I finally got my original Iwao Takamoto Scooby-Doo sketch from the Van Eaton Galleries in Los Angeles, California today. It took a while to get the letter or certificate from Barbara Takamoto before they were able to ship it to me. It was an expensive piece of art but worth it since his creation of Scooby has given me work for ten years now. I felt I should have a piece of his art just on principle. It's too bad he's still not really known for his contribution to the cartoon world and to pop culture as he should be. Hanna-Barbera got all the gold off of it along with all his other visual creations and designs he did for them for over 40 years or so. When I told some friends of mine that I got an original Scooby sketch that was drawn by Iwao, I mostly got back a pause and then a "Who?" And I'm like, "It's the guy who created Scooby-Doo!" But I guess that's the price of fame when we artists work for the studios for too long. Most people know it was Hanna-Barbera who created the idea and story, but the designers who take an idea and flesh it out always get lost in the shuffle since we're just cogs in the wheel. Iwao created the look for many HB characters, but his main show that he designed all himself was Scooby-Doo, and of course, he designed Shaggy, Freddie, Daphne and Velma. I scanned the 11" x 14" art as a grayscale so that you might see the brush strokes more on the paper instead of just scanning it as line art. It's a beautiful and clean marker sketch straight from Iwao's head to paper. He was a master of just seeing it on paper and drawing it cold! I'm able to do that for a couple of things when I'm drawing, but not like that. Drawing still is a struggle and a process for me. I also attached the letter as well so you can see that his wife has set up a foundation for struggling or aspiring artists...
2 comments:
Nice pick-up Scott, Iwao is my all-time favorite artist (no offense!). I ended up picking up an Alex Toth Scooby model sheet from Iwao's collection at that same sale - I'm sure those same folks that said "who?" for Iwao would say the same for the late Mr. Toth. I enjoy your Scooby blogs, especially when you post the Scooby pages you do for foreign comics. I hope all is well, I'm still enjoying all those Scooby pages I got from you a while back---best---JimH
Thanks Jim! A lot of young art student have no clue who Toth was let alone Iwao. I see that in my class at DCAD. Most of these guys go into obscurity as time passes. Even comic book artists have this issue since a lot of the artists I grew up up reading are not doing much or anything anymore.
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