Tom's Mad Blog
February 10th, 2008 | Posted in Freelancing
Q: After years of doing what you do, how often do you find you need to refer to reference photos? I’d expect it with celebrities or well know figures, but do you have to pull out reference for rather ordinary things from time to time (vehicles, houses, interiors, etc.)? Or can you can usually work mostly from your imagination (mental picture)? Your illustrations are often so detailed (even backgrounds). I’ve never been able to (nor really worked on) drawing from memory. I would hope with repetition and practice that it’s possible, but just wondered during a typical assignment how much reference you might need to… READ MORE
February 9th, 2008 | Posted in General
I finally got a little free time and caught the “season premiere” of LOST and it’s second episode as well. I have to admit I was not in a hurry to watch the DVR’ed episodes… I just could not generate any enthusiasm for the show. Call it apathy after a great deal of disappointment last season and the incredibly long layoff. I don’t know if the writer’s strike was the reason they waited until January 31st to premiere the first show of the season, but I don’t think so. I believe I read that the creators planned it that way so they could show all… READ MORE
February 8th, 2008 | Posted in News
It’s that time of year again. Submissions for the National Cartoonists Society‘s divisional Reuben awards need to be received by February 23rd. From the NCS Website: Only work published between the dates of December 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007 will be considered. Please submit published tear sheets when possible and document when and where the work was published. Submissions must be submitted to their respective locations by February 23, 2008. Each submission must be accompanied by an Entry Form and Bio Sheet. Here are this year’s divisions: Television Animation Newspaper Illustration Greeting Cards Newspaper Panel Cartoons Book Illustration Advertising Illustration Feature Animation Gag Cartoons… READ MORE
February 7th, 2008 | Posted in General
Back some time ago I blogged about an interesting project I had doing an image of Sherlock Holmes for One Voice Recordings and it’s awesome voice artist David Ian Davies to use as “album art” for a collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s complete Holmes canon audiobooks on Audible.com. I subsequently wrote about how David’s son Dana, who produces resin pens and other items done by wonderfully talented sculptors and hand painted and distributes them for sale all over the world, wanted to produce a pen from the image. The other day I received the final product and it’s very well done indeed. It’s not… READ MORE
February 6th, 2008 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
I thought I’d try something different this week and do a sketch while scanning in several stages to show the progression. This week’s subject is guitar legend Eddie Van Halen, circa 2007. I start out very loose and geometric, aiming to establish the head shape and placement of the features. 80% of the caricature is figured out at this point, including the exaggerations. Eddie’s forehead is very prominent these days, and his square jaw and chin. His famous goofy grin and squinty eyes are still a big part of his look. I have zero concern about superficial likeness at this stage. Now I begin fleshing… READ MORE
February 5th, 2008 | Posted in General
Me by the legendary Al Hirschfeld! I meant to do this post back on January 20th, since that was the 5 year anniversary of the great Al Hirschfeld‘s death, but I guess all the Mai Tais I was consuming made it slip my mind. I was going to tell the story of my meeting Hirschfeld and how I got the above piece of priceless caricature art. I was elected president of the National Caricaturist Network in 1999, during their annual convention of that year. At the time, the NCN was growing rapidly and we were trying to put on a second event, a “Mini-Con”, at… READ MORE
February 4th, 2008 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Mad Magazine Uses Pulitzer Winners to Tweak Bush I’m assuming this article will be in MAD #487, out on the 19th of this month, but haven’t confirmed that yet with the staff. (UPDATE- Just got the info, yes, the article will be in MAD #487). In short, the article entitled “Why George W. Bush is in Favor of Global Warming” features various reasons illustrated by 10 different Pulitzer prize winning editorial cartoonists. MAD did something similar a few years ago when they did a spoof on superheroes with a number of goofy hero parody characters each illustrated by some of the top names in comic… READ MORE
February 4th, 2008 | Posted in General
Ugh. More of the same…. I’ve got several half done articles for blogging that I promise will get posted this week. Next week look for the first of my “Drawing Caricatures” articles. READ MORE
