Told you…..

I’ve spent the last several days working on a TV parody for MAD. I did the tutorial mostly late last week and over the weekend while I was traveling in Massachusetts for prep work on our theme park operation at Six Flags New England. Since I have gotten back it’s been all MAD as it’s a short deadline.

TV parodies are easier in some ways than movies and harder in others. They are easier in that there is usually a lot of reference available for TV shows, with previous seasons (if any) sometimes on DVD, fan sites on the web with screen captures and, if nothing else, TIVO and pausing the screen for a quick study. Also, TV shows tend to occur in set places and the same environments every episode, so that part is easier. TV shows are harder than movies in the research end of it. I will see a movie at least twice prior to doing the art for the parody, at least in the case of movies that have been released before the parody is done, and that’s about it. It’s a short, self contained story and collection of imagery. With a TV show, I have to watch a lot of episodes to “get” the show, see things they do a lot, understand the little details and in general get a handle on it so I can add something to the mix in doing an effective parody. An example would be when I did “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” I noticed that Vincent D’Onfrio‘s “Det. Goren” is constantly leaning over into people’s personal space with weird head tilts, so I had some fun with that. It’s those little things that can make a difference in the overall feel.

Making fun of D’Onofrio’s mannerisms

As usual I’d never seen this show I’m working on, so I watched about a dozen episodes and did some further research, plus did some screen captures for reference and surfed for further reference on cameos and other things I would be drawing. Then I started the layouts and worked on the storytelling, etc. Almost done with that stage but I spend almost as much or more time on the prep part than the drawing part! MAD helps a lot with a pile of reference as well, but doing the prep gets me “into” the show and then I can come up with gags that make sense.

Readers will notice I am not mentioning the name of the show, and I will not be posting any pencils or sneak peeks until the issue is out and the art is officially published. I went over the reasons for that in a previous post. Upon further reflection and advice from greatly respected peers and mentors, I’ve concluded that it’s wrong to post ANY client artwork prior to publication. I can’t think of a scenario where the client would appreciate something they intend to publish, either in a publication or via advertising, released on the internet prior to it’s intended publication. Maybe most would not technically be hurt by posting it on the internet in any real way, but I think it’s a matter of professional courtesy whether they know about it or are likely to see it or not.

So, that means these “On the Drawing Board” posts will not be very visually exciting, and I might stop them altogether. On the plus side, once an image is in print I can post the art and if I saved some of the pencils everyone can get a glimpse of the process a little bit.

Back to work on the MAD job, and it looks like ‘Blackout’ time. That means I am behind and the only way to catch up is to turn off all distractions including my computer, let the voicemail pick up the phone, etc. On “Blackout Days” I log in first thing in the morning, get my e-mail and then power down the Mac and basically ignore the rest of the world. There will doubtless be appearances by the Dreaded Deadline Demon a few times in the next week.

New Photoshop Arriving Shortly- Adobe officially announced the newest version of their Creative Suite (CS) applications on Tuesday, which includes a new version of Photoshop called CS3. Some of the software will be shipping in April with the rest in the third quarter of 2007.

I’m not a big fan of getting the latest versions of software upon release. There are ALWAYS bugs and issues that need ironing out, and there is invariably a service release several months later. Plus it’s tough to justify the expense of upgrading when the product version I currently use is doing the job nicely. And with Adobe, it’s VERY expensive. I have Adobe Creative Suite 2 “Standard” which includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat and Indesign. The cost of the upgrade is a whopping $399.99. Yikes.

I have to say, though, that this is one I’ll dish out the cash for and probably sooner than later. With the CS3 applications, Abode finally delivers a Universal flavor of program. For Apple computer users, Universal programs are ones that run natively on an intel-based Mac. This is a long awaited move, as it is supposed to represent a significant performance (i.e. SPEED) increase for the processor heavy Adobe applications. Up until now, Adobe programs have been PowerPC based applications, or ones designed to run on the old type of Apple microprocessor. Since Apple switched to Intel chips, the Abode programs (and any other PowerPC programs) have needed to run under a software emulation program called “Rosetta” on Intel-based Macs. The emulation software is invisible and you don’t even realize it’s working, but opening a PowerPC program means you are using it. Any emulation software is going to slow down the speeds and performance of a programs that use it to run. So, Adobe programs have been running at less than their potential performance levels on those shiny, new Mac Pros and other Intel-Macs. The Universal versions will change all that, and finally take advantage of the power of the new line of Macs.

