Tom's Mad Blog
December 19th, 2008 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Pretty busy right now, which is a nice problem to have these days. Nothing for MAD yet so barring a last minute job from them it looks likely I will not be in issue #499… I sure hope I am given something for issue #500, which is going to be a big deal. Plenty to work on, though. I just finished up a couple of spot illustration jobs and a personal commission for a local corporation of their president. Here’s what’s on the board with now: The Independent– North Carolina news publication (print and online) where I am illustrating a political column with local politician… READ MORE
December 18th, 2008 | Posted in Tutorials
This short tutorial is 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 this 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 freelance 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. How to Draw Hands Easily… READ MORE
December 17th, 2008 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Not a very ambitious sketch this week, as I am currently swamped with work. Here’s a very quick and tiny study of actor Johnny Depp. This took me about 5 to 10 minutes. Not the most successful drawing. I’ve always admired Depp as an actor, not just for his performances but for his refusal to ride his good looks to success. I was in college when “21 Jump Street” was on TV, and Depp was catapulted to stardom and teenybopper heartthrob royalty via that show. It would have been easy to take empty but glamorous roles where his looks were as big a part of… READ MORE
December 16th, 2008 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Every once and awhile I am asked to get outside my comfort zone by MAD and do something very different from the usual sort of work. Those scenarios have their good and bad sides, but mostly I enjoy thinking “outside the box” and doing something that is a departure from my ink and color style. Since I work digitally in PhotoShop (at least for my color), I occasionally get called upon to do a combination PhotoShop/illustration image for some specific need. In this year’s MAD 20, I was asked to do just that… as you can see in the final above. No doubt my having… READ MORE
December 15th, 2008 | Posted in MAD Magazine
In comic book stores now and on news stands tomorrow: MAD # 497 (Jan. 2009) Cover (Mark Fredrickson) The Fundalini Pages (Scott Bricher, Tom Bunk, Dick DeBartolo, Garth Gerhart, Jeff Kruse, Kevin Pope, Adam Rust, P.C. Vey) The MAD 20- The Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2009 Sarah Palin (Desmond Devlin, Richard Williams and Scott Bricher) China’s Poisoned Products (Scott Bricher) The Massachusetts Teen Pregnancy Pact (Jacob Lambert, Irving Shild, Scott Bricher) The Pregnant Man (Charles Akins, Teresa Burns Parkhurst) O.J. Simpson (John Caldwell, Hermann Mejia, Irving Schild) Hillary’s Campaign for the White House (Mark Stutzman) Celebrity Moms and Dads (Irving Schild) Rev. John… READ MORE
December 14th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q:¬¨‚Ć After all of these years of cartooning, I should know this, but one of the biggest issues I have when it comes to drawing and cartooning is when I erase something on my bristol board it ruins that area (that I erased in) when it comes down to inking it.¬¨‚Ć What happens is that area that I erased in ends up creating awful, bleeding lines (or runny) from my ink, therefore not allowing me to have control and achieve the desired effect.¬¨‚Ć I’m always afraid to erase too much.¬¨‚Ć I don’t erase ‘rough’ or anything, and I use Strathmore 300 series Vellum.¬¨‚Ć I realize… READ MORE
December 13th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
We bring this second installment of “Sketch Week” to a close with a long promised caricature of “The Office” star Steve Carell for my pal and fellow caricaturist Jim Batts in St. Louis. Jim asked me to take a crack at Carell some time ago but I never seemed to remember to look him up as a sketch subject until today. I’m not sure how well I captured him, because…. well, I have a confession to make. I have never seen one second of anything with Steve Carell in it. I’ve never seen “The Office” or any of his movies. That always puts the caricaturist… READ MORE
December 12th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Today’s sketch is of “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” star Summer Glau. I had written a ways back that I liked the show and thought it was on the right track in the first season. There has been a bit of a sophmore slump, where the storylines seem to meander and are not connecting very well, but I think it has still got a lot of potential if the creators get more focused on a strong connecting storyline. Galu’s casting as the female “good” terminator was brilliant. She is perfect with the vacant stare but gives you just enough glimmer that there is something more… READ MORE
