me is a Barnes and Noble or Amazon gift card. I pooled several of them together this year and got the big, honkin Don Martin set from MAD magazine's Greatest Artists collection. I always loved Martin's sound effects, in particular, and boy, did he draw funny! Inspiring stuff.


I also got the super cool iPod touch. A non-phone, non-camera version of the iPhone, this was my first iPod. That's really all I wanted, a place to carry all of my rather eclectic tastes in music, with the capability to watch some videos and be able to check my emails Wi-Fi. I like it a lot, but it does make me wish I would've just done the iPhone, and had the whole shebang. Oh well. Maybe in a few years. Right now, this has been a lot of fun. I've got Playlists for Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson, Janis Martin, Jackie Wilson, Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson, Orion, Nora Jones, Adam English, Elvis, Elvis Gospel, and Worship Music. Yeah, I know...weird stuff to lots of people, but I love it! Plus Podcasts from Creflo Dollar, Joel Osteeen, and Zig Ziglar. And let's not forget the "photos" I have of pieces from Hirschfeld, Jack Davis, and other artists whose work I admire, to inspire me on live gigs.

My first iPod...yep, I feel like I'm finally in the 21st century!

Recent Work

I seem to be getting more character design jobs these days, which is something I've been working toward for awhile. This is a recent one for a site named "Drink Weasel.com". An ad agency from LA called me to do this one. The client and the agency (my client) were fantastic to work with, and I look forward to seeing this character in use. They said the character might be on all kinds of stuff, so we'll wait and see. I believe the product might be something to keep people from driving drunk. Very cool.

Gig Stuff

Here's some drawings from a fairly recent gig. I was doing more of my "character design-y" stuff most of the day.

Yeah, that's a big Spider-Man head ring she actually was wearing. Too cute.

Although highly stylized, this looked just like this kid. He was about seven and still uses his bottle! His Mom liked the pic, but the kid hated it and burst into tears! I figured I'd better snap a photo of it, cuz I'm sure it didn't make it home in one piece.

Toon Weekly-Under the Sea

Hey, kids.....it's time for the "CLEM and SHECKY show"!!!

Sometimes, certain assignments just don't interest an artist as much as some others might. Next week's "Under the Sea" challenge for Toon Weekly was one of those for me. I just couldn't get the darn "Little Mermaid" song outta by head once I read the title of the challenge. Maybe it's from drawing so many little girls as Mermaids at our caricature stands here in Orlando over the years, but I just thought "Ugh" when I saw this is what the subject was.

Once I got started though, I kind of liked the goofy "team" I put together here. Clem (the fish) and Shecky (the shark), are bestest pals, in the tradition of Ren and Stimpy. Clem is the smart, devious, pessimistic one (I like that he's wearing a hat). Shecky, predictably, is the big, strong, naive, kinda dim one.

By the way, the Toon Weekly site is really starting to get popular! You gotta go check out the work over there. A lot of it is pretty impressive. Interestingly, there's a bunch of the participants that work are have worked with mine and my wife's company drawing caricatures. Even my old pal Esly, now living in Australia, has joined up. Hi, Esly! I guess it stands to reason that so many Caricature Connection artists are paritcipating... I've been really "plugging" it to all of our artists, and.... we're all nuts for the cartoony stuff!

Politics: History Favors Republicans

A buddy of mine that I know from the NCN, posted a really interesting entry recently on his blog. It's about how history favors this election's Republican candidates to win the White House. It's worth a read...

http://scottrsullivan.blogspot.com/2007/12/history-favors-republicans-for.html

Woo Hoo! Go, Huck!

Recent Gig Stuff

"Unibrow"

I took photos of these recent live drawings, and then adjusted the lighting and added the solid backgrounds in Photoshop. This was one of the days when I was drawing more character design-ish live stuff. At least most of the gig. I liked this guy's unibrow.

"Full Figured Girl"

I also liked how this "full figured" girl still looks cute in the drawing, enough where even she liked it, but she's still "full figured". I hate when I see caricatures of "heavier" people and the artists thin them down in the drawing, where it doesn't even resemble them. Hello, if you're big, I'm drawin' you big! That's part of your likeness. There's nothing wrong with being big. Just like there's nothing wrong with being skinny. Or goofy loking. Or, as in the pic above, with a unibrow. I'm gonna draw them all.

"Sleepy"

This guy, for instance, looked asleep when he was awake. Or maybe stoned. I didn't ask. But, I drew him that way. Oh I may draw with my "cartoon filter" on, so it's not all that insulting looking, but I will represent what is there.

Also, with "Sleepy" here, I was kinda feeling the Cartoon Network/Fairly Oddparents/Dexter's Lab kind of vibe. So, I did a little bit of the thicker outline, and the thinner interior lines.

Toon Weekly- Rock Star!

This one I went 'round and 'round on. So many things to do, so many types of rock music. Finally, I decided to combine them and came up with this guy. His name IS "Rock Star".
He's some guy from the future, when there is no music of the people allowed. A true totalitarian state limits all artistic expression of the working class masses. He somehow learns about 20th century Rock and Roll, names himself "Rock Star", and becomes a rebel rocker....inspiring the masses to rebel against their totalitarian overlords. (Shades of Footloose, CryBaby, 1984, and The Legend of Billy Jean).

