Tom's Mad Blog
August 21st, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: ¬¨‚ĆI have been looking to your drawings for inspiration, and I have realized that they look very clean and flawless. So my question is do you find yourself making a lot of mistakes when drawing or even sketching? How often do you erase, if at all? What is your tool of choice for erasing? (because I can seriously never tell so it must be damn good). A: Of course I make a lot of mistakes when I sketch, and I do plenty of erasing. The sketches I post for the “Sketch o’the Week” are usually ones I have “tightened up” a bit, meaning I… READ MORE
August 19th, 2011 | Posted in News
Click for a closer look… Each Friday for the next several weeks I will post the opening pages to a chapter of my book, The Mad Art of Caricature!, along with a description of the chapter’s contents. Since I’ve already done this for chapters one , two, and nine, that leaves five more chapters after this week, which should be about right for the arrival of the printed books on my doorstep. Chapter Three is about head shapes, which I consider to be the most important aspect of doing caricature. In it I discuss why they are so important, techniques to “see” them and to… READ MORE
August 18th, 2011 | Posted in General
This year is the 50th anniversary of Spy vs. Spy, and MAD has been busy with the celebrations. One of the cooler things they did was to produce a bunch of prototype, unpainted Spy figures and send them out to a variety of artists and sculptors, inviting them to make their own custom Spy. They had a glass case full of the resulting figures at Comic-Con last month, and have been busy posting images of a new one every day on their shiny new blog, The Idiotical. The one above was done by my friend, fellow NCS member and the creator of Foxtrot, Bill Amend.… READ MORE
August 17th, 2011 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I did this sketch of Malcolm in the Middle actor Erik Per Sullivan for one of the chapters in my book, The Mad Art of Caricature!. The chapter in question is focused on drawing and caricaturing individual features. Can you guess which feature this one was an example of? 😉 READ MORE
August 16th, 2011 | Posted in News
Congratulations to Minnesota Twins slugger Jim Thome for bashing home run number 600 last night! He’s one of only eight ballplayers to accomplish this feat in Major League Baseball. At 40 he’s the oldest player to do it but reached the milestone in one of the fewest at-bat totals. Thome spent most of his career playing against the Twins when with Cleveland and Chicago, but tried as I might I just couldn’t hate the guy. He’s one of the true gentlemen of the game and a throwback to the old ballplayer who played for the love of the game and not money. He’s been one… READ MORE
August 15th, 2011 | Posted in General
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August 14th, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I noticed, when trying to re-learn cartooning, that daily and Sunday strips seem to not always have backgrounds. But comic books and MAD mags usually always have some kind of back ground in each frame. Sometimes I find doing backgrounds tedious or even distracting, but I feel I am cheating myself by avoiding them.¬¨‚Ć I also noticed a similar effect with daily/Sunday’s showing most or all of the shots from the same perspective. Whereas, comic books/MAD see to redraw each from a different angle. Are there reasons why daily/Sunday strips skimp or cheat as opposed to comic books and MAD? A: What you are… READ MORE
August 12th, 2011 | Posted in General
Click for a closer look… Here’s another sneak peek at the inside of my upcoming book The MAD Art of Caricature!, which is shipping next month. Chapter 2- Basic Caricature Theory explains several of the basic theories behind caricature, exaggeration, likeness…how to see it and how to draw it. This chapter consists of 14 pages and contains over 35 illustrations. I’ve gotten a number of inquiries asking if the book is just a paper version of my on-line tutorials. The answer is NO. The information in the tutorials is incorporated into the book, but they are expanded upon and many more concepts and techniques are… READ MORE
