A Belated HAPPY HALLOWE’EN !!

A page I bought directly from Mignola, at the 2001 SDCC.. I had a few others, but hadda sell 'em on eBay a few years back. This one though, I couldn't part with.. It's going to the grave with me!

Been a long while, but I’m finally back with an update.. I was digging thru some old work files on my HD, and thought I’d put together a brief post..

Back in 2015, I worked at Nelvana on Nick Jr.’s  “Fresh Beat Band of Spies” cartoon series. A lot of the front-end creative work was directed by ‘6 Point Harness’ in L.A., including some of the Design work; usually establishing the look and style of: characters, props, and locations. Full turnarounds and additional views of those designs though, were done at Nelvana in Toronto.

Early in the production, I spent most of my time creating rotations and additional views of Props. I didn’t have any real experience drawing directly with vector lines. So, I was allowed to draw them in Photoshop on a cintiq, using very clean bitmap lines. I'm guessing another artist may have converted my finished work, later on?..

One of my favorite episodes to work on was: “Band Of Pirates” (ep.14).. There were a lot of very nice design elements in that one. Plus, a fun storyline that featured “Captain Arrrgh” stealing half of a Treasure Map. He does so, using a flying robot and a Steampunk-inspired JetSki. For which, I drew some of the additional views..

The Fresh Beat crew makes a quick pursuit using their elaborate Tour Bus, which could conveniently transform into a kind of hydrofoil speedboat! The Bus was  based loosely on the handful of Art Deco “Futurliner” trucks that GM produced in the 40′s. And I felt like the speedboat itself, also gave off a bit of “Thunderbirds 2″ vibe? Creating the fuller rotation, was something of a drawing challenge, as I had to make hard decisions about the overall dimensionality and how each of the surfaces and corners attached to each other..

About halfway thru the production, I took over the Layout Supervision from my friend: Terry Lenko. This may be the only show that I’ve ever worked on, where my End Credit designation changes across the episodes arc?! Again, I have zero experience (or interest) in vector-based art. So thankfully, all I had to do was “direct” a very talented Layout crew, rather than contribute to the production art directly..

But there were always Layout issues with the storyboard animatics, that would require attention. And Terry taught me the valuable lesson of creating quick Layout thumbnails for each entire episode. Not only did these drawings allow me to identify where the Master and Reuse BGs existed.. But I could also spot and correct all of the continuity, cutting, and staging problems, too!

Enjoy.

A pen-and-ink Pinup of Dixie Evans "The Marilyn Monroe Of Burlesque", that I did back ‘95.. In the early 1990's, I corresponded with her a bit. She was running the "Exotic World" museum in Helendale, California. Sadly, she passed away this month. She was a sweet old lady..

More on Dixie can be found here..

A 16 year-old pinup drawing that served as my entry into this week’s 'Illustration Friday' contest, themed around the word: “DOG”.. The initial layout sketch was provided by my good friend and fellow Layout buddy: David Pietila. “Soopermutt” was a character featured in issues of the “Animal Adventures” comic-book, published in the 1950′s by ‘Timor Publications’..

I’ve been busy creating new artwork for “JackTober 2022″, lately.. The Day 22 prompt, was: (you guessed it) “The HULK”!!! Added a bit of digital color to it, using Photoshop.. It’s based on one of Jack Kirby’s classic poses. But I played around with some of the character proportions and other details..

Dunno how or where I found this image, but I've always loved it!.. Wally Wood was a genuine Master at combining cartoony poses with solid construction.. My best guess would be that this was a back cover to one of his 'WITZEND' fanzine issues?..

I'm not a particularly big Life Drawing fan.. But awhile back, I was fortunate to be gifted with a bunch of at-size color photocopies, done by none other than my fave artist: Frank Frazetta!! He drew this sometime around March of 1957.. Wouldn't it be great to have an entire book of these published someday?

Was surprised to see this animated gif from the “Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.S” cartoon series.. This was an old Nelvana show I did design work on, back in 1994 or so. All of the pre-production was done in-studio. With the animation work farmed out overseas.. I remember being disappointed that the production schedule and budget were roughly half the size of the “Cadillacs & Dinosaurs” cartoon, we’d all worked on a year earlier. Small surprise that it didn’t get past it’s initial season of 13 shows!

Christmas card from just last year.. I was up so late at night finishing this, that I mistakenly signed "2013", after my signature. Nobody seemed to notice it, though..

Haven’t posted anything for a very long time.. But I felt like everyone should be aware of this ultra-fine poster that Charles Burns recently did, for the upcoming TCAF show in early May 2015.. Hope to catch him at the show and score myself some “Free Shit”!!