This week’s sketch is Grey’s Anatomy star Patrick Dempsey. I started it too close to the binder of the sketchbook and so it hangs into the spiral. I was working on it at Valleyfair the other day and some lady yelled at me for making his nose look like that. I thought I was being nice.

I got my Mac Pro back on Saturday and all was once again right with the world. I’m not sure they did anything at all to it, but as long as it’s working right it’s all good.

I also picked up a copy of the brand spanking new release of Mac OS 10.5 aka “Leopard”, the much ballyhooed new operating system upgrade from Apple. Leopard has some nifty and powerful new feature as well as a whole lot of eye candy, and not upgrading is a little like Stimpy being unable to resist the red “candy-like” button with the “Do Not Push” sign over it. I knew I’d eventually do it, so I bought the program partly using my $100 iPhone credit.

Apple has long touted itself as far easier to use than Windows. Software programs do not conflict with each and hardware just plugs in and works… in theory. Upgrading the OS is supposed to be a similarly painless procedure. As a former Windows user I can attest that upgrading to a new flavor of Windows is such a nerve wracking experience, where something ALWAYS goes wrong, that I would literally just buy a new computer with it preloaded rather than attempt an upgrade. Certainly at the very least I would wipe the hard drive and do a complete, fresh install from scratch, then reinstall all my software, hardware and finally my data. Apple does do it better than Windows, but it’s far from painless.

Windows has one thing going for it Apple does not… about 90% of all personal computers in the world run Windows. Because of that enormous market, and Microsoft’s willingness to distribute endless seeds of their OS code way in advance, by the time it’s newest version comes out all your favorite hardware and software have updates and drivers available to make it compatible with Windows Whatever. Not so Apple. A lot of programs need at least some kind of tweaking via a patch to work properly with Leopard, and some need a full upgrade. Few programs or hardware seem to have a fully Leopard compatible upgrade or driver ready right now.

It looks like it may be several months before I will be able to upgrade the OS on my Mac Pro to Leopard. Right now my scanner will not work with it (except using a questionable third party scanning program… more on that in a second), my fax software won’t work at all, Office and Quickbooks Pro programs work but need an update to be 100% compliant, and there are a dozen little programs I use all the time like DVD Capture, Fetch and others that I have no idea if they work nor when or if they will ever get updated. Software and hardware companies take care of their Windows customers first as they are legion, and us poor Mac slummers are often left waiting.

Take my scanner for example… please. I have a Microtek ScanMaker 9800XL, which is a large format 12″ x 17″ flatbed that is absolutely indispensable for my work. I scan large pieces of line art for coloring in PhotoShop as well as all my pencils to send in for review, etc. I would be lost without a scanner. Microtek may be the worst hardware company that deals in equipment for graphics (of which Mac is still a very common if not dominant professional platform) in terms of supporting Mac users with drivers and software. They refuse to write Mac drivers for scanner models that are barely a few years old, and what scanners they do bother to write Mac drivers and software for they don’t get around to it for a long, long time. Mac’s switched to Intel-based chips well over a year ago and Microtek has only released drivers for two of their scanner models to support the IntelMac hardware… neither of them mine. I found a workaround but have been unable to calibrate my scanner since getting my Mac Pro. Fortunately I only scan black and white images. I do not recommend Microtek scanners for Mac users… if you need a large format scanner get the Epson Expression 10000XL. It’s pricey but at least Epson supports their products… they already have a Leopard driver and software.

The bottom line is any upgrade to your OS that is not a simple patch is a major event, and should not be done lightly on a computer you use for work and need for productivity. I’ve got a Macbook Pro and have upgraded that so I can get a feel for Leopard before taking the plunge on my Mac Pro in a few months.

I’m busy right now on the final coloring for two MAD jobs, plus an ad job and another poster after that, then we’ll see if I get a breather. These “On the Drawing Board” posts are getting harder to do, because I can never show what I am working on as most clients don’t want that made public until after it’s seen print. Instead of “On the Drawing Board” I should started calling them “On the drawing board about 6 weeks ago and I’ve forgotten all about it by now…”

October may have been the busiest month I’ve ever had freelance-wise… at one time I had six jobs going at once, and did over a dozen throughout the month. I even had to spend one of the days on my family trip to Florida holed up at my buddy Keelan’s place doing the color work on an ad job… that I can’t show you until next month. By the time I can show this work to you, it’s like ancient history to me.

