So, last week I posted about how my USO trip coincided with two other events I would have considered attending: the Australian Cartoonists Association’s Stanley Awards and the International Society of Caricature Artists’ annual Convention and Competition. At that time I posted the results of the ACA’s Stanley awards, but I still haven’t posted the results of the exhaustive ISCA competition… so here you go. If you aren’t an ISCA member or not into the live caricature scene, these names might not mean a lot to you, but these represent some incredibly talented folks who are all well deserving of recognition for their work:

The 2010 ISCA Convention Awards-

Likeness Competition

• 1st Place Dan Almariei
• 2nd Place Brian Oakes
• 3rd Place Yuta Honma

Speed Competition

• 1st Place Yonie Woo (21 caricatures in 5 minutes)
• 2nd Place Yuri Kato (20 caricatures in 5 minutes)
• 3rd Place Greg Sumbardo (19 caricatures in 5 minutes)

Outstanding Gallery Award

• 1st Place Ali Thome
• 2nd Place Dan Springer
• 3rd Place Yuta Honma

Outstanding Body Situation

• 1st Place Kira Layli
• 2nd Place Hironori Motohashi
• 3rd Place Andrea Gerstmann

Most Humorous

• 1st Place Brian Oakes
• 2nd Place Bob East
• 3rd Place Mike Shields

Outstanding Black & White

• 1st Place Dan Almariei
• 2nd Place Miguel Aguilar
• 3rd Place Takashi Yamazaki

Outstanding Color Technique

• 1st Place Yuta Honma
• 2nd Place Yves Demers
• 3rd Place Sakiko Ushioda

Outstanding Exaggerated Style

• 1st Place Nathan Kapnicky
• 2nd Place Brian Oakes
• 3rd Place Eric Goodwin

Ismael Roldan Award (Rookie of the Year)

• Sakiko Ushioda

Outstanding Cartoon Style

• 1st Place Kevin Jackson
• 2nd Place Andy Urzua
• 3rd Place Kira Layli

Outstanding 3-D Technique

• 1st Place Johanna Veerenhuis-Lens
• 2nd Place BeeJay Hawn
• 3rd Place Celestia Ward

Outstanding Abstract/Design Style

• 1st Place Nathan Kapnicky
• 2nd Place Yasushi Ito
• 3rd Place Eric Goodwin

Best Studio Piece

• 1st Place Marcus Sakoda
• 2nd Place Glenn Ferguson
• 3rd Place Angie Jordan

Portfolio Competition

• 1st Place Marcus Sakoda
• 2nd Place Dan Springer
• 3rd Place Taka Watanabe

Master Caricature of the Year

• Chewie Lar by Glenn Ferguson

Master Caricaturist of the Year

• Glenn Ferguson

Top 10 Caricatures of the Year

1. Crystal Franklin by Sakiko Ushioda
2. Andy Urzua by Sakiko Ushioda
3. Derek Brennan by Eric Goodwin
4. Kerim Yildiz by Taka Watanabe
5. Miguel Aguilar by Taka Watanabe
6. Carrie McClish by Brian Oakes
7. Steve Silver & Kim Possible by Mike Tofanelli
8. Andrea Gerstmann by Koshiro Saito
9. Karel Op De Beeck by Yuta Honma
10. Andrea Gerstmann by Yuta Honma

Caricaturist of the Year Award

1. Yuta Honma–Golden Nosey
2. Brian Oakes–Silver Nosey
3. Taka Watanabe–Bronze Nosey
4. Sakiko Ushioda
5. Shinichi Miyachi
6. Yves Demers
7. Dan Almariei
8. Kevin Jackson
9. Koshiro Saito
10. Aaron Philby

These awards are different than the ACA’s “Stanleys” or the National Cartoonists Society’s “Reubens”, as instead of being bestowed for work done at some other time, these are literally work work done AT the convention. The various categories are judged by the attending members and work is recognized for various styles, techniques, etc. The only award for outside work is the “Best Studio Piece”, which judges work submitted by members done in studio or for professional jobs back home.

Explanation of some of the awards:

• “Top Ten Caricatures of the Year”- these are awards for individual “best of show” pieces done at the convention. Each is a specific piece of caricature art.
• “Likeness Competition”- This is based on the best likenesses drawn in a limited time from projected slides by competitors during a single competition event at the convention.
• “Speed Competition”- There is a separate competition event where competing artists participate in elimination rounds drawing live caricatures from lines of volunteer models.
• The “Caricaturist of the Year” AKA the “Golden Nosey” is the top award for best overall work, followed by 2nd place (the “Silver Nosey”), etc.
• Master Caricature of the Year/Master Caricaturist of the Year”- Once you win the Golden Nosey, you become a “Master” and cannot compete for it again. These awards are a special category for Master’s to compete with each other in.

Congrats to the winners, runner up and all the compeitors!

This is a new video promoting the International Society of Caricature Artists. I have been a member since 1997 and served as president for two years in 1999 and 2000.

I have written plenty of posts over the last few years extolling the virtues of the ISCA. If you do caricatures in any capacity in your work it is a very worthwhile organization to be a part of.

