Tom's Mad Blog
August 2nd, 2006 | Posted in General
I should have posted the Dreaded Deadline Demon yesterday, as I spent a good portion of the day sitting in my NYC hotel room finishing the color for the “Halloween Party” poster image on my laptop. It takes a good deal longer for me to use the regular Wacom tablet as I am now so used to (and spoiled by) the Cintiq. Since I posted the penciled version some days back, here’s the final in color: It’s nothing spectacular, just another job “in the can”. I don’t know if I felt bad about missing the Empire State Building tour and walking about New York with… READ MORE
July 31st, 2006 | Posted in General
Don’t be alarmed by the header. I’ll get to the robbery part in a minute… Visiting New York is always a fun time. When you are from quiet and pleasant Minnesota, the hectic craziness of New York is always like drinking a triple expresso… a total rush for a while, followed by a crash and a headache. I can handle about four days in NYC before I am on overload. Those four days are a blast, though! Today we swung by the MAD offices to hang out and bum a free lunch. The editors and art staff at MAD are always really good at pretending… READ MORE
July 30th, 2006 | Posted in Freelancing
Q: How do I get started doing freelance illustration? A: Making a living solely on freelance work is a tough and scary thing to do. There is no steady paycheck, and sometimes waiting for that phone to ring with a job seems like it takes forever. Other times you are so swamped you can’t keep up. It’s not a life for the faint of heart. First, I’d suggest for beginners to find a secondary source of income so your freelance work is not what you rely on to pay the rent. I used my live caricature work and businesses for this purpose, and it allowed… READ MORE
July 30th, 2006 | Posted in General
I should have mentioned with that last post, I am in New York City right now with Anna and the kids for the “Harry, Carrie and Garp” event, which takes place on the evenings of Aug. 1st and 2nd. The charities that will be benefiting from the performances are Doctors Without Borders, an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural or man-made disasters, or exclusion from health care in more than 70 countries, and the other is The Haven Foundation, a charity that supports writers and artists who can no longer support themselves because of… READ MORE
July 29th, 2006 | Posted in General
For Mother’s Day this year I got my wife a trip to New York City with me and three of my kids (left the autistic one at home with a friend, she HATES NYC) for 4 nights and tickets to an event at Radio City Music Hall. The event was something I came across on the Internet and was so perfect for us I could not pass it up. It’s a charity event called “An Evening with Harry, Carrie and Garp”, featuring three authors reading from their works and interacting with the audience. The reason it is so perfect is that the three authors involved… READ MORE
July 28th, 2006 | Posted in Tutorials
I was hoping to put together a step by step tutorial of my digital coloring technique for MAD while working on this “Hell’s Kitchen” parody, but it has become obvious to me that a real tutorial will take a great deal of time to compile. I tend to paint areas in spurts and often render background elements completely before laying in flat foreground color, and that makes it hard to follow. Also, it’s apparent to me that I will have to use screen captures to demonstrate palettes, selections and brushes in order to illustrate the steps fully, rather than just saving the image itself as… READ MORE
July 27th, 2006 | Posted in MAD Magazine
As promised, here is a scan of the inked version of the section of the splash page I had previously posted in pencil form: When comparing the two, you can see where I added to??ᬨ‚Ćand changed the drawing while inking. That all goes back to what I said before about the necessity of drawing while inking, and not just mechanically tracing the pencils. I changed his nose somewhat, added texture and more??ᬨ‚Ćdisarray to his hair, fleshed out some of the backgrounds and other??ᬨ‚Ćdetails and used both crosshatching and a little bit of a wash to add some values. I am coloring the piece so a… READ MORE
July 26th, 2006 | Posted in General
Can’t blog today, I’ve got inky fingers. I will scan the same image from “Hell’s Kitchen” in the after the ink stage tomorrow, so reader’s can track the progress. If I can I’ll do a tutorial with the image on the color process. In the meantime…. READ MORE
