Here’s some drawings from a live gig a few weeks ago.

I was thinking “Cartoon Network” here.
Here I was thinking more flowing, connecting lines. Ala Hirschfeld, a bit. And a few others from the 1930s and 40s who are lesser known than him.
Finally, what I call my animation character design caricature style these days. Geez, I gotta get a shorter term for it. Anyway, these are three of the styles I worked in that day. I also did one or two that were abstract, I believe, and at least one pretty exaggerated one.

It’s fun on gigs to go back and forth between styles. I figure, every face is different, why shouldn’t every drawing be? Why, as artists, do we have to stick to one style? I rarely have people say “But I wanted THAT other style I saw you draw in”. Instead, they seem to get into it, and wonder how I’m going to depict THEM. It ups the “surprise” factor, I find. Plus, it keeps me artistically fresher, less bored, and less generic with my work.

Geez, I’ve been busy. The Christmas season is already upon us, it seems. By the end of October, I start getting Christmas card commissions, and this year has been the busiest one yet. So busy, that I have, yes, let my bloggin slack a bit. Sorry about that! I’ll try to do better now that I have my head above water. I really need a version of my buddy Tom Richmond’s “Dreaded Deadline Demon”, I guess, to post when I’m busy. Hmmm…I’ll have to think about that.

Anyway, not only have I been busy, but so has my much better half, Barbie. Here’s a recent pic of her working for Coca Cola at a convention. Ain’t she pretty? Really, the job just entails looking gorgeous (easy for her), and serving Coke with a smile to attendees at these private conventions. She likes it cause it gets her out of the office, and the pay ain’t bad.

Maybe later this week I’ll get to post some artwork….

Ben 10 is my favorite cartoon on the air right now, with Legion of SuperHeroes quickly becoming a close second (and, with the Justice League making appearances, the new Batman toons are pretty cool, too). I recently bought the new DVDs of Ben10 seasons one and two for my daughter Brady for Christmas (shhh! Don’t tell her!). The thing about this show is that they’ve taken lots of old concepts, like “Dial H for Hero”, Shazam!, the Phantom Zone, and many, many others and kind of mashed them all together, coming up with a new twist on all of them.

But, really, just the simple concept alone is great…. a kid gets a high tech watch from space that allows him to turn into superpowered aliens. All while traveling the country with his grandfather and cousin in an old RV. Oh, and Grandpa isn’t quite as helpless as you first think. Neither is the cousin.

How cool is that? I highly recommend it!

Growing up back in the 70s, when I wasn’t reading comic books, I read the original Tarzan novels. He’s always been one of my favorite characters, so I thought I’d take a cartoony swing at him in my sketchbook tonight:
The “real” Tarzan was quite different from the Hollywood versions of him, of course. In Burroughs’ books, you really got the feel that he was barely controlling the “animal” side of himself. I put the scar over his eye, since I seem to remember that from the books…the scar would appear whenever he’d go into an “animal rage”. The closest Hollywood ever got to him, in my opinion, was “Greystoke” (parts of that were dead-on), and, strangely enough, Disney’s Tarzan (minus all of the talking, SINGING animals).

In the comics, I never liked Kubert’s take, nor Buscema’s, really. But there was a series about ten years ago, that was drawn by Mark Wheatley (don’t remember the writer), that had a lot of the true spirit of the ape man.

Oh yeah, and since I’m a child of the 70s, I remember faithfully watching both the reruns of the goldenboy Tarzan of Ron Ely, and the Filmation cartoons. The latter, looking back, were awful. But, I spent a lot of my childhood playing in the yard, reciting the opening, “I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle. This is my domain, and I protect those who come here. AHHHOOOAHHHHHH-ahhhh-uhhh-ahhh-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Long live the King of the Jungle!!!

Saturday night, while Mommy was out of town visiting family, Brady and I got to watch a movie in our home theater. I work so much, I rarely get to do that. But, we had a blast. I bought a copy of the new Superman:Doomsday movie out on DVD. Don’t read past this, unless you’ve already seen it. SPOILER ALERT! Spoiler Alert!

Overall, we both really enjoyed this movie. There was lots of action, lots of drama (some pretty heavy scenes for an adult, much less a nine year old). And, despite the convoluted original story in the comics that this is adapted from, they made a decent story of the whole “Death of Superman”. That was the good.

