The Franklin Mint Renaissance 2001 'Distinguished Artist' award

I was going through my archives (while working on updating my resume trying to nail down months and years) and I found The Franklin Mint Renaissance 2001 'Distinguished Artist" award in a filing cabinet.

It's a solid 3-inch round medallion, 1/4-inch thick, and weighs about 2 pounds in my hand. I got a nice letter that still sits with it. I was in the Renaissance art show at the Mint right before things really started shutting down. I have no idea what art I did was in the show. 

I did conceptual product design art for them for a wide variety of collectible products. I had done all my work traditionally, as there were only a few who were doing stuff digitally. I think there were only two guys who did everything completely digitally in there at that time. Everyone else was mostly using traditional art mediums. 

I was there from June 1997 to September 1999. I started as a freelancer, then several months later was invited into the in-house art department where I had a cubicle. They let me go (with a bunch of other creatives in late '99), and I was then doing freelance for them in 2000 to 2001. What happened then is what just happened just recently with Disney getting rid of the in-house conceptual design department for Marvel Studios. They gutted the department and are just bringing people back on a contract basis per-film. 

Things were slowly changing there at the Mint in the fall 1999, you could feel a shift in the air there.

Luckily, there was a bright spot! 

I had, literally, just done my Scooby-Doo audition around that time... and it changed everything...  

Talk about perfect timing! It was an absolute game-changer for me! The last three months of 1999 were the start of non-stop Scooby-Doo projects for me that led straight through into Summer of 2001!

I still have fond memories of The Franklin Mint! 

I would also get some freelance work a couple years later when one of the Mint's art directors had started working for The Bradford Exchange!

Some new photos of the award are below and I added it to my awards list on my LinkedIn profile.

ROBERT WAGNER NATURE WATCHES - Conceptual Watch Design Done In The Late 90's

Here is the final color art I did with color markers for a watch line that The Mint was doing for actor Robert Wagner. I don't know why he had a nature watch but I worked on it. At any rate, these rough color finals were to show the look of the final designs for the leather watch band itself. The actual watch band art would have been etched into the leather or rather it would have been used as a guide for the artist doing the work. This scan is from a color copy of the actual work so it lost a little something-something. This was also one of the 4 or 5th things I did at the beginning of my time at The Mint. I was still learning the ropes of office politics and back-stabbing and the drama of betrayal that was always going on there. It was kinda like Survivor and you had to align yourself with certain people over another group. Like Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm... only with adults. It reminds to this day why I love to work at home than in a studio! Artists can sure be whack-a-doos!

FORCED PERSPECTIVE DEER STATUE - Conceptual Design For A Sculpture In The Late 90's

Here is a forced perspective deer statue that I did some sketches for. This is the one I liked most as a concept. It was to be a 8" tall statue that if you looked at from the front would give you the impression that the deer was far up the hill and away from the hunter's cabin when it was actually right next to the deer! Cool concept! It was to sit on a Cherry Wood Base. This was done in mid-'99 and I used a simple cross-hatching style to do it. It needed to be done fast so there was no time to really work it. Enjoy!

DRAGON & WIZARD BELL JAR - Bell Jar Conceptual Design Done In The Late 90's

Here is a dragon and wizard bell jar design I did for The Mint in spring or so of '99. I remember I drew some designs for it as I was working on Pokemon art. The end of my time at The Mint was near at that point and they were falling apart and were doing more stuff on the cheap so we didn't really fine tune these concepts as I might have before on my earlier work with them. This bell jar was to be produced as a miniature with a height of about 4" I believe. It was a small line they wanted to do, which I don't even know if they did make in the end. I have others, but I liked this one the best. A basic Wizard attacking or summoning a dragon. You fill in the rest...

Dr. Seuss' THE CAT IN THE HAT - Salt & Pepper Shaker Conceptual Design In The Late 90's

Here is the final concept art, in color, for a Cat In The Hat salt and pepper shaker I got the chance to work on at The Mint in the late '98 or so. This final drawing based on the pose that was liked the most and I was lucky that they allowed me to ink the drawing to match a Seuss drawing style that was in the book. I also kept the colors to a minimum and used the palette that the original Cat In The Hat books used. The Cat himself is the pepper shaker and when you take him off the ball he's sitting on, the ball and objects around it are the salt shaker. I still like how it turned out and it had good anchors on it to make it a nice item...or so I hoped. It was inked on bristol board with a brush and then colored with magic markers.

Below are some pencil designs that were done working out the ideas of what could be, but were not chosen. They were drawn on vellum with a mechanical pencil to get the finer details worked out. I'm posting these since they came out looking really nice!


