SCUBA & Snorkeling Fins Dive Flag T-Shirt

SCUBA/snorkeling fin dive flag t-shirt designI just posted this SCUBA dive flag t-shirt design up on Zazzle. I was going through some of my archives and had forgotten about this one. I came up with this after taking a camping trip to the Florida Keys (the Bahia Honda Key in particular) a few years ago.

The campsites are right on the beach (with electricity even!), and it’s one of the few areas in the world where snorkeling can be done right from the shore. The entire group brought snorkeling gear “just in case”, but we all found ourselves instant snorkeling enthusiasts from day one. From the outside, it seems kinda boring. When you are actually doing it, it’s inexplicably awesome. Since the creative gears are always crankin’, I ended up working up some sketches for t-shirt ideas and when this one popped up, I knew I had a winner. And then I promptly filed it away and lost track of it for three years!

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Digital Coloring Tutorials by MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond

MAD Magazine cartoonist Tom Richmond digital coloring tutorial screenshotIf you aren’t familiar with cartoonist Tom Richmond, make yourself familiar. This guy’s work is absolutely amazing. Very much in the style of Mort Drucker from MAD Magazine — only taken to the extreme. Not only is his cartooning & caricature style excellent, but his color work is also phenomenal. Tom graciously has taken the time to outline exactly how he digitally colors his artwork in Photoshop in a juicily-detailed three-post tutorial/how-to series on his cartooning blog.

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Pencil Grades: An Overview

Bunch of pencilsI touched on the awesomeness of using multiple pencil grades in a previous post on essential cartoonist tools before, but there’s a great overview specifically on pencil grades by cartoonist Matt Glover. There’s some decent additional pencil grade classification information over at Wikipedia as well.

Find out what those cryptic “2B”, “HB”, “6H” and the rest really mean. Knowing the difference, having a full set of pencils with all the grades in the range is a must. This is the way to lay down very thick, dark blacks in your drawings as well as fine, light grays. It’s all in the blackness and hardness my friends.

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Cleveland Clinic Medical Mart Star Wars Parody – Cleveland Free Times August 15, 2007 Issue

Mart Wars - Star Wars themed parody on the Medical Mart controversy in Cleveland OhioI (very) recently worked on a two-page spread illustration for the Cleveland Free Times issue that comes out this week (Wed. Aug. 15, 2007). The piece was a satire on the controversial Cleveland Clinic “Medical Mart” being proposed in Cleveland, Ohio.

Writer James Renner found my work via my website and wanted me to illustrate his Star Wars themed parody of the shenanigans. The piece was done in a cartoon style (obviously) reminiscent of MAD Magazine, as I was flexing some serious Mort Drucker, Sam Viviano & Jack Davis idolisation while creating the piece.

Staff writer Renner, along with Editor Frank Lewis were extremely pleased with the final piece, which was created on a super-tight deadline (even after being given a requested week’s bump by Art Director Ron Kretsch due to many existing and pressing projects on my end).

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The Cartoon Research Library at Ohio State University

Who knew that Ohio State University has a Cartoon Research Library? Who knew anybody had a Cartoon Research Library?

A quick search to test the database, I searched for “Mort Drucker, magazine cartoon, MAD Magazine” (by selecting from the pre-existing categories in the search fields). Turns out you only get a textual search result, much like an old-school computer card catalog in a library.

They also sponsor an annual Festival of Cartoon Art, which this year is held October 26-27, 2007.

Ten Essential Low-Tech (and Cheap!) Tools for Cartoonists & Illustrators

Still using that pencil you found in the couch and an old dictionary as a drawing board? Don’t feel like the biggest computer wiz when it comes to graphics software? There are plenty of inexpensive tools out there that will boost your productivity and enjoyment level when drawing, sketching or just doodling. And you don’t have to spend a ton of money to expand your tool kit in ways that are sure to make your life much easier, giving you more time to draw.

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Great Wacom Tablet Scrolling Software For Mac OS X: Smart Scroll X

Smart Scroll X iconIn some previous posts, I rambled on about the ability to scroll, one-handed, using the Wacom software, and a shareware alternative, Smart Scroll X. I also touched on this a bit in my Wacom Intuos graphics tablets review.
I am very pleased to report that the developer of Smart Scroll X has worked out the issues with Camino and NetNewsWire. The newly introduced scrolling feature in the Wacom tablet driver software is very cool, and should be more than sufficient for most users. Smart Scroll X fills a gap that the more nerdy of us may appreciate. And I think this is the proper situation for a shareware app – to extend functionality. Continue reading

Sexy Cartoon School Girl Pin-Up – now avaialble at MyPSPTubes.com

Sexy cartoon schoolgirl pinup illustration

A new sexy cartoon school girl pinup has recently been added to my slowly growing collection over at MyPSPTubes*. This one was fun to work on. I wanted to play on the classic fighter plane nose cone art where the girls were straddling a plane (or a bomb!). I thought the number two pencil was perfect. She was given glasses at one point for that sexy librarian look we all love, but it just didn’t work with the overall design. Continue reading