Then, there was the bad:
1. The art-Luthor was too skinny. Superman has really weird lines in his face. Cheekbones? Brady said they were wrinkles. Where are Jimmy’s freckles? Only Lois looked good…and she looked REALLY good.
2. It was too adult….come on, Superman and Lois getting it on at the Fortress of Solitude, then back at her apartment? In the comics they were married by the time of this story. Having them not married, kissing, and walking around in their ROBES, wasn’t cool. Brady said “So, they’re living together now?”
3. The story. Yeah, I know I said they made a decent storyline out of it…but the original was AWFUL. This one, as much better as it was, still has huge, gaping holes in it.

All in all…I’d give it 3 out of 5 stars. Regardless, we really enjoyed it, and that’s what counts.

From my nine year old daughter’s blog, at ” http://www.bradyparham.blogspot.com “:

This past Summer, Brady finally got to take the Cartooning class she’s been waiting to be old enough for, at the Orlando Museum of Art (They actually called for me to teach it, but I was too busy). On the final day, when I went to pick her up, she had this big poster board in hand with her project from the last few days. Their assignment was to come up with a story, and draw a comic page of it…
The story, she told me, is that a girl finds a lsot dog (Brady REALLY wants a dog these days), and the dog is sad. The girl takes the dog to the mall, buys him a collar, and then they leave the mall, and live happily ever after.

I knew something was “different” when I looked at this page, but couldn’t determine what, exactly. I knew that it was odd that she’d made an unconventional panel arrangement that was still readable. But then, she pointed out to me, she’d made the story IN THE SHAPE OF A DOG.
………

I was speechless. I have scanned in and highlighted the page here to the best of my ability (although it doesn’t do the original justice). Making unconventional pages, in the shape of the thing you’re talking about? Geez! I didn’t even know about this until college, when I read Will Eisner’s books on storytelling. How on earth did she know about it?

I still don’t know. And, I even asked…no, her teacher never said to do anything like this. She just “came up with it”. I guess all that comic book reading we’ve been doing rubbed off, somehow.

Here’s a pic I did on a recent gig. People who know me often ask if I do abstracts “live”, in a couple of minutes like my “normal” caricatures. Here’s proof that I do. Actually, I probably do this quicker, as I kind of see every face like this, basically first, then add more stuff in, if I’m drawing “normal”.

Are any caricatures normal, though, now that I think of it?

Here at the Parham house, we’re not big into Halloween…the whole dark and evil thing doesn’t quite jive with our religious beliefs. Obviously. Different Strokes for different folks, ya know? Some people love Halloween, and that’s great. For us, we’d rather dwell on other, less “dark” things.

HOWEVER, I have tons of great childhood memories of going door to door, yelling “Trick or Treat!”, and eating candy until we were sick. This piece (which I drew last year, but recently updated a bit) kind of encapsulates that feeling of innocent fun for me, with a “Star Wars” twist. We actually take our girls to the huge Fall Festival that First Baptist Church here locally puts on each year for the community. It’s a great time for the kids, and is a safe environment. Later, I take Brady around our neighborhood, door to door. She dresses only as “good” characters (so far, Spiderman, a princess, Supergirl, and Jessie, the cowgirl from Toy Story), and we avoid the houses with decorations that are too evil looking. We have a great time.

No matter how you feel about this celebration, have fun, and keep safe out there!

Best bud Tom Richmond was in town with his family about two weeks ago, and gave me a call from the airport when he landed here. He was up against the wall on a deadline for a big job, and only had his laptop with him on vacation. So, he asked if he could come over the next day and take over my studio, using my Wacom….

I told him of course he could. Plus, since I am a huge fan of his work on MAD, I told him to change the settings on my computer, wacom, and pen to whatever HE normally used. Between that, staring over his shoulder, and asking lots of (to him) stupid questions, I figured maybe a teensie weense bit of his coloring method would rub off on me. How often does one have this kind of learning opportunity?

This pic was taken when Tom was stuffed from our lunchbreak to my favorite burger place, Five Guys Burgers and Fries. I always try to take my guy friends here…it never fails to impress. Must be something about all the grease and red meat…guys love it.

Anyway, as for the talent rubbing off on me…well, I can see SOME progress in my coloring since this day. Seriously. I understand a lot of things better. Thanks for letting me bug you while you worked, buddy!

A buddy of mine from the NCN and the internet, Justin recently finished Steve Silver’s character design course through Bobby Chiu’s Schoolism a bit ago. Steve and I are good buds, and I talked to him months ago when he was here at my house about this course. He was really excited about doing it, and if Justin’s work is any indication, it was a very successful course. Take a look at Justin’s recent work, like the guy above, to see what I mean:

http://justoons.blogspot.com/