MARDI GRAS T-Shirt Design for CLEAR CHANNEL RADIO!

Here is a Mardi Gras t-shirt design I did for Clear Channel Radio and WYNK 101.5 radio in early 2006 after Hurricane Katrina ran through New Orleans and destroyed everything. This t-shirt was a free giveaway promotion to entice or show people that Mardi Gras was still on even though the town was destroyed for the most part and trying to get back on it's feet. The sponsors, whose company logos were printed on the back of the shirt, also gave out these t-shirts as well. I thought I'd post it since there is now another storm on New Orleans' horizon coming this week and hope it doesn't leave much, if any, damage to New Orleans...they need a break from Mother Nature... Enjoy!

VALENTINO'S BEAUTIFUL HOME CENTER Business Card!

Here is a business card design for Valentino's Beautiful Home Center that I did for Joe Valentino Sr. for his new venture. The top card is how the final printed version looked. The three lower cards are all the other ideas I had pitched and were rejected for one reason of another. There were more versions with different type styles so I posted only a few of the rejected ones. I tried to nail it down with what he wanted though it took more time than his last card for his other business. Once he decided on the final card design, I had to creat six versions so his employees each had their own card.

I received the printed cards on Friday in the mail from http://www.printrunner.com/ and they did a great job as usual though they screwed up the shipping and mailed all 6 sets of cards separately nstead of putting them all in one box. Go figure...

SCOOBY-DOO #138! Final Cover Art!

Here is the final version for the cover to Scooby-Doo #138! Came out great with the backlighting, though I wonder if the witch needs some kind of glow around her to make her pop more from the background of the White House? At any rate, they may tweak it in production so it could change. Enjoy!

In other news, I chug along with more Power Rangers work this weekend as we finalize the color art for the second storybook and I start to get my lesson plans together for the students for my Friday class at DCAD, which starts on August 29th!

A HAL & AL Fan Watches His Favorite Show!

Scott Innes just sent me these pics of young Parker, which Parker's mother sent to Scott. I thought they were so cute I thought I'd share! She wrote, "My son Parker was having SO much fun watching the show this morning I had to take a few pictures! Hope these make you smile :)"

What great shots they are! I'm telling you, Hal & Al are going to be HUUUUUGGGGEEE! Get on the bandwagon! Forget Barney and Elmo, it's going to be Hal & Al! We have to get the show on up north...

HAL & AL Meet SCOOBY-DOO! Career Highlight #1...so far!

People have always asked me, especially when I do 'speak and sketches' at schools or libraries, what my favorite creative moment is or something that I've done (or worked on) that gave me the biggest thrill. Well, this is definitely one for my book! There was a "Walk For Cancer" Charity Event in Baton Rouge mid-last year, which was sponsored by Cartoon Network and Cox Communications (who run the Hal & Al TV show every morning!) and other big companies were there...and that's where Hal & Al met Scooby-Doo!

This is a thrill for sure since I've been drawing Scooby-Doo for nine years now and now he meets two characters that I created! As a creator, I love it, love it, love it! Hal & Al were an idea that Scott Innes and Jim Hogg had and I took a blank piece of paper and designed them back in February of 2006. They had a real loose idea of what they wanted and gave me free reign to create them and make them fun. About four months later, as we were getting the first Hal & Al music CD manufactured, another thrill for me was seeing the photos of the Hal & Al costumes being made by Scollon Productions (who make ALL the costumes for Disney World and Universal Theme Parks) and finally seeing Hal & Al in 3D for the first time and signing off on their head design sculpts! Yowza! That was an incredible moment from paper to real life!

Here's Hal & Al, Scooby, and the LSU Men's Basketball Team at the event!

Here's Hal & Al with the Sponsor logos!

HAL & AL, Rave Theaters, and BR Brec Zoo Charity Pics!

Here are the boys with the Baton Rouge Brec Zoo Charity donation coin box I designed and did the art for earlier this year! Next Day Signs constructed the actual box based on my designs and did a fantastic job with it. Since we didn't have a puppet elephant or predesigned sponsor mascot of an elephant available for a photo shoot, I had to draw a cartoon elephant and place him around the photos of Hal & Al. There were three of these boxes placed center stage in three Rave Motion Picture Theaters! Rave also runs an ad for Hal & Al before every movie advertising the Hal & Al TV Show, so they've been a great help to us! Hal & Al raised $2,000 for the Elephant Oasis the Zoo is building!

More HAL & AL Stuff! Billboards and Borden!

Here's a billboard that I did where I got to draw Hal & Al in their original cartoon forms with a cartoon tiger for an LSU celebration poster. The LSU Football team won it all last year and are the top team in college football, so maybe they can repeat this year. When I go down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for Hal & Al work I see how much the city of Baton Rouge is bathed in LSU colors and every Saturday or Sunday before a game, EVERYONE is wearing purple and gold. It gets real quiet before game time and every bar, restaurant, or gatherings at peoples' homes is a big event. The city is built around a team. Being a Pennsylvania boy, it's like going to Penn State University and seeing Joe Pa stuff and Penn State colors all over town!