Well, I’ve tried to begin scanning in my steps on some of these jobs so when I can post an image it’s not just a “see, lookee here whut aye dun!” sort of thing. In that spirit, here’s a poster job I did last month with some of the steps along the way:

The initial assignment was to create an image of a lady finds that the bathroom remodelers have left the place a mess as they race off for the day. I did a rough of the basic layout to start at about 6″ x 6″… the final poster is going to be 17″ x 17″. This client likes a cartoony look and humor without it being over the top… they are especially concerned that the people depicted are not very outlandish, but animated. Here’s my initial layout sketch:

From here I worked up a tighter pencil at 12″ x 12″ for client review:

The client’s feedback was that they wanted a sense of the woman having just arrived home to find this mess. I reworked the figure to change the body angle, and added the groceries and keys to tell the story a bit more clearly. I did a separate sketch of the new figure to run by them:

Then I placed it in the original sketch and fixed what needed fixing digitally for final approval.

I got the green light, so I transfered the drawing to board at 17″ x 17″ (I ink these at print size since any bigger is just too big to work or scan) for inking. I decided to lose the keys as they were unnecessary. I then inked it:

Following that I started with the color. Here’s a partially finished stage:

Then the final illustration:

Click for a closer look

It takes me a whole day to ink and color one of these, and that’s a very long day. Realistically it’s more like two days. They aren’t complicated but they are big, and that means I have to render things well so they look good up close.

When some of the other jobs I did this month see print, I’ll share them here.

Q: Do any of your children share an interest in cartooning or art? Would you encourage or discourage them from that interest? Would or do you employ them at any of your concessions?

A: All of my kids are creatively talented and interested in the arts. They all draw and do it very well, but none of them have much of an interest in being a professional artist. My oldest Elizabeth, 17, is autistic and very musical. She can hear a song and sing or hum it without missing a note right after. Victoria, 15, draws very well and is thinking about doing caricatures when she’s old enough. I am sure she could do it, but that’s just her idea of a summer job. She’d like to get into performing arts and theater, as she has an amazing voice and is quite the little actor. Gabrielle, 13, is also very good in theater and has a terrific voice. She is highly creative and can both draw and design very well. She wants to get into the culinary arts and be a pastry chef, which is a very creative job. My son Tommy, 11, also draws well and likes it. He may be the closest of any of the kids to wanting to use his art skills for a living. He wants to do art for video game design… must be all those hours he’s logging in on Halo 3.

I would encourage any of my kids to pursue art for a living if they wanted to, just as I would encourage them to do anything that they set their minds to as a career. I would never push them towards it, but I would certainly encourage them if that is what they want to do.

As for having them draw caricatures for me, I would do that in a heartbeat if they make the cut. They understand they can’t get the job just because they are my kids… they’d have to demonstrate the skill and commitment to learning and improving I demand of all the people that work for me. I don’t think that is an issue, each of them has enough talent and nature appitude, so all it will take is hard work and training. Luckily they live with the teacher.

Thanks again to Michael Garisek 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!

I took my Mac into the Apple Store on Wednesday for it’s annual tune up… part of a service package you can get where they run tests, check software, clean it up and make sure it’s working in top shape. I wanted to get it done prior to upgrading to the new Mac OS 10.5 “Leopard” operating system, which I may or may not do depending on some hardware compatibility issues with my Microteck scanner.

Looks like I picked a bad time. The “World Premiere” of Leopard (are we really that far gone that a piece of software has a “World Premiere”??) was today, and that seems to have delayed my Mac tune up being finished. It was supposed to be done today, but no calls.

It’s funny how reliant one becomes on things like computers without even realizing it. I thought I’d have no problem getting by for a few days sans my main Mac. I have my laptop and my iPhone to keep up with e-mail, access to my contacts, surf the web and even to post on this blog. I planned ahead and had several days worth of drawing and inking to do so I wouldn’t need to use PhotoShop (although in a pinch I can use my laptop with either my Cintiq or my portable Wacom tablet). I thought I had the whole thing covered.

Then a client called needing me to resend an invoice… oops, that is only on my main computer on my accounting program. Another called to ask if he could fax me some info on a project… oops, my fax software is on my Mac. Then I wanted to post some artwork that I had done recently that was finally in print and I could share on the blog… oops, all that is on my main computer as well. Hmmm, it wasn’t as easy as I thought.

Hopefully I get it back tomorrow because I am to do some final color work on those two MAD jobs on the board. Then life will be back to normal… whatever that is.

