Caricature Friday

Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter mode. John Wayne in the Searchers mode.
First row: Joe , Tom, and Tony from the band Joe Baiza's Congress.
Second row: Some friendly abuse from the Sardo's Happy Bottom Riding Club and Caricature Society. Ted Blackman and Steve Nicodemus nailed me (in a manly way).

Girls

Some early sketches of Females for the Chestaclese animatic 2002. To see it go to December 2007 on this blog.

Merch to be promoted

Illustrations for a cd by my friends Anthony Cossa and them. Sonic madness and rhythmic glory combine to form modern progressive ear food.

This job taught me things about illustration in general in today's tech - digital and paper. I like to start with a quick thumbnail sketch and a little marker color. Most of the time the thumbnail is the best version due to the inevitable downgrading as it goes to finish. This is where I go off the tracks, but with work it looks decent. The key is to stay faithful to the thumb and push it without losing the first flash of inspiration (See the John K. blog "All Kinds of Stuff") which we know is very difficult for knuckleheads like myself. The rough layouts were done mostly with marker and pencil plus a little black felt marker, then scanned and tweaked in Corel Painter 9. Using a small Wacom tablet, the colors were saturated and the inking was cleaned up. Found and created images were scattered about like Waldo. I love doing stuff like that - it's a collage! It gets tricky when the various images are very different sizes, leading to resolution problems. I usually do it the hard way and just slog through to the end, scan and resize, delete, resize - rescan and so on.

Art for Christmas

My special holiday babe post, Merry Holidays!

FEARLESS DAWN #1 SPECIAL EDITION IN SHOPS

Frank, over at Asylum Press sent these over. he tells me Steve Mannion's new book FEARLESS DAWN is in comic shops as of last week. Here's a sneak peak you pervs!!!







AND HERE'S A SNEAK PEAK AT 2 PAGES FROM FEARLESS DAWN #2--

Ripping Storyboard

Storyboard from Ripping Friends episode "Stinky Butt", 1999-2000.

Thumb to cel

As you can see, I did this bassackwards. It looks nice to have the pretty colored picture at the top.
At bottom below is the initial thumbnail almost a doodle, that shows the attitude/design of the character, then goes to a storyboard sketch much like the thumbnail. Layout artist turns it into a full-sized rough drawing which becomes the model basically. The animator brings it to life with movement, and also separates the arm and body so the head can talk and move independently. Animation is cleaned up, painted on a cel (back in the days) with background painting underneath, camera goes click! and Voila! You get a beautiful image of perversity and disgust. If only it were so easy.
Note: Sorry I lost the comments when I reposted, thanks to all who posted. I didn't do it right the first time. The missing piece is the desk on an OL/UL.

Behind the Scenes

Building of a scene from thumbnail to animation.

Animation Art

3 layouts and 1 animation drawing from Big House Blues, for sale cheap.

Book illustration type Drawings

From a book written by Jennifer Waters aka Jennifer Blowdryer, The book is about famous last meals. (brush-tip marker type pen on white stationery.)

More fom the Ren and Stimpy stack

First image is rough layout from Space Madness.
Second and third images are layout and rough animation, Big House Blues.

Jesus

And a happy new chanuka to all!

Poster art

This poster rocks. I only regret not having a better image. It is a good example of comic book style movie posters. I don't have the artist's name.

Football, I tell ya what!

How about those Houston Texans? They have winning record and hope to continue that tradition. They might even get into the playoffs, in 10 or 12 years!

Haeyna Orgy

We had a fine hootenanny over to the Haeyna gallery last night. Steve Worth sang the Ballad of Chestaclese and slayed the whole multitude. Many thanks to all who attended.
This image above is the first T-shirt design - front and back. Shirts will be white - sizes large and X large. $15 plus shipping.

Zombie Nazis and Ghosts

Bottom - Lovely example of some vintage early 50s horror comics.
Top 3 - Character designs for Ghostbusters cartoon, 1987-88. Artist name on the tip of my tongue...Everett Peck, thanks John. Oh, it's not Peck but Fil Barlow. Sorry guys. Boy am I red.

Have just finished reading volume 3 of Thimble Theatre featuring Popeye the Sailor, some of the most amazing and original comics ever. Extremely well drawn and written by Segar I highly recommend these as a prime example of newspaper comics. Funny and full of genuine pathos these stories will take off into unexpected directions. The animated version did the strip justice which is also rare. There are some really creepy scenes with the Sea-Hag and the fight with Bluto is nuts!

Ralph Bakshi

Ralph's drawing style is very appealing. You can see the era from whence comes his influence. (Is that good grammar?)

Book signing

Saturday November 14 we's having a little shindig over to the art gallery across the street. Free booze and hot babes. I will be signing sketchbooks and posters, (and hopefully body parts). Sorry folks - I told you the wrong time - it started at 5 and goes to 10. I am a retard (sometimes).

Weekend Pussy crap

Smattering of layouts from all over. I don't know what's going on in those smoking scenes and I don't want to know, I just needed money. Weekend Pussy Hunt 1995.

Art for Cheap

Big shiny 11"x17" glossy prints on card stock, for sale. Chestaclese 2008 is $10 and the barbarian 1978 is $15. Please include $5 shipping. E-mail me at jimsmithcartoons@gmail.com or use the donate paypal button.
Makes a great gift or buy one for yourself! They are also available at the Hyena where I will be signing stuff on Saturday Nov. 14.