I like some of these fun designs, BUT....in the end, it didn't make it past the prototype sculpt phase. Why you ask? Because it was really flimsy and delicate even though the prototype was solid. It just looked too dainty, and in the end, it would have been a much better idea to just produce it as a statue. I remember holding the prototype in my hand and shaking it gently to get an idea of how it would work and I was scared to touch it! The Cat's thin body and arms just looked too breakable. They should have made the limbs thicker but then it would have been off model. I couldn't imagine how they were ever going to package and ship these out without any massive breakage. And in the end, the 'Powers That Be' came to the same decision...

INDIAN PHOTO KNIFE - Conceptual Knife Design Done In The Late 90's

Here is an Indian 'Photo' Knife design that I did toward the end of my time at The Mint. It was to have a seraded blade and a wooden-carved handle with silver ends. There were to be some kind of gems placed on it, and I did red rubies since I thought it looked good and complemented the colors more. Blue would have worked too I think. It was a much more simplified knife than the other dragon ones I posted on my blog. The open area was to be where a photo of Geronimo or some other famous Indian figure was to be placed. I can't remember who it was supposed to be at this point though. The knives were always drawn on graph paper first to get the design balance down and then we would redraw the knife onto white paper, tracing paper or vellum and then do the color. This was colored with magic markers and some colored pencils. The sheen across the blade was done with blue pastel.

DOWN ON THE FARM - Old Ford Farm Tractor Conceptual Design Done In The Late 90's

Here's a side view sketch of an old Ford farming tractor I did for The Mint in mid-'98. Don't know what kind of model number tractor it is was since the piece of art wasn't labelled. There were a few I did but I wasn't really a 'gear head' so I just kind of did the art relying on the reference being good. You can see the paste-overs and fixes I did on the bigger version of it. We did work quite a bit for the reproduction end of things and didn't work for the original art end of it since no one would ever see the stuff outside of the artists who did further work on the stuff. Now the GUNSMOKE stuff I did and posted was done to be seen on products and so I kept the original art clean and mistake free as I could.

SAINT FRANCIS - Conceptual Design For A Sculpture In The Late 90's

Another conceptual design today for a sculpture/figurine based on Saint Francis. I think it was to be a Porcelien figurine but I can't remember now. It was to have a base on it with a bunch of animals around him in the verbal concept that was talked about and so I drew it based on a checklist of what they wanted to see. From that I did three drawings of it and this was the final version. Just pencil and no color. This was done at a time when the layoffs at The Mint first started to happen in mid-'99 and people were panicking, and even the art seemed to reflect the inner turmoil of the company. The art directors would tells us that the pencil sketches were fine and no color was needed on a lot of stuff. The cheaper the art the better, in a sense that they'd just give the drawing to a sculptor and they'd make it into a prototype and worry about a color palette later on. A lot of stuff was designed completely from every aspect before it was even considered worthy to give it to a sculptor or artist. They were cutting back and if they could save money but not having me color it, it was to their favor so I just left it with some crosshatching.

I'd also like to note that on this art you can see that the doves are all touching in one way or another and they take off from the ground. For those who aren't familiar with sculpting, you always need to anchor everything to give it support. Delicate or flimsy sculptures will make it impossible to pack and ship worldwide. They would most likely add a super, thin wire that would run down the center of the doves somehow to give it an added support. It would also depend on the sculptor as well since they weren't told to mimick the drawing exactly. If something needed to be fixed design wise they did it, so in a lot of cases the final product only matched the conceptual design in minimal ways after it was produced. The rule of thumb at The Mint was "to first and foremost make a design as exciting and interesting to look at, and then you figure out how to manufacture it" and also how you'll pack and ship it to collectors. Since this was toward the end of The Mint's collectible manufacturing portion of the company, they went straight to the "How are we going to manufacture it?" stage. I still like it.

MORGAN LE FAY - Conceptual Design Of 'The Enchantress' For A Sculpture/Figurine In The Late 90's

As her name indicates, the figure of Morgan appears to have been originally a fairy (Le Fey) rather than a human woman. Later transformed into a woman, and King Arthur's half sister, she became an enchantress to continue her powers.

This was my final version in full color of a sculpture/figurine of Morgan le Fay I did for The Mint in the late 90's. There were about 4 or 5 other pencil versions that I did of her with the cat around her as she was conjuring up some spell. I tried to make her sexier than the normal dress of the day since she had a sexuality to her that her character demanded. Because of the timeline to get it done in color I painted the final art with Magic Markers and highlighted some aspects with colored pencils. The original art was around 11" x 11" on tan-colored Canson art paper.

This image is a scan off of a color copy of my original art. The original was much more vibrant and popped off the page a lot more, but since this is a scan off of a 2nd generation copy of it, it has lost a lot. The Mint had a good color copier in it and everyone used the thing so much that when I went to make my copies at the end of the day of stuff I did, the copier needed a cartridge change or had some other issue with it, so some of my design art is what it is. They kept all the art and the only art I got out with when the place was going under was my original GUNSMOKE and Old West stuff I did since that was my favorite art I did there, though I wish I had snagged this on my way out. It's been 10 years since anyone has seen this art as it's been in my archives. Enjoy!

