Cartoon Life Drawing

When I'm having a bad drawing day or feeling like my drawing is too stiff and not 'cartoony' enough I like to break out some DVD's or pics I've collected from the web for inspiration. A lot of times I'll watch these old cartoons in slow motion or even frame by frame if a particular movement or expression captures my eye.

I especially love Looney Tunes from the 40's. Bob Clampett's cartoons specifically have some of the wackiest gags and drawings I've ever seen. I especially love scenes that are animated by Rod Scribner.

Thanks to Shane Glines wonderful Cartoon Retro site I've also been exposed to cartoonists like Milton Stein. His comic book work immediately spoke to me. If you don't know who he is, you owe it to yourself to check his work out.

The early Tom & Jerry shorts are awesome too. The other drawings are from the hilarious Tex Avery short 'King Size Canary'. I'm pissed that all his cartoons haven't been released to DVD yet. Luckily I was able to score almost all his MGM shorts via Usenet.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Yes. That's right, it's my birthday today. Thanks to all my friends and family who have wished me a happy one already. Special shout out to my pal Rachel for making me some delicious cupcakes!

Don Knotts 1924 - 2006

Odd News Stories

Last year I made this piece after reading a brief article in the Odd News section of Yahoo. Apparently some guy tried to pay for his delivery pizza with a bag of weed. When the delivery guy refused the weed as payment he was beaten in a fit of 'munchy rage'.

I like this piece, but it suffers from some digital stiffness. The original drawings had more life and attitude. It's really hard to digitally ink drawings in Adobe Illustrator and keep the energy of the original work. My plan is to get back into inking with a brushes/pens and scan in the inked art to color in Photoshop and Painter. I'm not sure if I'll miss the flexibility of vector art or not, but I know that I'd like to keep some of the freshness of hand made art.

Fanboy

This one is from the archives... originally made in 2003 from a pencil sketch. This was the first time I attempted to color anything in Photoshop since they added some of those nifty 'natural' brushes. I posted this fairly large so you could see some of the gory details. If you've been to a comic book or sci-fi convention then you've seen this guy or at least someone who looks damn close to him!

Rejected!

I was just informed today that the sketch for one of the spots I'm doing for the May/June issue of Yellow Rat Bastard was rejected. The piece is about the Sourtoe Cocktail which features a garnish of a single, dried, human toe. Yes, that's correct... a toe from a human being. They want just the cocktail by itself, which is still going to be fun and disgustingly detailed! I think I'm going to finish the initial concept for myself. I really wanted to draw a fat 'Bluto' type of character.

Custom Type

One of the other things I do is custom type. This particular alphabet was designed to be used on my site and for promotional purposes. It was inspired by old monster movies, Santa Cruz Skateboard graphics and punk rock album covers. Later this week I'll post some custom type examples I did for the book Weirdo Deluxe.

Russell Crowe

I have this idea I'm working on, and it involves a cartoon version of Russell Crowe. So before 24 tonight I decided to pound away and try and get familiar with drawing the phone chucking actor. In all honesty I think these drawings suck. The last two I did started to come together, but it's going to take a lot of drawings for me to get to a point where I can make him a cartoon character. I see an afternoon of pausing scenes from Gladiator in my future!

Binky & Babyhead: Scene Concept

Here's a typical messy sketchbook page, scattered with drawings from old cartoons as well as original stuff of my own. The page sparked an idea for scene with my characters Binky and Babyhead. I don't know Flash, but I'm going to use this scene to learn it. If anyone has some Flash book recommendations that focus on character animation that'd rock and be much appreciated!

Here's a more solidified panel from the scene. As I figure the scene out I'll be posting more drawings.

The Angelina Jolie Challenge Pt 2

I think this attempt is much better than the first. Still not great, but it's looking more like her to me anyway. Maddox is so cute though! He's like a punk rock Tweety Bird.

This is an attempt at an entire body shot. Ever notice Angelina's hands look like they should be on Nosferatu rather than a hot babe?

The Angelina Jolie Challenge

John K has challenged his blog readers to post their caricatures of Angelina Jolie. This is my first crack at drawing Jolie and her son Maddox. As John pointed out, Angelina has a lot of bizarre features all crammed into one head. I found tons of great reference on Google images and hope to do a few more drawings later on.

John K's New Blog

John Kricfalusi is the creator of Ren and Stimpy, Ripping Friends, Weekend Pussy Hunt and The Goddamn George Liquor Program. In the early 90's John and his company Spumco brought back what was missing since end of the golden age of animation in the 50's... funny cartoons created by cartoonists. Not only is he one of the best animated cartoon directors, but he is also a bad-ass caricaturist.

So go check out his blog and learn something:

johnkstuff.blogspot.com

Sad Bear

It's been a while since my last post. I thought I'd post something even though it's still in progress. The star/blob in the back still needs to be resolved, but I think the bear is done.