Back when I built my studio I constructed a homemade light table that was incorporated into a counter area. I made it out of a shop light I bought at Home Depot, the kind that hang from the ceiling and have 4 fluorescent lights in it. All I did was turn it upside down, place it in a frame I placed between counter areas, rigged a cord and wall plug and placed a piece of 1/4 inch plexiglass on top.

That’s the light table to the right of Shakespeare

It worked pretty well, actually. But I quickly realized that the flat nature of the light table was making it difficult to use. What I generally do with an illustration, especially those for MAD, is do a fairly drawn out rough at print size to send in for review. Then I scan this rough, increase the size to inking size (200% in MAD‘s case) and then transfer it to a 3 or 4 ply bristol. Because of the light table’s flat surface, it was impossible to “draw” for long on the bristol using the light box. I had to lean over at an awkward angle, and therefore was forced to do a very quick and limited sketch of the original rough. Then I took that back to the drawing table and redrew it, incorpoating any changes I needed to make and fixing any issues I saw.That was inefficient. I was spending all this time working out the rough pencils, only to have to spend time hunched over a flat light table doing a very insubstantial transfer and then having to draw it all over again. I thought “wouldn’t it be better to have a combination drawing table and light table, so I can comfortably transfer the roughs onto bristol and actually do the ‘drawing’ at the same time… making my adjustments and changes right on the light table and ending up with a ready-to-ink final pencil?”

Yes, it would.

So, I spend a day recently designing a new light table that is a combination of my old 36″ x 48″ drafting table and my old light box. My scanner’s not working so I have no blueprints, but here’s how I did it:

Step One: The Raw Materials

I started out with the table I was basing this on and the shop light originally used in the first light table.

My old drafting table, 36″ x 48″ top

The shop light

These shop lights are exactly 48 inches long, so that’s perfect for the table. I just needed to build a frame to encase the outside edge of the table top, rather than be on top of it. That way the interior dimension of the frame would be a full 36″ x 48″. The light is only 23 inches wide, so there will be table top not part of the light box.

Here are the building materials

I bought some decent 1″ x 6″ pine boards, rather than rough lumber. Places like Home Depot will cut the boards for you to whatever lengths you want for free. I had them cut me three 48″ and two 37.5 inch lengths. I kept the extra which I will use some of for support braces. I also bought a piece of 1/4 inch clear plexiglass, which comes in 36″ x 72″ sheets. I had them cut that to 49.5″ x 36″. I also bought some #8 1 1/4 inch screws, some 1 1/2″ corner braces and about 4 feet of 1/4″ x 1/4″ trim hobby boards.

For tools and other supplies I needed a power drill, 1/8 inch, 1/16 drill bits, a 1 1/2 inch spade bit and a phillips screw bit, a table saw, hammer, 1″ finishing nails, wood glue, a pint of black paint, and a power or belt hand sander.

Step 2: Building the Frame:

First I wrapped the table in the outer frame. I screwed two of the 48″ boards to the top and bottom edges of the table top. The ends were flush with the table sides, and the bottom of each board flush with the underside of the table.

Completed main frame

You can see how I used five screws along the bottom of the board, into the edge of the table top. That’s a lot of screws but this thing will be pretty heavy when done. I did that on each side. I pre-drilled the holes in the 1×6′s with our 1/8 inch bit so I didn’t split the wood. I also used two screws on the end of the side boards (the 37.5″ ones”) that screwed into the end edges of the 48″ boards.

Next I added the middle board, which creates the frame that the shop light sits in.

The larger space is 48″ x 23″, just right for the shop light

These lights have a ‘lip’ along the long edges that work perfectly to hold them in place when turned upside down and placed in the space. The shop light is 23″ wide, so I needed to place this middle board so there is 23″ between it and the foremost board. The complication here is that this 48″ middle board is also a 1×6, and since the outside frame boards are screwed into the outside edges of the table rather than sitting on top of it, the middle board (which has to sit on top of the original tabletop) will stick up 3/4 of an inch from the level of the outside frame. That’s where the table saw comes in. I used it to cut the middle board down by 3/4 of an inch (the thickness of the table top). Now it is flush, and I screwed it into the proper place.

Next I added some supports along the top cavity so that the plexi top won’t warp under it’s own weight. Here we use the extra pieces from the boards they cut for us at Home Depot. I once again had to cut them on the table saw so they are 3/4 of an inch less wide. I then measured the space between the middle board and the outer topmost board: 15 1/4 inches. I cut two of these boards and secured them in place with screws. Notice I also drilled a big hole for the power cord to come through… that is done with the 1 1/4 inch spade bit.