He designs his costume based on many great rock and rollers, and types of rock music. There's the multicolored hair and studded bracelets of the punk rockers, the high boots of the glam rockers, the star over the eye ala KISS, the bandaged hand ala one of Michael Jackson's incarnations, the giant clock like Flava Flav to represent Rap music, and of, course, plenty of Elvis inspiration in the high collared jumpsuit. Finally, he has that kind of pretty boy androgynous face and slim build, while wearing makeup on one side of his body to represent more than one race, since true Rock n Roll has always been, in my opinion, a synthesis of the music of different races.

Anyway, there he is.

ROCK STAR! (not to be confused with DIET ROCK STAR, which is what I just finished drinking. ;D )

Holiday Work, part 4

So, this is one of those companies I do work for every year. Sometimes multiple times. So, even though there's always a few new faces, many of these folks I've seen many times over the last few years. Each year they try to come up with a new scene, something different. It's cool, because it's a challenge. But they're rarely easy. This year's idea was as Elves in Santa's workshop. Yikes. So many little bodies, all having to be different. So many little toys, and tools, too. Don't even get me started on having to do the perspective right on the ground, the tables, the walls, well, the entire scene. I hate doing perspective! Anyway, thought you might want to see it....

Holiday Work, part 3

Geez. Big group. They also requested lots of little tiny changes after I finished this one. Little stuff like the title of that book being changed, and the guy down in the front with the tie originally had on a sweater, but requested he now had to have a red tie on. Oh well, that's the nature of the beast on big group jobs. It's rare there's not some requested change. I try not to take any of it personally. Oh yeah...that is an ice sculpture of an eagle over there (their company logo) on the right. Yeah, try to draw an ice sculpture when the entire background is ice and snow! Tricky coloring....
If you look on the CC site, this piece is a variation of another big group job from a few years ago. THESE guys saw THOSE guys' piece (they're actually clients of one another), and wanted their own version done. It's a real "monkey see, monkey do" type of biz, as we all know, and that especially seems to be true when it comes to corporate groups like this.

Holiday Work, part 2

Here's another group pic from this year. These guys provided some really bad photos, but I was able to make them work.

ToonWeekly: Cyborg!!!

For the ToonWeekly Cyborg challenge next week, I sketched this version of a RoboMonkey. Now that I read he's supposed to have human and machine parts, per the challenge "rules", I guess his brain is human, and the body is monkey and cybernetic parts. Yeah, that's the ticket....

I drew him kind of quickly, a bit more roughly than I do a lot of these challenges I guess, but I thought it kind of fit the stinky, hairy, uncouth beast he is. Also, this is one of the few completely digital pieces I've done still. RoboMonkey to the rescue!!!

Merry Christmas!

Remember the reason for the season. Merry Christmas, everyone! May God Bless you and yours!

HO HO HO!

I also did this one this week, of OUR galaxy's Santa Claus, for www.Toonweekly.com. Had a lot of fun drawing Santa , and, of course, elves are always fun.

ToonWeekly - Christmas!

This week's Christmas challenge over at www.toonweekly.com prompted me to draw the Regula-6 galaxy's Santa Claus. Along with all the other members of the Santa Claus Corps of the Universe (SCCU), he wishes you a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

Holiday Work, Part 1

This time of year is crazy busy for many caricaturists, drawing Holiday cards and gifts for both businesses and individuals. This had to be my busiest season ever (Praise God!), doing this kind of work, plus gigs, some character design, and a magazine illustration. So much so, that my time has been limited to post on the old blog here. I'll try to change that in upcoming weeks, if by nothing else, posting some of my Holiday commissions. This one is an interesting story:
I drew these guys, some pretty renowned agents in the field of professional Poker (Who knew poker players had agents?) for the second year in a row. What made it interesting is the fact that I almost didn't draw them this year. They loved the pic from last year, they said, but for whatever reason, decided to go with another artist this year (I think maybe the other artist was cheaper). Then, for whatever reason, they didn't like the image they got from the "new" artist. So they came to me in a bit of a panic, wondering if I could even turn it around as quick as they now needed it. I was glad to help them out, and they loved my version. So, it all worked out in the end.

Toon Weekly : Karate Kid!

On this newest www.ToonWeekly.com challenge, we were to do character designs for an 80s flick. I chose "The Karate Kid". Originally, I was landing up with some pretty strong likenesses on these, since I am used to drawing caricatures. But, I decided to play with them a bit more. As if this were a real series, and the cartoon producers didn't QUITE have the rights to make the characters look like the actors, but still wanted them close enough not to confuse viewers. We've seen this happen over and over again in licensed series, for real.

Now I keep singing that cheesey song over and over...


"You're the Best! Around..."

Elvis Presley ( aways on my mind ) edited djf

Man, this song gets me every time.

The Huckster!

Wow, I like this guy. Lots of other people are starting to as well....

ToonWeekly Challenge #3: Loco Madre!!!!

This week's www.ToonWeekly.com challenge was a female wrestler. I made up a Mexican wrestler named "Loco Madre" for my entry. I am a big fan of the cartoon "El Tigre" right now, and fondly remember "Mucha Lucha", as well as the Hernandez Brothers' comics about female Mexican wrestlers, "Whoa, Nellie" from Fantagraphics Books, as well as all of the female wrestlers in their title "Love and Rockets", so this seemed like a natural for this challenge.

Loco Madre, the crazy mother!!!!!