So, I think sometime in the late spring or early summer I may move on up to CS3. I’ll certainly post some thoughts on the pros and cons of the new software after I get a chance to play with it.

More Reuben Stuff- The National Cartoonist Society has posted a list of Reuben nominees complete with links to artwork samples. Not all of the samples are up yet, but hopefully that will happen soon.

Parallels Universe- Since I switched to a Mac one of the most annoying things I had to deal with was to find Mac counterparts to Windows programs. In some cases this was impossible. Microsoft Access, the Office database program, was something I used a lot for keeping my contractor info and mail merging with Microsoft Word for contracts, labels, lists, etc. I tried Filemaker Pro but there is no database program for Mac that works so well with Word, so I gave up there. Anther one was Internet Explorer. I prefer Firefox in general anyway, but IE is needed for certain websites that use it’s specific software for interactive forms. No other browser will work. My payroll company is one of these.

The switch by Apple to Intel chips meant that Windows could be run natively on Macs using virtualization software. Apple has it’s own in Boot Camp, which is in beta right now but is supposed to be bundled with the next Mac OS, “Leopard”. It requires a reboot of the Mac and a special partition on the hard drive to work, which seems to me to be a big hassle.

The virtualization program I use is called Parallels, and unlike Boot Camp it works within the Mac OS without the need for a reboot or a hard disk partition. It works like a charm, and within a few seconds I am looking at a Windows XP desktop and can launch Internet Explorer which uses my Mac’s wireless network connection to access the internet. It couldn’t be easier… well, it could and apparently now is. Parallels was recently updated and now has a feature called “Coherence“, wherein the Windows environment disappears entirely, and your Windows programs appear to be operating right on your Mac desktop. It promises to blur the lines between the Mac and PC environments even farther.

While I haven’t had time to play with this upgrade too much, I will say that “Coherence” does what it promises but not very well. The window containing the program is slow to resize or move, and seems unstable when you do either. I was unable to figure out how to lose the Windows taskbar, which it says you can do and use the dock’s Parallels icon for easy access to the Windows “Start” menu. No time to play with it to figure out how to do it. Right now the taskbar sits atop the dock.

It’s a nifty trick, but I preferred and still prefer to use the full screen mode when I have to use Windows. A simple click of a button and the desktop rotates to the left ala switching to a different user, and the Windows desktop fills the screen. It used to be a quick “alt+command” to switch back, but now that just brings up the Parallels menu bar and you have to use the mouse to change the view. It’s just as quick as “Coherence”, and is easier to use once in the environment. A useful tool if you must use Windows programs and you have an Intel Mac.

Apple TV a Little Sour- Looks like my fears about the video quality of the Apple TV were justified. This review of the new gadget on CNN.com referred to the picture quality as “generally disappointing“. It goes on to say:

Movies and TV shows in iTunes are currently available in what Apple calls “near-DVD quality” — a maximum of 640×480. Perhaps “bad analog cable quality” would be more descriptive–all of the videos were quite soft, lacking the sort of fine detail we’ve come to expect from well-mastered DVDs.

That was predictable based on the fact that the resolution was at the low end of what an HDTV (which is the only kind of TV the Apple TV unit can be hooked up to) can display and the MPEG compression of the videos is much more aggressive than found on broadcast TV or regular DVDs. They look good on a tiny ipod screen and even on a 15 inch computer monitor, but on a 50″ plasma??? Nope. This is a function of the iTunes content, not the machine. The Apple TV is fully capable of outputting true HD video at 720P or 1080i resolutions, but it is chained by the limitations of iTunes and the small size (33 GB of usable space) of it’s hard drive. 33 GBs would barely hold a single film in HD quality even if iTunes could make something like that downloadable in less than 5 hours. Until either internet speeds reach ridiculous levels or some alien technology is harnessed to compress a true HD film down to a managable download size with no distortion, the Apple TV is a race car with a tiny gas tank and only low octane, dirty gasoline to run on it.

Rendering with Washes

Now begins the real painting. We’ll start out with the fleshtones. It’s a simple matter to mask off the flesh areas, as they are all defined by the base color we applied.

Before we proceed, I’ve uploaded my basic Photoshop color swatch palette for those interested to download. It’s not very well organized, as I add colors to it as I work on pieces that I might need to use a lot and then never erase them, so everything is all over the place, but here it is.

