Tom's Mad Blog
August 27th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I thought I’d do something different for “Sketch o’the Week” this week. I’m a member of an international organization of caricature artists called the National Caricaturists Network, which I occasionally blog about here. Part of membership is access to a private forum where ideas, opinions and artwork are shared concerning caricatures and the business of caricatures. One of the forum sections is called “The Firing Squad”, where members post pictures of themselves and other members draw their caricature. A lot of the caricatures in my “Me Gallery” come from there. This week I thought I’d take a person from “The Firing Squad” and do a… READ MORE
August 26th, 2008 | Posted in General
As long as we are on the subject of Batman movies… If you happen to have an extra $110,000 laying about, head over to eBayландшафт and bid on this ’89 Batmobile. The seller describes it as one of the 5 original cars built for the Tim Burton 1989 film starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. From the interior it sure looks authentic… there are a few batmobiles of this type about that were built for Six Flag’s stuntshows but the interior of those were minimal with a space for a hidden driver to make the car appear like it was remote controlled. I’ve always loved… READ MORE
August 26th, 2008 | Posted in News
Regular blog reader Chip O’Brien sent me a link yesterday to this article about how “Iron Man” star Robert Downey Jr. disses “The Dark Knight” in this article on Moviehole.net. “My whole thing is that I saw ‘The Dark Knight’. I feel like I’m dumb because I feel like I don’t get how many things that are so smart. It’s like a Ferrari engine of storytelling and script writing and I’m like, ‘That’s not my idea of what I want to see in a movie.’ I loved ‘The Prestige’ but didn’t understand ‘The Dark Knight’. Didn’t get it, still can’t tell you what happened in… READ MORE
August 25th, 2008 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
After finally putting to bed several ongoing projects last week and this weekend, the only thing currently on the board is a pretty big MAD job, which is more than enough for the next two weeks. Just for something to look at, here is my latest “workplace poster” job- pencils, inks and final color: Click for a closer look… In the initial pencils there was a lot going on. The client wanted four servers in tuxedos, race/gender specific serving Thanksgiving dinner to a family of turkey farmers. The catch is, of course, they are serving anything but turkey. I needed to show it was: A.)… READ MORE
August 24th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Upon viewing the Phelps drawing it prompts the question, how much of your style is based on comic book drawing?¬¨‚Ć I kind of get the impression that what sets your work apart from others is that you draw caricatures the way a Marvel or DC artist would. A: In my opinion not much of my style of drawing or caricature is based on comic book work, and none of it is intentionally. My main style of caricature was developed from doing live caricature work at theme parks, and my experience with comic book style illustration is rather limited. It’s hard to pin down where… READ MORE
August 23rd, 2008 | Posted in News
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the availablility for purchase of the sculpted Sherlock Holmes pen that was based on my illustrations of Holmes for the audible collection of the complete Sir Arthur Conan Doyle collection One Voice Chronological: The Complete Holmes Canon. That announcement was a bit premature, as the web page meant to enable buyers to purchase the pen was having some trouble. Well, that is all corrected and the new ordering page is up, running and seems to work great on either a PC or a Mac, at least on my Mac using FireFox. While you are at it, visit… READ MORE
August 22nd, 2008 | Posted in News
One of my favorite comic strips is “Mother Goose and Grimm” drawn by the incomparable Mike Peters. Always funny, great artwork… one of the best done strips ever, IMO. Pittsburgh’s ToonSeum, a part of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh that exhibits cartoon art shows and events, will be opening a “Mother Goose and Grimm” show in October: From Joe Woos and The ToonSeum: Opening Friday October 17th– Mother Goose and Grimm: the Art of Mike Peters. Meet the creator Mike Peters and Grimmy on Saturday October 18th at the Children’s Museum. Free smiley cookies to the first 150 guests thanks to Eat N Park! October… READ MORE
August 21st, 2008 | Posted in It's All Geek to Me!
My home theater is my little oasis from the real world, where I can sink into a comfortable leather recliner and become fully immersed in a good (or sometimes not so good) movie via a dedicated, totally dark room and a setup of pretty high end audio visual equipment. Since the last time I wrote about my theater, I have upgraded my projector from a 720p Sim2 to the Marantz VP-15S1 1080p DLP projector, my pre/pro and video scaler from the Sunfire Theater Grand VI and a DVDO iScan VP-50 respectively to the awesome Anthem Statement D2 integrated Pre/Pro and scaler. Coupled with a 103″… READ MORE
