Tom's Mad Blog
August 26th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Today’s “Daily Coronacaure” subject: Willie Nelson! The original sketch is available in the Studio Store. Caricature notes: Looking at various reference pics of Willie I see him having a wide face shape, small eyes, and a lot more mass in the jaw/chin area than the top of the head. He also has enormous ears, and a downward-turned smile. READ MORE
August 25th, 2020 | Posted in Freelancing
Earlier this summer I did a couple of projects for Judd Apatow and his new movie “The King of Staten Island”. One was this movie poster image meant to be sort of a throwback to the kind of humorous poster art done by greats like Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Rick Meyerowitz, and others. It was done like a real one-sheet movie poster, which is huge at 27″ x 40″. Room was left for the typical credits, etc., although it was never going to be the actual movie poster. Judd made smaller prints of it and included them as part of a package of promotional items… READ MORE
August 24th, 2020 | Posted in Monday MADness
I did the art for this sort of parody of “America’s Top Model” entitled “America’s Next Top Mobster”, written by Desmond Devlin, back in MAD #482, Oct 2007. It was one of just a couple of “mash-up” type spoofs where the characters of one show or film end up in a spoof of another. The animated “MAD” show on Cartoon Network did that all the time. Here are the other story pages: READ MORE
August 23rd, 2020 | Posted in General
Q: It’s obvious you were “Born To Draw,” but just for slaps and giggles let’s pretend you just made different life choices … what profession/ career/ job do you think you might have settled on? Having attended a workshop and having watched your videos I can’t help but think “Educator” suits you! Just curious. A: I get this question now and then, but I’ve never really had a good answer for it because all I’ve ever want to be was an artist. However, I was thinking about that subject while walking the dogs the other day (all great thinking is done either in the shower… READ MORE
August 20th, 2020 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
These are a full page and series of spot illustrations I did for the now-defunct Fade In magazine, a movie industry publication, back in 2008. The story was about how some big movie studio executives rated with writers, directors and other creative folks from their films. The article asked numerous, high-level, creative types to share their experience working with then current studio regimes around town. The spot illustrations below are caricatures of actual studio executives that were working at the time. I don’t remember their names. READ MORE
August 19th, 2020 | Posted in Daily Coronacature
Here’s my quick take on Gary Oldman… plus a bonus of him as Dracula from my “These Guys Suck” print: READ MORE
August 18th, 2020 | Posted in News
I’ve had a number of people drop out of the Chicago workshop, now scheduled for Sept 26-27th, and we are down to only 8 students. We have plenty of room in the classroom space for proper social distancing and COVID-19 protocols, so I am opening up a spot for one more student. This is the last workshop of 2020. I have no idea when I will start doing these again. If you have wanted to take one of my workshops, this may be your last chance for a long time. READ MORE
August 18th, 2020 | Posted in News
This past weekend I finally conducted my “Caricature Illustration Workshop” here in Minnesota. Originally scheduled for March 27-29 with 15 students, the pandemic caused me to reschedule to Aug 14-16th, and we ended up with only 6 people in the class. This was a different sort of workshop for me. We did a mock illustration project from start to finish, and I taught the class about narrative and problem solving, working within the limitations imposed by the job, composition, and the process from rough concept sketches through to final art. I also taught traditional dip pen/brush inking, and both my digital coloring and traditional watercolor… READ MORE