Back In 2007, I Had The Inclination To Try Drawing A Don Martin -type Character.. I Was Digging Thru

I recognize a lot of these images from episodes that I’ve worked on.. But it’s been so long, that I can’t really remember anymore. Part of getting old, I guess?.. I have a bunch of Layout lists stored downstairs somewhere, and one of these days I’m gonna catalog what I did and where!

1990 Beetlejuice Valentines

"TOILET HUMOUR" In The Literal Sense..

I was cleaning up my studio room, when I unearthed a large manila envelope. It contained folders of some Spümco-related artwork that I'd purchased from an eBay Seller, back in 2005.. One folder contained rough layouts from a comic-book story, featuring: "NUTTY the Friendly Dump" ! This past year, I finally got to see the finished-version of the story, when it was included in IDW Publishing's 'John K. Presents COMIC BOOK' collection..

‘Doctor Strange’ illo that I did, back in 2008.. Colored it later on, using colored pencils, felt markers, and a bit of digital.. My hope was to give it a very Kevin Nowlan -esque quality. As I think his interpretation of the character has always been the best!

Back in August of ‘97, I was working at George Elliott’s first animation studio: 'PICTOR Entertainment'. I was likely working as either a Designer or a Layout artist, on one of the many series we did service work for. But one day George asked me if I could also pull Layout duties on a "Denny’s Restaurant” TV spot that local legend animator Chuck Gammage was working on, for ‘Colossal Pictures’? I’d never worked on a TV commercial before, but was certainly game to give it a try!

As memory serves, I got the storyboards from Chuck on a Friday,-- and completed the layouts over a long weekend. There weren’t any designs for the 30-second “Skillet Breakfasts” spot. But Chuck mentioned that he wanted the BG’s to be styled after the classic “Tom & Jerry” cartoons of the 1940′s..

Before I even got started, I got word that 2 of the 6 BG’s were being cut for time. Less work for me.. YAY!!  For the remaining 4, I tried to follw the staging that appeared in the storyboards, as closely as possible.. As you can see from the final ad,-- although many of the design elements were retained, all of my Layouts got changed at the Paint stage. Which if my memory serves, were beautifully painted by: Branislav Perkovic.

The only other initial instruction I recall getting from Chuck, was that he’d wanted the dog to chase the cat repeatedly around the Kitchen, at the start. He’d asked for a few extreme Foreground elements in silhouette, which weren’t in the board panels..  I chose to forego that idea, because I couldn’t think of way to make it work..  Chuck Gammage had worked as an animator on Richard Williams’ 1988 “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” feature. And I think he may have wanted to try and recreate some of the crazy chase elements that appeared in that Kitchen? As you can see by the screengrabs, the pair only run thru it once, without doing any of the elaborate laps in the storyboard..

In the end,-- I think everyone’s contributions helped create a fantastic-looking classic 90′s-era animated commercial, that still holds up to repeated viewing.. You can watch it (and judge for yourself), by clicking here!

Happy Holidays to all my Internet friends!!  Here's what this year's version of the Christmas card ended up looking like.. It was my meager attempt to ape the stylings of Eyvind Earle.. I had plans to model more shadows onto the limbs of the foreground tree,-- but I simply ran outta creative steam before the deadline crashed down onto 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.

Haven't been drawing - inking - coloring (or Posting) in quite some time now.. So, here's BEETLEJUICE in one of his classic poses!

In exactly 20 days, the new Nickelodeon cartoon series I’ve finished working on, will make it’s TV debut. I’m very eager to see/hear the reactions to (what I can only describe as) the most extraordinary animation project I’ve had the good pleasure to work on!

Seen above, are a small handful of the Layouts I completed, for the premier episode.. The show had a stellar cast of "Yowza Animation” talent, working magic on all aspects of the show. And the production pipeline was unique and innovative, in more ways than I can accurately describe.. Suffice to say, it’s highly unusual to have all of the environments “built” as 3D models first, that were then turned into specifically “hand-drawn” 2D location backgrounds!

It was a unique experience for me especially, as I’d also worked Layout on the short digital web-series on which this show was based, back in 2014. But I think that fans of the original web shorts will be even more amazed at the amplified depth and detail of the worlds, as now presented in “Welcome To The Wayne” TV series.. Hope you’ll all enjoy watching it!

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?

Digging through some old drawings last night, I found these.. After seeing a few examples of my Fan Art in the pages of AMAZING HEROES, I was approached by publisher Dave Goode to do cover art for his “SQUARED CIRCLE Comix”. I was very flattered, as the interior story was drawn by Bill Ward, a favorite artist of mine!

I was all of 25 years old in August of ‘88 when I drew this, so I can see a lot of things I’d definitely do differently now. I recall that Goode sent me a sampling of Steve Reeves photo reference for “Brad King”, the wrestler featured here.. I’m guessing I used a Marilyn Monroe photo book by Andre De Dienes, for the “Sugar Caine” bikini babe?

I was pretty obsessed (still am!) with Dave Stevens artwork, at this point. And while I like the Poses and Staging, the line weight on the inking is pretty sketchy. Even so, I recall mailing this and a number of other art samples to Dave Stevens. He wrote back a nice letter to me: “As for your drawing ability, you seem to have a good grasp on the Figure. So you shouldn’t have any trouble getting work. Based on the wrestling piece you did, I’d say you’re ready to try your stuff on a story..” 

You could have knocked me over with a feather, after that.