Tom's Mad Blog
April 5th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Several people commented on yesterday’s article on deadlines, both via the comments here and via e-mail. So I thought I’d follow up on a few other thoughts about deadlines. Shawn chimed in to say that, despite the financial uncertainty, he’s glad he made the jump to freelancing. With regard to freelancing versus employment, he says: “There’s so many arguments for either side. I personally find that I’m more satisfied and work harder for myself at home than in an office environment for a company. The trick is time and money management.” I am also glad to be freelancing successfully. That said, it isn’t as much… READ MORE
April 4th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
Good news! I’m not dead and I’m done with that MAD job. I’ll share the art on the blog upon publication next month. That may have been the shortest deadline I’ve gotten so far from them. Ahhhh deadlines… the bane of the freelancer’s existence. Every freelancer wrestles with deadlines, and we all complain about them. We complain about how short they are or how they are not flexible or not realistic. They are imposed on us and stress us out. How they eat into our time and brains and creativity, or make us compromise on aspects of our work to meet them. Deadlines are the… READ MORE
April 3rd, 2007 | Posted in General
Either I am done with this MAD job by tomorrow morning, or I die trying. One or the other. So, no time to blog. Just for fun, though, here’s something interesting. Regular readers might remember this little job I did for the Minnesota Twins last fall… a T-Shirt design based on the “Little Piranha” nickname they embraced last season. The Lovely Anna and my youngest daughter Gabrielle went to the opening day Twins ballgame last night versus the Baltimore Orioles (I was working, of course…) and came home with a program. In it was some announcements of upcoming promotions they would be having this season.… READ MORE
April 2nd, 2007 | Posted in General
Still working almost around the clock on this MAD job. After I finally get this done I’m going to write a post about deadlines and why they are constantly a problem for most freelancers. There are many reasons but most of them have more to do with the freelancer than the job. In the meantime… READ MORE
April 1st, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Uh oh! Looks like the mailbag is empty! When I get some fresh questions concerning cartooning, illustration, freelancing, MAD Magazine or other similar subjects I’ll be happy to answer them as best I can. E-mail me your questions and I’ll try and answer them here! READ MORE
March 31st, 2007 | Posted in General
Told you….. READ MORE
March 30th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
I’ve spent the last several days working on a TV parody for MAD. I did the tutorial mostly late last week and over the weekend while I was traveling in Massachusetts for prep work on our theme park operation at Six Flags New England. Since I have gotten back it’s been all MAD as it’s a short deadline. TV parodies are easier in some ways than movies and harder in others. They are easier in that there is usually a lot of reference available for TV shows, with previous seasons (if any) sometimes on DVD, fan sites on the web with screen captures and, if… READ MORE
March 29th, 2007 | Posted in News
New Photoshop Arriving Shortly- Adobe officially announced the newest version of their Creative Suite (CS) applications on Tuesday, which includes a new version of Photoshop called CS3. Some of the software will be shipping in April with the rest in the third quarter of 2007. I’m not a big fan of getting the latest versions of software upon release. There are ALWAYS bugs and issues that need ironing out, and there is invariably a service release several months later. Plus it’s tough to justify the expense of upgrading when the product version I currently use is doing the job nicely. And with Adobe, it’s VERY… READ MORE