EASY RIDER - Pewter Sculpture Conceptual Design Done In The Late 90's

Here's two versions of a final design I did for an Easy Rider Sculpture for The Mint in the late 90's. These were the final versions though there were plenty of roughs with different moments of the film being immortalized in pewter. It was the same idea as to what I did with the Audrey Hepburn figurine that I posted last. Not sure why this design was the one chosen. Maybe it was to appeal to motorcycle collectors more than some of the other designs which had the characters taking more of the focus? The reason I'm posting the pencil version is for you to see the alternate version of the text logo that I did. We ultimately went with the 'engine plate' logo as you can see on the toned version. It was supposed to be a pewter statue with a limited use of bronze mixed into it, so I used magic marker as a simple guide as to placement. The cool thing about the base plate was that I designed it to be in the shape of America and if you saw the other viewpoint I did of it looking straight down from the top you could see the familiar shape. Then once the figures and bikes were added they'd be 'traveling across America' as they did in the movie. I thought it was a cool idea. There were more sketches as well done for it, and there was one that had Jack Nicholson's character sitting on the back of Fonda's bike, but I think we had to take him off for licensing reasons. As I recall, not sure though, we only had the rights to Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper likenesses.

AUDREY HEPBURN Conceptual Design Art For A "Breakfast At Tiffany's" Figurine In The Late 90's

Here are some of the sketches I did of Audrey Hepburn for a proposed figurine that The Franklin Mint wanted to make in spring of 1999. I was called into the main art director's office from my cubicle in the art department and he told me about what they wanted to produce, but that he wasn't sure at that point what film or moment from Audrey's life that they were going to bring to 3D life. He told me I'd be working on it and he'd have more info after lunch and for me to go to the Mint's library and start to get reference on her. So after lunch I went to the Library (which was one of the nicest libraries I've ever been in. They had a LOT of great reference books on all kinds of things and some I'd used for outside projects such as my original Scooby-Doo audition to help me with the backgrounds I had to draw!) So this first sketch above was a pen and ink that I whipped out trying to get a likeness on Audrey in 2D. I drew it from a shot from Breakfast At Tiffany's, which I thought would be the movie that the 'suits' would want to work designs around since it's her biggest and best film she ever made to my mind.

After lunch I sat with the art director again and we talked about the approach I would take. It was to be a figurine based on the Breakfast At Tiffany's film and I had a copy of the movie on VHS which I had gotten from the library to watch and get ideas for possible 'scene' diaramas that I could come up with. There were about 10 or so scenes that I drew up and here are some of the best ones that I really liked...

Now in the midst of drawing up ideas, I was also told to come up with a static pose that could possibly be made of just Audrey standing there looking into Tiffany's window as she does in the beginning of the film. Now, the funny part is that I was told that this was the LAST THING that we wanted to do and the direction was really to make something special and unique that a Hepburn fan would love to own that they normally couldn't get from anywhere else. There was, in fact, a $20 Barbie doll version of Audrey in the SAME exact kind of pose and dress coming out relatively soon and it would be hard to compete with a much cheaper version that could actually move since it had joints. Plus, it had a lot of cool little props that you could take and play with. Mattel did a superb job with it. I drew only one version of Audrey standing in the famous pose (which is directly below) and had an overlay of acetate with a pair of glasses pasted on. They wanted to have that design add-on so you could take the sunglasses on and off of the figurine if you so desired.

This last drawing is my favorite...it's the scene at the end of the film when Holly (Audrey's character) jumps out of the taxi cab and runs into the alley to search for Cat. It's a pivotal scene in the film and the perfect closure. I kinda wish they had gone with this concept since it was so unique and I thought Hepburn fans would have love to had this as a figurine. In the end...they chose the boring standard pose that is above. Ugh...
As I sat back in the art director's office I asked him why after all that work did they just wind up doing the safe and boring design that they didn't want to do in the first place? He just looked at me and said, "What can you do?" Ah, corporate suits know how to run stuff into the ground and we're just cogs in the wheel. This was kind of the beginning when I knew The Mint was on the downturn. It really hit the skids soon after when we were doing the Speed Racer 'Mach 5' car, which is another story all together...

At any rate, enjoy these designs for what they are and what could have been!

THE RIFLEMAN! Chuck Conners Conceptual Art From The Late 90's

Here is a piece I did of actor Chuck Conners from THE RIFLEMAN, which ran from 1958 to 1963 on TV! This is a piece featuring the father and son team of Lucas McCain and his son, Mark! Done in the same vein and product line as the GUNSMOKE stuff, it wasn't used in the end. I like the original though. It was inked with a brush on tan Canson art paper around a 12" x 12" size and then it was colored in full color (instead of sepia tones) with pastels. The reason I did all this work on the tan colored art paper was so that it simulated an old west feel to it. Enjoy!

