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!

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!

“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.

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 )

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….

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.

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

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!!!

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

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