The International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA) of which I am a member, started a new tradition this year where they release their list of the ‘Top Ten Most Interesting Faces of the Year“. . . interesting as in most suited for caricature. It’s a fun idea and while everyone and their brother publishes a “Most Whatever of the Year” list in December it’s a pretty unique list compared to most. ISCA president Robert Bauer and the organization’s board tapped a few members to do a caricature of one of the list of ten.

Here’s the official press release:

Click for a closer look

A nice collection of art by ten different ISCA members including Lorin Bernsen, Lar DeSouza, Glenn Ferguson, Roger Hurtado, Court Jones, Ron Kantrowitz, Paul Moyse, Jason Seiler, Ed Steckley and myself. My contribution is an inked and colored version of a sketch I did of Susan Boyle this past spring:

The process of choosing the ten faces was based on examining both their impact/relevance on the year and the aesthetic nature of their faces, and included input from many members via the ISCA’s private online forum.

Like I said, a fun idea and nicely put together by the ISCA.

It was a great and inspiring time as always. Here is a caricature of me by the brilliant Hermann Mejia done as we sat about a table in the main room:

More later.

Hermann Mejia, me, Mark Fredrickson and Sam Viviano

For the past two days I’ve been having fun at the annual International Society of Caricature Artists‘s convention, held this year in Sandusky, Ohio at the Kalahari Waterpark Resort.

Every year this convention is something special, but this year they had four guests of honor/speakers, all from MAD Magazine. They included MAD art director and longtime MAD artist Sam Viviano, MAD cover artist Mark Fredrickson, MAD illustrator Hermann Mejia and myself. I was greatly looking forward to not only seeing my good friend Sam and many other friends for the ISCA, but as I had never met Mark or Hermann before this would be a great treat.

Mark and I led off the speaking presentations on Tuesday the 4th. I started and gave a rousing presentation for which nearly everyone in the audience stayed awake.

Hey, you in the second row… WAKE UP!

Mark’s talk was next and he had a gigantic number of slides ranging from his early work through his heyday as THE airbrush illustrator to his current success in fully digital illustration.

The enthralled crowd

I have been a huge fan of his since the 80′s when I was doing a lot of airbrush work, and recognized many of the pieces he showed from those days. It was fascinating to hear his outlook on illustration and the airbrush. I had heard from other sources that he had gladly given up the airbrush when digital painting tools had reached a point that allowed him to do his work on the computer, but it was still surprising to hear how much he disliked the mess and process of physically airbrushing a piece. He said he was contemplating quitting the business before the computer came along and he was able to toss out his airbrush for good. His later digital work is as impressive if not more than the actual paintings from a while ago were, so he made the transition successfully.

On Wednesday Hermann and Sam did their presentations.

Hermann Mejia

Hermann’s name has long been bandied about as a guest speaker for these conventions because his work is on a whole different level of awe-inspiring greatness than mere mortals. He really is a rare talent, and his presentation was stunning. He shared lots of his paintings, both digital and traditional, as well as his fantastic sculptures.

Great stuff!!

His sculptures were just as amazing…

I was surprised at how he combines digital and traditional mediums so seamlessly. He showed some originals that demonstrated how we would paint figures and elements separately and then scan and combine them to make his amazing parody splash pages.

He concluded his presentation with a video of him doing a drawing/painting of Willem Dafoe which was amazing.

This video will hopefully be on YouTube soon…

Sam’s presentation was a nice combination of a history of MAD and the story of his own career. He knows a lot about MAD and it’s long history, and put together a great show about MAD’s origins and how his work and career paralleled and eventually collided with the magazine.

Sam Viviano

Some Sam MAD work…

Some other great work of Sam’s

Sam’s very humble in that he doesn’t give himself enough credit for the visual impact he’s had on the magazine in the last decade. It was great to see his work, both the MAD stuff everyone is familiar with and his other work.

We wrapped up the evening with a panel Q&A with all of us. Sam answered 95% of the questions and we other three played cards.

Panel of Idiots

The rest of the time we spend meeting and chatting with attending artists, drawing and getting drawn. I was a little shocked to find Sam, Mark and Hermann suddenly get inspired to sit down and do some drawings on Tuesday night, but it was great fun.

We also signed the original art that was done by artist Glenn Fergusen for the cover of the ISCA’s Exaggerated Features magazine… a great piece.

With Glenn and his signed art

These conventions are always a blast. If you do caricatures for a living or as a part of the illustration/cartoon work you do you owe it to yourself to attend one of these someday.

This week’s sketch(es) are coming live from the International Society of Caricature Artists‘s annual convention. As I mentioned before, I am one of four guest speakers from MAD Magazine at the event being held this week in Sandusky, OH, the others being Sam Viviano, Mark Fredrickson and Hermann Mejia.

Often times the guest speakers catch “the bug” (and I’m not talking about H1N1) when at the convention and start drawing like the 220 plus other artists do all day and all night. So last night we found ourselves drawing each other in the main competition hall:

At the table clockwise from left: Sam Viviano, Mark Fredrickson, Hermann Mejia, Bob East, me.