There is one more thing I needed to do, but I forgot to take a picture of that step. I needed to put a lip of some kind across the bottom for the plexi to rest on, otherwise it would just slide right off onto my lap. Here I used the 1/4 x 1/4 inch trim boards. I glued them into place along the upper edge of the bottom board flush with the frame’s outside plane, right where the bottom of the plexi will rest. I also pre-driledl 1/16 holes at 6 inch intervals across the top of this lip, and used the finishing nails to secure the board. This will easily hold the weight of the plexi top.

It’s at this point that I smashed my finger with the hammer. All projects contain at last one injury, screw up or miscalculation. Skin grows back for free and replacing materials costs money, so I prefer the injury. However the profanity I uttered upon mashing my finger was so concentrated and venomous that it melted a plastic Batman action figure nearby and my cat has not approached me since the incident… I think she’s deaf now.

The frame is now done.

Step 3: Sanding and Painting

I won’t bother sanding the frame, the pine is very smooth. However I do give it’s outside and edges a coat of black paint.

I also added the corner braces along the inside of the upper board just for more support of the frame’s weight… one in the center of each upper space.

Corner braces help carry the weight of the light box…

Now I was ready to prepare the plexiglas top. It’s no good to leave it totally clear like glass, because then the light coming though it will be too bright in places. I needed to make the plexi translucent as opposed to tranparent, which will give me a nice, diffused light.

To do that I simply sanded one side of the plexi. That will turn it milky and translucent. Using the handheld power sander and some rough grit andpaper, I went to work on only one side of the plexi, leaving the other side smooth.

About halfway done with the sanding…

Since part of the plexi will not need to allow light through, I measured that part of the frame, taped off that sized area on the plexi and painted it black on the newly rough side.

It takes two coats for both the plexi and the frame. Once it’s dry I could assemble the light table.

Step 4- Assembly:

This part is easy. I just dropped that shop light into the frame, fishing the cord through the hole I drilled. Fit’s great!

Fit’s like a glove

Now I just placed the plexi smooth side up on the surface… It will rest on the lip I created. It should be flush on the sides but as it was only 36″ tall and our frame is 37.5″ we will have a small gap at the top. I could cut a 1/4″ x 1 1/4″ x 49 1/2″ strip for that, but who cares??? You barely see it even if you look for it.

The finished product

Now I can turn it on, and we are ready to save time and get back to drawin’… Thank goodness that smashed finger is not on my drawing hand.

I don’t remember what I originally paid for the shop light, but the rest of the materials cost about $100.00, most of that being the plexiglass. Very cheap for the size of the light box. I’ll probably get a big piece of Borco drawing board cover to use for when I’m painting or doing something on the board besides using the light box.

If you are going to build one of your own, remember… measure twice, cut once- hammers are not your friends- intense swearing is the leading cause of deafness in pets and children- there are people you can hire to do this sort of thing, and I am not one of them.

Last night The Lovely Anna and I were privileged to be guests at the St. Paul premiere of “Good Ol’ Charles Schulz“, a Public Television documentary on the Peanuts creator produced locally for the PBS series “American Masters”. The wonderful Jeannie Schulz made sure we were invited… thanks Jeannie!

The PBS studio ready for the screening

We had a great time, and the event was well attended. They fed and watered us, had some people speak about the production and then screened about 30 minutes of the 90 minute program. It looks to be a great show. Some of the guests were old friends of Sparky from his days in Minnesota… including one lady named Donna who used to be a young Sparky’s girlfriend until she had to break it off because she loved (and married) another man. That lady, as it happened was a short, redhead back then… sound familiar? She was indeed the inspiration for the little red-headed girl Charlie Brown was forever to nervous to talk with. She’s in the documentary along with the real Charlie Brown and lots of other people who were inspirations for his many characters.

Decked out for the holiday…

The best part of the show is how well it explains the incredible originality and startling nature of Peanuts, and also how it was really just a voice for Sparky’s personal feelings about life and it’s trials. Since Peanuts really spawned a whole generation of comic strip cartoonists who borrowed heavily from what Schulz started, it’s hard to get a real understanding of how original and daring his work was. Mixed in between these wartime adventure strips and serials was this new, melancholy and understated strip featuring little kids with sometimes profound and deep adult thoughts about failure, rejection, cruelty and anxiety. It was funny because you identified with it. These were feelings and issues everyone has faced and it was so shocking to see it in the funny pages…

… and it was funny. Like seeing someone getting hit in the face with a pie, it was slapstick humor but for your head, and sometimes your heart.

