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….

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….

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!

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…

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.

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!

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!

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.

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.