This week’s Christmas challenge over at http://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!

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.

On this newest http://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…”

This week’s http://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!!!!!

Here’s my second entry into the http://www.toonweekly.com character design challenge I’ve been talking about. It was a “Harry Potter” theme this time. I’m not really into the Potter stuff (too much magic and stuff…no, I don’t want to debate it), but I can respect many elements of the stories and the characters. It was actually a lot of fun to do this one of Harry. I approached it as if the Potter people decided to do a Cartoon Network version of the books, but I still wanted to keep it a little darker colored, with some shadows.

A few buds of mine from the NCN, Justin Cook and Mike Giblin, recently started a character design challenge. I asked them if they minded if I crashed the party, and, to my pleasure, they welcomed me aboard. I think this is gonna be a cool thing…they’re both really talented, great guys. I think doing this regularly will push us to develop our skills, and who knows, maybe even get some nice portfolio pieces for us.

I’m about two challenges behind them, I think, but I’m gonna try to catch up when time permits. IF time permits. Anyway, here’s my version of the first challenge, Frankenstein. Check out both of their versions on their blogs, listed on my links to the side.

FOURTEEN years ago today, I made the best decision I’ve ever made, and married the girl of my dreams. Anyone who knows her knows that she is beautiful, inside and out (my toon here doesn’t begin to do her justice). She’s taught me what real love is, and I continue daily to strive to be a better man…just to try to deserve her.

“Behind every good man is a better woman”, I’ve heard it said. It couldn’t be truer than in this case.

Barbie, I love you. Always.

Happy Anniversary, Baby.

I’ll be spending time with the family this weekend, eating way too much food, and will probably not have a lot of time to post. So, till I get back here, have a BLESSED and Happy Thanksgiving. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for! God bless you and yours!