Tom's Mad Blog
May 2nd, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s sketch is a study of tough-guy actor Stephen Lang, currently formerly starring in the TV series Terra Nova, but might be most famous to the general public for playing the bad-ass Colonel in Avatar. Of course, who could forget his turn as Khalar Zym in last year’s Conan the Barbarian? . . . oh, yeah, EVERYBODY has hopefully forgotten everything about that dreadful movie. I hope I can be in that good a shape when I am 60. READ MORE
May 1st, 2012 | Posted in News
The second printing of The Mad Art of Caricature! has arrived…just in time as I was down to my last hundred or so copies. They look good, with the same high quality, glossy, color pages and tight binding. No new content, but a few stray typos and corrections were made. The big news this time around is I have an official distributor, Itasca Book Distributors, which means the book will soon be available through wholesalers like Ingram. What this means is that brick and mortar stores like Barnes and Noble will now be able to order and carry my book. Booksellers basically refuse to carry… READ MORE
April 30th, 2012 | Posted in News
…sort of. The original name of this blog was supposed to be Tom’s MAD Blog!, but in the ensuing craziness that was the website redesign some time ago the graphics came to read The MAD Blog!. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because it didn’t seem very important. Well, MAD Magazine now has it’s own blog, and while it’s called The Idiotical and not The MAD Blog, it seemed to me that it might be a bit confusing to some people doing a search for “MAD Magazine Blog” that this blog would be one of the top hits. I didn’t want anyone… READ MORE
April 29th, 2012 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I work a 40 hour week, 50 weeks a year, and have been since 1978. I see actual retirement in the next ten years. As a artist and freelancer, what does retirement look like for you? No plan at all, freelance part time, or continue present pace until last breath is exhaled? A: Freelancer artists face the same challenges to retirement that any self-employed person does. You have no employer who is providing a pension plan for you, so sou simply have to plan ahead for it . . .¬¨‚Ć and the younger you are when you do it, the better. Social Security is… READ MORE
April 27th, 2012 | Posted in Freelancing
Clicky to Embiggen . . . Here is my 2012 page in the illustrator’s sourcebook The Directory of Illustration no. 29. I had to search for quite a while to find images from the past year (or ones I had not used before and liked) for this one. It just seems like I didn’t do many smaller/stand alone images that would work well in this kind of layout. . . too many $#@%$@ crowd scenes last year! READ MORE
April 26th, 2012 | Posted in General
As many regular readers know, I am an avid listener to audiobooks at certain stages of my work in the studio. I can only listen to them when doing inking or coloring, which is more of a rendering process for me and less a conceptual one and therefore allows my mind to focus on both the work and the story. I’ve found these to be a great way to stay on task during grueling marathons of finish work. Regular readers might also be aware that I am a big fan of Stephen King‘s writing, especially his epic Dark Tower saga, which are some of my… READ MORE
April 25th, 2012 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Okay, so it’s not really a “sketch” per se, but rather a theme park example I did on my trip to my park in New England of The Avengers star Robert Downey Jr. Bear in mind that the purpose of an example like this is to demonstrate the results of our live caricature techniques, so the drawing and painting reflect that quick, totally freehand live style. READ MORE
April 24th, 2012 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
All due in the next week to 10 days: NBA promotional cover project Marlin Workplace poster 6 page MAD Parody Illustration for Warner Bros. Consumer Product line MAD TV show segment art Jeff Dunham illustration art My Directory of Illustration page artwork Sooooo…. things might be a little sparse here on The MAD Blog for the forseeable future. READ MORE