CHESTER And FESTUS From GUNSMOKE! More Conceptual Art From The Late 90's

Here's two more portraits I did for GUNSMOKE product, which was never produced, by The Mint in late '98-'99. Since I showed you Marshal Dillon in my earlier posts, now it's time to show you his sidekick/deputies...Chester Goode and Festus Haggen! Actor Dennis Weaver played the part of Chester Goode for the first ten years of the GUNSMOKE TV show and he was nominated for an Emmy in 1958 and in 1959 for his fine work on GUNSMOKE. He won the coveted Emmy in 1959. On the radio show version of GUNSMOKE, Chester's full name was Chester Wesley Proudfoot. When the TV was in early pre-production, Chester's last name was changed to Goode and Dennis Weaver gave him a physical limp, one which he never had on the radio show.

Chester was now suddenly gone at the beginning of the 11th season, which was weird because they never explained in the show what happened to or why Chester had in fact left (Weaver had left to pursue other acting opportunities such as McCloud), he was then replaced over time by Festus Haggen. Actor Ken Curtis went all out in portraying the great mountain man who helped Marshal Dillon on his latter adventures. He also added some comic relief in spots to lighten the seriousness of a given episode and played the part till the end of the series in 1975. Both of these pieces are inked with a brush on tan Canson art paper and then colored with pastels. A white colored pencil was used for highlights. I did these fairly big since I knew they were going to get severely reduced down in production and I wanted to keep the quality as high as I could. Also, as a little known tidbit, that all these pieces would have been burned in a hot steam press device that they had at The Mint. This device was kind of like a steam press for doing iron-on t-shirts and it burned any artwork to give it a weathered and old Wanted poster look to it as it would singe the edges. The thing about it was that you only got ONE change to do it right so your timing had to be perfect. Kinda like watching a piece of toast in the toaster oven. I honestly was scared to use it and thankfully they pulled the plug on the products so that I wouldn't have to deal with accidentally destroying my own work. I did have some test pieces to play with but I was nervous with them as well! Hahaha! Enjoy!

MARSHAL MATT DILLON From GUNSMOKE Final Art!

Here is the final version of the GUNSMOKE prelim pencil sketch piece I posted a few days back. This was the final art for it and I still love it as I have the original here. It's a pen and ink drawing on tan Canson art paper and it was colored with pastels. A white colored pencil was used for highlights. Done for a proposed idea for The Franklin Mint, but was never used since they pulled the plug on the entire line of Old West products. Here it is from the Neely archives to be seen for the first time in almost 10 years! Enjoy!

JULIE BELL FANTASY BIKE - Conceptual Design Done For THE MINT in 1999

Here is the final art sketch I did for a Julie Bell pewter figurine sculpture in late '99 featuring one of her 'Heavy Metal' type of characters on a demonic motorcycle. Well, it's just the bike actually. We designed one thing at a time and getting the bike right was the more important of the two main elements. We were given free reign and a few artists at The Mint took a stab at doing it. I thought it was weird that Julie just didn't do the concept herself and then give it to The Mint and say, "Here, make this." I did around three to five sketches total for it and this was my favorite and the one that I think came close to being made. The sculpture was produced, but it's been so long that I can't remember how the final looked other than it had a 'Heavy Metal' style, half -naked, warrior chick straddling her cycle with her arm up in defiance of something. I think the imagery was based on a Julie Bell feel and not based on one of her actual paintings. It's been a loooonnngggg time since this was done so I don't remember. I'm quite happy with the drawing even now since I'm quite critical of my own work. It was one of those projects that I didn't mind sinking my teeth into. It's funny looking at it now as I think that it would have fit perfectly into the Ghost Rider movie that was out last year with Nic Cage!

DRAGON KNIFE - Conceptual Designs For THE MINT In The Late 90's

Here are a bunch of conceptual designs I did for a Dragon Knife for The Franklin Mint in late '98. This was before the computer age of digital coloring had taken off so I used markers, pastels, colored pencils and whatever else I had around at the time. Photoshop and any kind of digital art was only used by a very small handful of artists in The Mint at that time. I went digital in 2000 in terms of doing art. From these drawings (if and when they got approved) they then went into the next phase of development, which was making an actual full-size prototype. Most of these were sketched on tracing paper or vellum since they made a lot of changes and it was easier to fix on those two papers. From that point, I'd make a copy of each drawing and then color each knife in a variety of colors and schemes with different gems and metals depending upon what the art directors wanted. Some of the designs were just left in the sketch phase and some got fully produced. Enjoy!