Click for the palette file

Mac users just click the palette image and choose where to download it to. Windows users right click it and choose “save target as” and the location. Place it in your “presets” folder in the Photoshop application folder of your hard drive, and then you can load it as you wish in Photoshop.

First making sure I am on the “Figure” layer, I select the Magic Wand Tool and click within the flesh areas to select them. You can click each individual area while holding down the shift key , but it’s easier to go to the Photoshop menu bar (when the Magic Wand tool is active) and uncheck the “Contiguous” checkbox. Now one click of the base fleshtone will select all the base fleshtones in the image. (more…)

Applying the Base Color

When coloring I start by applying a base color for each area of the illustration. The color is a mid value, which will allow me to work both darker and lighter to achieve a range of values. Since I am not working on a layer with lines to contain the colors, I cannot use the Fill tool, but have to apply the color ‘by hand’ using my tablet and pen. Actually I use a Cintiq tablet from Wacom, which is a combination pressure sensitive tablet and display, where you draw and paint right on the screen using the special stylus/pen. I reviewed the Cintiq here, and it’s a terrific tool, but a regular Wacom tablet will do fine.

The base color has no opacity variances, but is a solid color. This makes it easy to select with the Magic Wand tool, so I can mask off any area I am painting with just a click. Like I mentioned, I keep the values of these base colors at about the mid range of the value of the object or area it describes. That way I can paint in one direction or the other, value wise, to render the area and create some depth and interest.

My first step will be to create a layer for each different group of areas I am going to color. I used to just apply all the color on the background layer, but lately I’ve learned the value of working on different layers. It’s much easier to make corrections that way. I still keep it simple, because it’s too easy to get mixed up on which layer you are painting on and cause problems. Usually I think in terms of depth of field with respect to the objects in the illustration when determining my layers… one layer for foreground objects, one for mid-ground, etc. For this simple piece, in order of topmost to bottom-most, I will create a layer for the taboret, one for the figure, and one for the table and chair. I’ll use the background layer for the floor shadow and color elements I’ll put behind everything. The topmost layer is the linework “Inks”, but later we’ll add some highlight layers on top of that. (more…)

We begin with a piece of inked line art that we intend to color. I’m using this self caricature done for promotional purposes. It’s a simple, uncomplicated image and there is literally no background, so it will be ideal for this demonstration of the digital line art color technique I use for MAD and other clients. If you are wondering about the inking process, check out my inking tutorial from a few months ago about how to arrive at a clean, inked piece of line art.

BTW, I am using Photoshop CS2 on a Mac Pro running OS X. This all works just fine in Photoshop on the PC, and I’ve indicated PC shortcuts in parentheses. I approached this tutorial with the assumption that some readers will be unfamiliar with even the basic Photoshop elements, so I include the simplest of concepts and steps quite often. My apologies to the Photoshop pros who have to gloss over these parts. (more…)

Q: Aren’t you worried about getting sued by a celebrity for selling their caricature? Isn’t their image copyrighted somehow?

A: No, I am not worried about it for many reasons. First off, I don’t sell their caricatures. I draw caricatures for publications like magazines, books and newspapers. Neither I nor they can be sued by a celebrity for using their likeness to accompany a story or article, because that’s what freedom of the press is. Magazines use photos and illustrations of celebrities all the time and the only way they can be sued if is the article that they are illustrating knowingly lies about the person. That’s called libel, and even that is tough to prove in court (see: tabloids). Beside that has nothing to do with the art. MAD has been sued many times and the courts have always upheld their right to parody or make fun of celebrities and/or the media.

Celebrities do have a copyright on their image in a way, it’s called the right of publicity. Basically this is a right to protect the value of their own image or likeness. The laws vary a lot as they are state level laws.. there is no federal statute defining the right of publicity. The right of publicity mainly deals with preventing another party from producing products where the likeness of the celebrity is the driving force behind the product’s appeal, or from using the likeness of the celebrity to sell another product. There are several court cases that have set some precedents on these matters. The right of publicity does not extend to the use of a celebrity’s image in news, publications, books or other vehicles of opinion, nor for public criticism or parody as long as the vehicle of that criticism is a recognized one.

I can legally use the likenesses of celebrities to advertise my art. That is called fair use. As long as I do not imply in any way that the specific celebrities I have caricature examples of are personally endorsing my work, I can legally use their caricatures to demonstrate my abilities. I make a living doing caricatures… caricatures need to look like their subjects… the only way I can show potential clients my skills is to show them caricatures of people they will recognize… the only way to do that is draw people anyone will recognize… that means celebrities. Fair use.