Even more amazing is that, while Sparky himself was very reserved and private, he was really pouring his feelings, anxieties and raw emotions out every day to millions of people. He was the ultimate contradiction… a private man who displayed his very soul to the world daily for fifty years. The world couldn’t get enough.

“Good Ol’ Charles Schulz” is well worth setting the VCR and TiVo for. In the Twin Cities it debuts on Mon. Oct. 29th at 8:00 pm on Ch. 2, and plays again on Tues., Oct. 30th at 9:00 pm on Ch. 17. Check your local PBS listings for showtimes in your area.

A new study of one of my favorite authors, Stephen King. This is just a quick preliminary to a little side project I will be doing in the next few weeks… more details later.

Seems the wars in Middle Earth may finally be over… and long after Peter Jackson‘s brilliant Lord of the Rings films finally closed to black… again… and again… and again….

It’s been well publicized that Jackson and New Line Cinema have been feuding over audits and allegedly missing royalty payments. The fighting had led to Jackson being removed from the planned prequel film The Hobbit and other directors rumored to be attached like Sam Raimi. It seems things might me on the way to getting patched up, and Jackson may be back in the Shire again in charge of the prequel. By the way, the above image is a spot from a 2003 feature in MAD called “MAD Sizes Up The 2003 Oscars: Best Picture”. It’s a lame gag about hobbits being so short they might get stepped on. Here’s my original idea for the spot, which got nixed:

It got rejected not because MAD thought it was in poor taste, but rather they were using a similar gag on the cover with Gollum peeing on an ent, rather than taking a dump. Ah, well… but I digress.

Not having Jackson involved in The Hobbit would be a travesty. His understanding of Tolkien’s books and his masterful handling of turning them into films is truly one of the great feats of film making history. You have to be very familiar with the actual books to understand how amazing that feat really was.

The week before I left for Florida was crazy with multiple jobs including two magazine covers, several spot illustrations, a poster job, MAD pencils and a full page ad illustration… all of which I’ll share here when they have seen publication. During the week I listened to both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on audiobook… again. While I am not a Tolkien geek of the magnitude that actually reads and writes elvish (yes, they exist), I am extremely familiar with both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, having read and listened to them unabridged perhaps as many as two dozen times since I discovered them in high school. However I don’t recall having listened/read them after having seen all the films, which I also recently did.

At first viewing it would seem that Jackson didn’t do much tinkering with the plots and scenes of the story. Yes, he cut a few things and expanded the role of Arwen to make for a more urgent love story between she and Aragorn. However, I was surprised to discover while listening to the audiobooks that Jackson actually changed a great deal of the story. I won’t go into them all here, as I could literally write for days. Some things were small and some were quite significant, but they all had two things in common: They made for a better movie and they stayed true to the soul of the story. So much so that even an old Tolkien buff like myself was fooled into thinking this was a much more slavish adaptation than it actually was.

How did he do it? Smart writing, thinking and a deep understanding of the source material. He also used actual dialog from the books as much and as often as possible… even if he attributed said dialog to different characters than said them in the books. That was very clever, as Tolkien fans would recognize the words and it lent a feeling of authenticity to the story. I think he recongized the almost poetic nature and power of Tolkien’s words and knew that keeping them as pure as possible would resonate with both the new viewer and the rapid Tolkien fans.

There are a lot of examples of this mixing of dialog, and also some clever references to the names of some chapters. In The Fellowship of the Ring, after the four hobbits all fall down the hill after being chased by farmer Maggot and his dogs, one of the them exclaims it was a shortcut. The other asks “A shortcut to what?”, to which is replied “A shortcut to mushrooms!” after he spots some wild mushrooms nearby. “A Shortcut to Mushrooms” is the title of a chapter in the book The Fellowship of the Ring, one in fact that tells this part of the story. There are many examples of Jackson’s nods to the Tolkien aficionados.

There are still a lot of question marks about the Hobbit film and maybe it will not get made for many years, or at all. Only a few characters from The Lord of the Rings appear in The Hobbit, notably Gandalf, Elrond and a younger Bilbo Baggins. It would be nice if they got around to making the film before Ian McKellen (Gandalf) or Ian Holm (Bilbo) get too old to play their parts… and “The Hobbit” without Peter Jackson would be a less magical middle earth, to be sure.

Time to pay the price for my time away from the studio. Two MAD jobs to wrap up this week and several other jobs after that. woof.