Here are the sketches I did of my fellow MAD men:

MAD art director and longtime MAD artist Sam Viviano

MAD cover artist Mark Fredrickson

Incredible MAD artist Hermann Mejia

I’ll post some of the drawings they did of me when I steal them away for a scan.

I’m speaking today at 1:00 pm at the International Society of Caricature Artists‘ annual convntion and competition, held this year in beautiful downtown Sandusky, Ohio. I’ll be followed by former airbrush legend and current digital painting master Mark Frederickson. Tomorrow’s speakers are MAD art director and long-time MAD artist Sam Viviano and wünderkind Hermann Mejia. Tomorrow evening there will be a panel of all of us answering questions as well.

I’m greatly looking forward to this, in part because I have never had occasion to meet either Mark or Hermann. Funny we’ve been mainstays in MAD for over a decade each and yet never had occasion to meet. Funny world.

Look for a full report on Thursday.

This is just a reminder that the International Society of Caricature Artists annual convention is coming up fast, exactly one month away on Nov. 2nd. I understand from current president Robert Bauer that attendance is already at record levels, and that’s before the last minute people show up at the door.

Unfortunatley for those who did not register before Sept. 30th, early discount registration is over and it’s now full price to register:

• Members- $250
• Member guests- $100 each
• Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $125

It might be a bit more if you show up at the event looking to register on the spot, so register early for a little savings. Click Here to get more info and to register.

The schedule of events has been released, so here are the main guest speaker times and events:

Tuesday, November 3
1:00 – 3:00pm GUEST SPEAKERS: Tom Richmond & Mark Fredrickson

Wednesday, November 4
1:00pm – 3:00 pm SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKERS: Hermann Mejia and Sam Viviano
3:30pm – 4:30pm GUEST SPEAKER PANEL: Fredrickson, Mejia, Richmond & Viviano
7:30pm – 9:30pm VIP Reception with Guest Speakers (gold members/special invite only)

Of course there are a great many other workshops and seminars going on, as well as the competitions and the creation of literally thousands of pieces of great caricature art int he main room throughout the week.

This will be a great event. It’s rare that this many MAD contributors get together to speak at the same time, and very rare to see so many of the “newer” members of the Usual Gang of Idiots featured. It’s also unheard of to have a non-member admission option for those just wanting to see the main speakers.

If you have an interest in caricature art, this is the place to be.

The deadline for early discounted registration for the International Society of Caricature Artists annual convention is coming up fast on Sept. 15th. There is a substantial discount for both ISCA members and the special non-member “MAD Seminar Only” option.

On or Before September 15th:

• Members- $165
• Member guests- $100 each
• Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $99

After September 15th:

• Members- $250
• Member guests- $100 each
• Non- Member “Seminar Only”- $125

This will be a great event. It’s rare that this many MAD contributors get together to speak at the same time, and very rare to see so many of the “newer” members of the Usual Gang of Idiots featured.

Click Here to get more info and to register.

The International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA, formerly known as the NCN) 2009 Annual Caricature Convention and Competition is fast approaching on November 2nd-7th in Sandusky, Ohio. If you are a caricaturist either doing the live thing or for publication and have never attended one of these events, you are missing something special.

There are some unique things about this year’s convention that makes it a perfect time for non-ISCA members to attend to see what it’s all about.

First off, there is not one, not two, not three but FOUR guest speakers, all from MAD Magazine:

• Sam Viviano- Longtime MAD artist and current art director
• Mark Fredrickson- Frequent MAD cover artist, former airbrush demigod and current digital painting master
• Hermann Mejia- The brilliant “artist’s artist” for MAD, caricaturist, painter, sculptor, genius
• Tom Richmond- My humble self

That’s quite a lineup, and as far as I know very unique. As Sam pointed out to me, it will be possibly the first time that something like this has been organized that features predominately new generation MAD artists. Sam’s actually been with the magazine for over 30 years, but compared to guys like Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee, that’s like just starting last week. The legends get plenty of well deserved accolades, but these guys (at least three of them, anyway) deserve some attention for their work… which often gets overlooked in the shadows of the MAD giants.

This should be fun. Each speaker will have a presentation, there will be a MAD panel discussion and possibly some workshops done by the guests. I’m planning one on some form of cartooning, possibly another inking workshop but more likely storytelling as it applies to MAD.

You’ll also get a chance to meet and hang out with such caricature legends as Jan Op de Beeck, Joe Bluhm, Steve Silver, Court Jones and many others who attend every year and also sometimes conduct workshops. The final schedule is not complete and as there are so many main speakers the workshops might be limited this year, but at least you’ll see ones by Jan and Silver.

Ordinarily these conventions are only open to members of the organization. For the first time this year there will be a special fee of $99 for anyone who is not a member but wants to attend just the MAD speaker presentations. I warn you, though, if you are a caricaturist or cartoonist and attend just for the speakers you will be so blown away by the creative power of the event you will likely apply for membership on the spot and end up drawing away like the other 150 plus attending artists.

The deadline for the discounted early registration is fast approaching on Sept. 15th. There are $99 a night room rates available at the resort as well. I hope to see some readers of The MAD Blog there!