Back in August I wrote a long, detailed blog post about the right of publicity and how it pertains to caricature in particular. Check that out if you want more details.

Thanks to Steve Jensen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

Getting very busy again, and right now I am in Massachusetts for some prep work and interviewing for our art concessions at Six Flags New England.

Self Caricature- I finally finished this new self caricature the other day, as I had grown to hate the other ones I’ve been using:

Would you trust this man?

I had a few purposes in mind for this. First the practical, which is to use it for a postcard I’ll be sending out after completing a job for a client as a “thank you/hope to work with you again” mailer. Second, I occasionally get asked for a self-image for this or that. Third, and the real reason it took so long, is I planned to track the steps for the coloring for a more comprehensive tutorial on by digital color technique than this mini one I did months ago. This I did as I painted the art, and I will be assembling it over the weekend. Look for a multi-day tutorial starting Monday, complete with lots of screen shots, detailed descriptions of the steps and even a time lapse video of me painting the face area of the piece.

MAD TV Parody- I just got assigned a new TV show job for MAD, but that’s all I can tell you. It’s going to be a fun one, though. Rough deadline.

Greeting Card Project- I am working up a series of greeting cards with political humor and themes for a card company. Greeting cards are kind of like gag cartoons, in that you create them and pitch them, but they are not always accepted. I was contacted to submit some ideas because of the caricature related nature of the cards they want to feature politicians. I’ll be making fun of both sides of the aisle. We’ll see if any get picked up.

A few other pending projects but those are the immediate jobs on the board. An appearance by the Dreaded Deadline Demon is almost inevitable next week at some point.

NCS President Rick Stromoski released the names of the Reuben Award nominees for 2007 on Thursday. They are as follows:

REUBEN AWARD for Cartoonist of the Year

• Bill Amend
• Dave Coverly
• Dan Piraro

REUBEN DIVISION AWARDS – NOMINEES (listed alphabetically)

Feature Animation

• Peter De Seve, Character Design (Fox) “Ice Age 2: The Meltdown”
• Carter Goodrich, Character Design (Sony) “Open Season”
• Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpatrick, Directors (Dreamworks) “Over The Hedge”

Magazine Feature/Magazine Illustration

• Steve Brodner
• Tom Richmond
• Jean-Jacques Sempe

Comic Book

• Cancer Vixen by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi

Newspaper Illustration

• Sean Kelly
• Robert Sanchuk
• Laurie Triefeldt

Advertising Illustration

• Craig McKay
• Jack Pittman
• Tom Richmond

Newspaper Panels

• Tony Carillo, “F Minus”
• Keiran Meehan, “Meehan”
• Hilary Price, “Rhymes With Orange”

Book Illustration

• Mike Lester, 93 In My Family
• Wiley Miller, The Extraordinary Adventures Of Ordinary Basil
• Adrian Sinnott, Caveman Manners

Newspaper Comic Strips

• Bill Griffith, “Zippy The Pinhead”
• Stephan Pastis, “Pearls Before Swine”
• Mark Tatulli, “Lio”

Television Animation

• David Hulin, “Geico Gecko”
• Steve Loter, “Kim Possible”
• Craig McCracken, “Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends”

Greeting Cards

• Kevin Ahern
• Pat Byrnes
• Carla Ventresca

Gag Cartoons

• Drew Dernavich
• Mick Stevens
• P.C. Vey

Editorial Cartoons

• Mike Lester
• Glenn McCoy
• Mike Ramirez

Let’s see… in “Magazine Feature/Magazine Illustration” I’ve up against one of the most recognizable illustrators of the last quarter century in Steve Brodner and a Living Legend in French cartoonist and New Yorker cover regular Jean-Jacques Sempe… yep, better clear a space on that wall right now for the plaque! Both Craig McCay and Jack Pittman in the “Advertising Illustration” division are Reuben winning cartoonists as well… so it doesn’t get much better there.

Those are jokes, of course. It really is a huge honor just to get mentioned in the same breath as these talented artists, so come what may I am very proud to be nominated.

Best of luck to all the nominees.

What fictional character has been portrayed most often in film? Tarzan? James Bond? Adam Sandler? Sherlock Holmes, the great 18th century fictional detective holds that title by a landslide. More than 75 different actors have portrayed Holmes, in well over 200 movies.

