Richmond Illustration Inc.

Tom's Mad Blog

Sketch o’the Week

January 26th, 2011 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

This week’s sketch is a quickie of “Aerosmith” frontman and new judge on television’s “American Idol”, Steven Tyler. READ MORE

The image above is one of my most prized possessions… a caricature of me by the great Al Hirschfeld. There was no intriguing or unique story behind how I got that piece of art. Not like the story behind my original Mort Drucker. I simply commissioned him to do it. As legendary as Hirschfeld was, he was still available to do personal commissions. Expensive, but a genuine treasure. Hirschfeld died in 2003 just 5 months shy of his 100th birthday. Almost 8 years after his passing, this month the last chapter in his amazing career is finally coming to a close. His widow, Louise Hirschfeld… READ MORE

Look! A Talking Rat!

January 24th, 2011 | Posted in News

Stephan and me in Tikrit, Iraq Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist behind the syndicated comic strip “Pearls Before Swine”, is a friend of mine. We’ve literally been to the wars together (okay, touring Iraq and Afghanistan with the USO isn’t exactly BEING in a war, but there was one going on around us to I’m going with that). Stephen once drew me into a Sunday “PBS” and I drew him into a MAD parody. He’s a talented guy and deserves all of his considerable success with the strip. Stephan has lately been working on animated shorts of his strip, and The Daily Cartoonist reported today that… READ MORE

Sunday Mailbag

January 23rd, 2011 | Posted in Mailbag

Q: What do you think of the problems that print publications are having these day? Do you think print is dying, and where do you think the publication industry goes from here? A: The world of publishing is in a transition right now from print to digital media. Will print go away completely? No, I don’t think it will, but digital content is becoming more and more important and will continue to do so. I think that as hardware become more and more sophisticated and portable, more and more consumers will be looking to find their content on devices like the iPad and the evolution… READ MORE

How to Draw Caricatures: Mouths

January 21st, 2011 | Posted in Tutorials

This series of “How to Draw Caricatures” tutorials are a just a small taste of a larger and much more in-depth book I wrote called The Mad Art of Caricature! The book is 175 full-color pages, lavishly illustrated and contains greatly expanded explanations of the concepts presented in these tutorials, as well and a great deal of additional material on caricaturing other facial features, posture, hands, expression and more, techniques on drawing from live models, doing caricature for freeplace illustration and for MAD Magazine. This is a must have book for anyone interested in caricature, cartooning or humorous illustration. You can order it online here.… READ MORE

Sketch o’the Week

January 19th, 2011 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

This week’s sketch is of actor Sean Penn. This was done from a relatively small picture in an entertainment magazine. I liked the turned head angle and odd, mid-sentence expression. READ MORE

On the Drawing Board- 1/18/11

January 18th, 2011 | Posted in On the Drawing Board

Kind of on the quiet side for a change… Illustration for Sports Illustrated for Kids– A two page feature with assorted athlete caricatures. SI for Kids is one of the publications I’ve always wanted to do work for, so this is exciting. 100 plus new caricatures for the “Bobble Rep” app- The updated app with the 112th congress should be available sometime in Feb… unless Apple bans it of course. Marlin Workplace poster- My usual monthly assignment Jeff Dunham Project- I have some final art to wrap up on this That’s pretty much it, other than some overdue personal work for a few people. The… READ MORE

Meeting Jeff Dunham

January 17th, 2011 | Posted in General

Jeff and I backstage after his show in Duluth, MN Since this summer I’ve been working on several illustration projects for world famous comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham. Yesterday The Lovely Anna and my two youngest kids The Effervescent Gabrielle and Number One Son Thomas met my college student daughter The Dramatic Victoria and her boyfriend Pat in Duluth where we caught Jeff’s touring show. It was great fun and fantastic to finally meet Jeff after all the communicating we’ve been doing on our projects. A very funny show by a very funny guy. Sorry I can’t be more specific about the work I’m doing for him,… READ MORE