Richmond Illustration Inc.

Tom's Mad Blog

Q: Do you find architecture grueling to draw? Is there any trick to it or do you really have to draw each and every stinking brick and tile? A: Drawing buildings and architecture can be very tiresome, but you have to know when it’s appropriate to draw every brick and tile and when you are better off “suggesting” the features of something like a building. Every illustration has a focus, and adding too much detail to an element that is only a supporting player in an image will distract from the focus and make the illustration too busy. If a building facade is close to… READ MORE

Happy 2011!

January 1st, 2011 | Posted in General

I usually don’t post on Saturdays but I couldn’t pass up doing one on the first day of the new year. This is an old sketch revised appropriately. Since I’m at it, I’ll remind those who know and tell those who don’t that ComicCraft is having their annual New Year’s sale on all their entire catalog of awesome comic book fonts… any font is only $20.11. I usually grab two or three cool ones on this day each year. READ MORE

Happy New Year!

December 31st, 2010 | Posted in General

Is this going to be you tomorrow morning? Hopefully not, but if so here’s an article on hangover cures and if any actually work. The short answer to that is, of course, NO. Party like it’s 2011 but do it safely, please. Happy New Year, everybody! READ MORE

MAD Circulation Increases in 2010

December 30th, 2010 | Posted in News

Every U.S. publication having periodical publication mail privileges must furnish to the Postal Service and publish somewhere in their publication a “Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation” (required by the Act of August 12, 1970, Section 3685, Title 39 of the United States Code). This is usually done in a publication’s year end issue. Yesterday on The Beat comics blog they posted an examination of the 2010 DC Comics circulation figures. MAD publishes theirs in the last issue on the news stands of the year. According to the figures in issue #507, MAD‘s annual paid distribution average per issue in 2010 was 188,825. That’s up… READ MORE

Sketch o’the Week

December 29th, 2010 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week

The Lovely Anna and I went to see “True Grit” this past weekend. I loved it… she was ambivalent. Must be a guy flick. Jeff Bridges was fantastic and the trademark razor sharp dialogue of the Cohen Brother’s films was very prevalent. Sketch done with a Uni-ball Vision Micro-tip ball point pen… not much of a caricature but and interesting face to draw. READ MORE

Happy Birthday Stan Lee

December 28th, 2010 | Posted in General

A happy 88th birthday to comic book writing legend Stan Lee. Just like he does in all the Marvel superhero movies, Stan’s made a cameo in all my MAD parodies of Marvel superhero movies (two most recent samples below). No doubt he’s thrilled about that and it will be a big topic of conversation at his birthday party tonight… … or maybe not. READ MORE

Digital Reference

December 27th, 2010 | Posted in Freelancing

As an illustrator, and especially one who does a lot of caricature work, I often spend a lot of time preparing reference for a given project. I’ve written before about how the internet and image searches like Google image have revolutionized that process in recent years. In the “old days”, illustrators had gigantic “morgue files” stuffed with clipped pictures of people, places and things where they went to find reference for some given subject they needed to draw. I used to have two file cabinets full of celebrity pictures clipped from entertainment magazines that I’d pull out when I needed to do caricatures of somebody.… READ MORE