Richmond Illustration Inc.

Tom's Mad Blog

The Dreaded Deadline Demon

March 31st, 2007 | Posted in General

Told you….. READ MORE

On the Drawing Board

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

This and That

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

Digital Color Tutorial Part Three

March 28th, 2007 | Posted in Tutorials

Rendering with Washes Now begins the real painting. We’ll start out with the fleshtones. It’s a simple matter to mask off the flesh areas, as they are all defined by the base color we applied. Before we proceed, I’ve uploaded my basic Photoshop color swatch palette for those interested to download. It’s not very well organized, as I add colors to it as I work on pieces that I might need to use a lot and then never erase them, so everything is all over the place, but here it is. Click for the palette file in ZIP form Mac users just click the palette… READ MORE

Digital Color Tutorial Part Two

March 27th, 2007 | Posted in Tutorials

Applying the Base Color When coloring I start by applying a base color for each area of the illustration. The color is a mid value, which will allow me to work both darker and lighter to achieve a range of values. Since I am not working on a layer with lines to contain the colors, I cannot use the Fill tool, but have to apply the color ‘by hand’ using my tablet and pen. Actually I use a Cintiq tablet from Wacom, which is a combination pressure sensitive tablet and display, where you draw and paint right on the screen using the special stylus/pen. I… READ MORE

Digital Color Tutorial Part One

March 26th, 2007 | Posted in Tutorials

We begin with a piece of inked line art that we intend to color. I’m using this self caricature done for promotional purposes. It’s a simple, uncomplicated image and there is literally no background, so it will be ideal for this demonstration of the digital line art color technique I use for MAD and other clients. If you are wondering about the inking process, check out my inking tutorial from a few months ago about how to arrive at a clean, inked piece of line art. BTW, I am using Photoshop CS2 on a Mac Pro running OS X. This all works just fine in… READ MORE

Sunday Mailbag

March 25th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag

Q: Aren’t you worried about getting sued by a celebrity for selling their caricature? Isn’t their image copyrighted somehow? A: No, I am not worried about it for many reasons. First off, I don’t sell their caricatures. I draw caricatures for publications like magazines, books and newspapers. Neither I nor they can be sued by a celebrity for using their likeness to accompany a story or article, because that’s what freedom of the press is. Magazines use photos and illustrations of celebrities all the time and the only way they can be sued if is the article that they are illustrating knowingly lies about the… READ MORE

On the Drawing Board

March 24th, 2007 | Posted in On the Drawing Board

Getting very busy again, and right now I am in Massachusetts for some prep work and interviewing for our art concessions at Six Flags New England. Self Caricature– I finally finished this new self caricature the other day, as I had grown to hate the other ones I’ve been using: Would you trust this man? I had a few purposes in mind for this. First the practical, which is to use it for a postcard I’ll be sending out after completing a job for a client as a “thank you/hope to work with you again” mailer. Second, I occasionally get asked for a self-image for… READ MORE