Reel Life

Standard


Oops! I suddenly realized that I hadn’t posted this episode of my “Reel Life” strip on THIS blog. It was over at my old WordPress Blog. So, I brought it over here and reposted. I got a lot of good feedback on this one, to me personally and through emails and the blog, so it enrouaged me to do a few more. This is a strip concept I’ve been toying with for a few years, with a buddy of mine who helps on the writing sometimes (and helped me develop the characters and premise of the strip… hey, Jeremy!). He wrote a bunch of episodes a few years ago for me, and they’ve all been on the backburner… WAY back on the backburner. But, every once in awhile (usually when the annual NCS meetings get close), I’ll start thinking about the strip again. I’ve changed it a lot recently, reworked the concept and characters a lot, and have written quite a few episodes on my own (including the two posted on my blog so far). Let me know your thoughts.

Oh, and the strip won’t usually be this one panel format, I don’t think. Too hard to tell stories in. But, I really like one panels, so I’ve been trying it out just for fun.

Show and Tell: Sam and Max

Standard

I recently bought and watched “Sam and Max: Freelance Police”, the animated series on DVD. I always loved Steve Purcell’s comic by that name, and was intrigued with how they might translate some of his zanyness to the small screen. TO my pleasure, they did an okay job. Watching it with my ten year old daughter, it was cool to see that the occasional gag/story/personality trait that they left in from Purcell’s comics were the very things she laughed at the hardest. WHY some of the backgrounds are done in a completely different style than the characters, I will never understand. And even though I’m sure they added the little girl computer whiz for kids to relate to, I found her a needless addition. I mean, come on, you’ve got a dog and a bunny-thing… kids love animals, so why do you need the girl? Those criticisms aside, I think the show is a pretty decent intro for kids into the world of these great characters.
But if you want REAL Sam and Max, then track down the comics!

Tyranasaurus Rex arms

Standard



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

Standard


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

Standard

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!

Standard

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

Standard

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…

Recent Work: Pastor

Standard

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.