Tom's Mad Blog
January 30th, 2013 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Here’s another stab at this video sketch thing, this time of Homeland‘s Morena Baccarin, actual drawing time 20 minutes. This time I did a lot more gray scale painting, obviously. Maybe next time I’ll do some color: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjJaH7PP4PM[/youtube] A few observations about Morena- she’s obviously a very beautiful woman, but she has plenty of things to exaggerate. Her eyes are very arresting, but they are slightly mismatched… one is flatter shaped than the other, and her pupil/iris is more covered up on that side. She has a wide face with very prominent cheekbones, and a wide nose bridge but a sharp and narrow end… READ MORE
January 29th, 2013 | Posted in General
Only 10 days to go in the Kickstarter campaign to fund this sure-to-be-great documentary about MAD Magazine and it’s 60 plus years of holding a funhouse mirror to the world in general, and influencing generations of humorists in the process. They are woefully short of the $50,000 goal. They need a flurry of activity and a few big sponsors to step up, but they could also use a lot of little sponsors as well. $25 will get you a DVD of the final documentary (updated from the download they previously offered at that level). If enough people do that, they’ll meet their goal. So many… READ MORE
January 28th, 2013 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
When Apple’s iPad started the tablet computing craze, one of the Holy Grails of these light and extremely portable devices was using it as a digital drawing board ala the Wacom Cintiq. In the case of the early tablets, the problems in the way were a lack of pressure sensitivity, and that the touch screens were designed to work with fingertips, not a precise stylus. The drawing instrument “solutions” were these terrible styluses with a big, marshmallow-like pillow at the end that was not ideal for fine drawing or linework, and of course no pressure sensitivity at all. (NOTE: before I go on, please spare… READ MORE
January 27th, 2013 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: You have mentioned several times that before you went freelance, you started your own caricature stands in theme parks, but I don’t think you’ve ever taken us down the road of how that came about, and what you had to do to make it happen (or if you have, I haven’t come across it yet). What’s the story? A: I have told parts of it here and there, but never the whole tale. I’ll try and keep it brief, as it’s a long story in detail. Back when I was a student at the University of MN, I was skipping a particularly pretentious art… READ MORE
January 25th, 2013 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Clicky to Embiggen… Right now I have basically nothing on the drawing board, except the dreaded “almost ready” sort of projects: MAD Job for #521– Promised to be “meaty”… might mean I am drawing cows. Still in the works in editorial. DC Comics job– Previously mentioned forthcoming assignment… WB Product illustration– One down on this two illustration job, second one still in development so in temporary limbo Workplace poster illustration– my usual monthly assignment, direction not yet delivered That’s it for certain jobs bound to be on the way shortly, although there are a few “maybe” jobs in the works as well. I don’t… READ MORE
January 24th, 2013 | Posted in Freelancing
I got a big box in the mail the other day, containing The Absolute Ultimate Gutters Omnibus Volume 3 in all its hardcover and glossy, oversized page glory. So-so cover art . . . but otherwise a handsome book. If you are not familiar with The Gutters, and you are a fan of comic books at all, shame on you. It is a series of single page comics that parody, criticize, and sometimes utterly savage, the comic book industry, its culture and subject matter. It’s sometimes funny, sometimes vicious, but always on target. Written by Ryan Sohmer, the art is done by guest artists making… READ MORE
January 23rd, 2013 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
And now for something completely different… Reader Daniel Singley wrote me a week or so ago to ask if I was ever going to do a digital video “Sketch o’the Week” like I promised I would back in 2008. Well, here it is, with mixed results (actual drawing time 18 minutes): [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BGwVbRPnTk[/youtube] So, there you have it, a video record of a caricature of Homeland star Claire Danes, finished result way up above. I included the reference pics I used in the video as well. I am not overly fond of drawing on the computer screen. Even though I have a Cintiq, there is still… READ MORE
January 22nd, 2013 | Posted in Freelancing
De-BLAH Vu Dept. It’s finally happened… after almost seven years of writing Tom’s MAD Blog, I keep running up against the following problem: I get an idea about something I’d like to write about I do a quick search of my blog to see if I have written about it already I have The solution? Reblogging! Let’s face it, you readers don’t comb through the 6 plus years and 2,500 posts I’ve done looking for interesting topics. My mom doesn’t even do that. So, if I think up with a topic that I was planning on writing about, and thus still relevant in the world… READ MORE