Also, Hal & Al have Borden's Milk as a major sponsor now too! They are helping with the Hal & Al concert this November! Here was a pitch ad I whipped out in a hurry that was used to excite them about working with us.

HAL & AL With Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal!

Here are Hal & Al with new Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, whom is a big Hal & Al supporter! Hal & Al were a big part of his Inaugural Family Festival back in January. I thought I'd post these since he keeps being mentioned as a VP running mate for Sen. John McCain's run for President.

HAL & AL McDonald's Sponsor Posters!

Here's some neat photos of the new Hal & Al poster I did, which is out in front of 50-some McDonald's restaurants down south in Louisiana! McDonald's has been a big sponsor for all things Hal & Al in the last 2 and half years since we started. One of these pics was on our newsletter that I posted earlier, but I'd thought I'd post more shots of it. I have a couple from another McDonald's where they placed us next to the Kung Fu Panda poster, which was cool. If I find them I'll add them to this post!

POWER RANGERS Colorist is...!

Well, it's been a good busy summer so far. Better to have too much than too little! Feast or famine as any contractor knows. So busy in fact that I have to get help to finish the Power Ranger storybooks I'm doing. First time in 17 years, I needed help to get everything all done. It seems to be the year of the Power Rangers for me so far. Been working on the Jungle Fury stuff since mid-February and still going. So I had to get help and I had an audition test to find who would be the best and match the style of the first book that was done and whom Disney would like and approve of in the end as well. A large task to fill. There were about 24 actual final samples submitted and the winner was Candy Bell! She did a great job on it and everyone liked what she did, so I'm posting her sample here...

The second place artist (I wanted to get another artist in place just in case Candy had an emergency or couldn't do it, as I always like to have a Plan B to go to) was Jon Alderink. He's a young guy with a lot of potential and he matched Candy's style the closest. So good job to Jon as well! Jon is also now helping me with a side project coloring a thing for my voice actor friend and Hollywood Hal himself, Scott Innes. Scott wanted an photo of himself with all the cartoon character voices he's done such as Scooby, Shaggy, Scrappy, Yogi Bear, etc. to have for events to sign for people so Jon is coloring all 20 characters I drew that will be arranged around Scott. I'll post it when finished! You can go to http://www.jonalderink.com/ for more of Jon's stuff! Onwards and Upwards!

SCOOBY-DOO #138 Cover art! Rough Color Version!

Here's the new Scooby cover for issue #138. This is still rough in the color scheme still. Heroic Age is still working on this one since I was unable to do it myself. My new editor emails me late last Monday and says, "It says on the schedule that you're doing the cover to 138." Well, that was news to me. I know I'm doing the lead story for the book but the old editor never told me I was doing the cover as well. So now due to the rush (I only had like two days to do it) I had worked up a tight pencil of what you see above and then sent it out like 3am on early Tuesday morning. I got word back from my editor around 11am on Tuesday and he loved it and said to ink it and load it up on the FTP and thanks for doing it so quick. So I did. It was a super fast job but I like the way it came out.

Normally, as you my regular blog readers know, I color my covers too but I was jammed with so much else that Heroic Age thankfully took it and did it. Also, this is the rare cover version that I envisoned with a harvest moon. Apparently, it was changed though for a traditional white/blue moon. I don't know why exactly. Everytime you see a witch on Halloween it's with a harvest moon. Go to any greeting card store and you'll see. Anyway, it should be out in November since it's about a witch running around the White House. You may insert your own joke here. The story is called "The Wicked Witch of the West Wing". When I get the final version of the cover I'll post it. Enjoy!

Summer is almost over and I still have no tan!

Well, it's been a busy time since I last posted! A lot of stuff is going on here at the Neely studio and I've been to busy to post. I will be posting more this week as I have some new stuff to show, and some stuff I can talk about and not show as of yet, till it's finalized!

1) Power Rangers: Have two storybooks to get colored and I will be hiring out a colorist to help me get them done. I have about 24 artists doing an audition test for it right now and once we pick one, we'll be starting the final art this week.

2) Did an emergency Scooby cover for DC Comics that was scheduled at DC but forgotten about so I had to do it in two days. For a rush, I think it came out looking cool. I'll post that in a day or two.

3) My overseas Scooby comic work, which was penciled and is still in approvals.

4) I designed a business card for a home designing company.

5) Designing the new Hal & Al music CD cover! Will have some exciting news on that when it gets confirmed. We have a guest star lined up and are trying to nail down the particulars.

6) And still trying to get the final coloring job done for Scott Innes promo piece with the 20 characters he's voiced. It's all sketched, I just have to ink it and then color it.

So bear with me! New stuff is coming!