Tom's Mad Blog
December 14th, 2006 | Posted in General
Legs are the hardest day for me, and that is often true of any bodybuilder. Your legs are the biggest and strongest part of your body, and working them out is painful and exhausting. I also have knee problems and an I.T. Band injury that is aggravated when I go deep on any kind of squat, lunge or leg press, and that makes it more difficult. Legs are too often ignored or glossed over by the casual bodybuilder as they aren’t what guy’s identify with when you think of a muscular build… nobody says “Man, that guy has some jacked legs!”. Working legs, and especially… READ MORE
December 13th, 2006 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
A cartoon figure study of a tennis player: This was out of my head with no reference, although it’s based on an older, more realistic study from another sketchbook of mine and I don’t remember if there was reference involved with that one. Trying to use a challenging angle or perspective using just your imagination is a good exercise to help develop your feel for that kind of thing. READ MORE
December 13th, 2006 | Posted in General
First, my apologies to anyone coming here looking for posts about cartooning or art. I’ve been meaning to do a week on bodybuilding and this is it. Tune back in on Saturday or just check out the Sketch O’the Day until then. Knowledgeable bodybuilders or trainers will tell you that you do not build muscle when you lift weights… you build muscle when resting between workouts. The act of lifting weights damages your muscles by creating slight micro tears in the fibers, causing your body to scramble to repair the tears. Your body will overcompensate, not only repairing the tears but making the muscle bigger,… READ MORE
December 12th, 2006 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
A very quick study of toothy Brit actor Hugh Grant: READ MORE
December 12th, 2006 | Posted in General
I have long arms so developing my chest has always been a struggle. It still lags behind other body parts like arms and shoulders. I am also not very strong on movements like bench press, so the weights are not as heavy as I can do for other muscle groups. Here is my current chest workout. Again, this is a strength/power routine: Chest Day Flat Bench Press- 4 sets x 6 reps: I actually prefer to do these with dumbbells but in this routine we were trying to go too heavy for dumbbells. Load your bar with an appropriate weight on a flat press bench.… READ MORE
December 11th, 2006 | Posted in General
Last week I mentioned periodization as a central concept to successful weight training. Briefly, it means changing your routines often in terms of exercises and target muscle fibers in order to avoid your body becoming used to the routines and no longer responding to them by getting bigger, stronger or both. This week I will be detailing my current workout program, which will be changing shortly. Right now I am at the tail end of a short power and strength routine, which will be followed by a hypertrophy (size gaining)/ strength hybrid workout. I’ll use this as a transition to a longer hypertrophy workout program… READ MORE
December 11th, 2006 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
No caricature of anyone in particular here… just goofing around: READ MORE
December 10th, 2006 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I was wondering how do you design your background characters? I’ve noticed that you occasionally use real people as secondary characters in your illustrations. Is there a reason? A: I’ve learned a lot from MAD art director Sam Viviano in the 6 years I’ve been regularly working with MAD, but if I had to pick one thing he told me that helped me the most, it would be the advice that provides the answer to that question. Sam told me that great cartoonists create a coherent, believable world with their art. It’s the world seen through their eyes, and in it all objects, people… READ MORE