Holmes was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an author of novels, short stories and poetry from Scotland. Born in 1859, Conan Doyle led a very interesting life. He was many things including a student of medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where some of his fellow classmates included Robert Louis Stevenson and James Barrie. He served as a ship’s physician on the West African coast and practiced medicine in Plymouth. His talent for storytelling, which was nurtured by his mother, began to surface as he began to write as a sideline to his doctoring. After a near death experience he left the medical practice entirely to write full time. A more complete (but still brief) biography can be found here and here. Although a very prolific writer, with many novels including historical books, mysteries, war stories and even other literary heroes like Professor Challenger, Conan Doyle will always be remembered chiefly for Sherlock Holmes.

That would probably not make Conan Doyle very happy. He is famous for his disenchantment and dislike for the Holmes character, with many legends saying he hated Holmes. He has been credited as saying the felt the Holmes stories to be commercial trash, taking time away from his more important works. He tried to kill Holmes off at one point, only to have to acquiesce to a demanding public and resurrect him for further adventures. Most of the Holmes stories were published in a British magazine called The Strand, and the great detectives adventure’s were a smash success both in Europe and America. Conan Doyle wrote 60 Holmes stories in all, 56 short stories and four novels. The first, in which Holmes and Dr. John Watson meet and have their first adventure, was published in 1887 and called A Study in Scarlet. In 1893 the short story The Final Problem, in which Holmes dies going over Reichenbach Falls with his mortal enemy, Professor Moriarty, appeared in The Strand. Legend has it 20,000 angry subscribers canceled their subscriptions as a result. After his return Conan Doyle continued his Holmes work until the final story of The Retired Colourman in 1926. Conan Doyle died in 1930.

I’ve got a great number of the Holmes mysteries on audiobook, and lately I’ve been listening to them while working in the studio. Like in the movies, the Holmes stories have been published in countless editions and compilations. The novels, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear often appear separate but are also found in various compilations, often abridged. The complete original 60 Conan Doyle stories can be found in print in the four novels and five collections: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. Unfortunately for the audiobook listener it’s not that easy. Collections like A Treasury of Sherlock Holmes and The Sherlock Holmes Collection seem to throw the stories in with no rhyme or reason, often even repeating the same story amid different volumes of the same collection. In 2004, a company called “One Voice Recordings” produced The Sherlock Holmes Collection on audiobook, with narrator David Ian Davies. Davies does an excellent job with Holmes and Watson as well as the other characters. You would think recordings produced in 2004 would be of good quality, but some sound like very old radio broadcasts… tinny and hollow (not Ian Davie’s readings, they are quite well produced, but others), with many obvious dubs where the character voices change dramatically in mid narrative. The audio seems to speed up and slow down here and there as well. Very distracting. Someone need to produce a complete, chronological Sherlock Holmes collection on audiobook, with good quality recordings.

That aside, the Conan Doyle stories hold up remarkably well for many being over 100 years old. The mysteries are not dated and many could still be imagined to happen in some form or fashion today. So inventive and innovative was Conan Doyle’s Holmes that he, along with Edgar Allen Poe‘s character Dupin, changed crime literature forever. It’s a treat to listen to the stories, and they are mostly short and easy therefore to stop and pick up again later.

It’s easy for me to believe Conan Doyle detested Holmes and felt he was a chain around his neck, as there are many indications in his stories that he wanted to end the tales. In the very first story he wrote he married off Watson at the end, and portrayed Holmes as an egotistical jerk looking mainly to make money with his skills. Later Holmes would become more the selfless hero, but in the beginning he was selfish and seeking fame and fortune. Clearly Conan Doyle did not mean there to be continuing adventures. Even after he killed Holmes off and brought him back, there were lot of signs he did not want to continue with the character. He wrote several stories where Holmes had left London and was retired in the country raising bees… trying to put him to pasture. He also tried to distance himself in the novel The Valley of Fear, where a great deal of the story doesn’t concern Holmes at all, but is more in the line of his historical type stories, much to the chagrin of his readers. While still worth reading (or listening to), these later stories don’t have the same exciting grip as the ones where Holmes and Watson languish in 221B Baker Street, solving the puzzles of the world from armchairs amid clouds of tobacco, occasionally sallying forth to catch the scoundrels and villains of London red-handed by gaslight.

Sadly I cannot recommend any specific audiobooks of Holmes’ adventure, as I have not found any with the production values and organization worth recommending. I DO recommend the stories, however. Timeless and enjoyable.