Pics Of HOLLYWOOD HAL & RHINESTONE AL In The 2010 Baton Rouge Christmas Parade!

As I posted previously, I was down in Louisiana for a Scooby-Doo event in mid-December and the day after I got there (which was December 11), we had to do the 2010 Baton Rouge Christmas Parade. Hal & Al were once again the grand masters of the parade and we had a truck right behind the Mayor's car, which Mayor Melvin "Kip" Holden rode in. It was a three-mile parade that went through the main streets up to the Capitol building. As you drive it slow, you throw out treats, toys, trinkets, etc. to people who are all over the place. It was packed once it got moving. As we got there a little early to set up, Scott [Innes] and I went to get some coffee to kill some time and wound up at the Belle of Baton Rouge Casino, which is a HUGE place just around the corner from the parade start! Here's six pics of it here!

The main lobby as you walk in.

The hotel check-in

And just past the check-in for the hotel it looked like a mall!

It was huge and seemed to go on forever. It was a long walk to get some coffee once we got in there since the restaurant was on the other side of the place.

About 5pm, we walked back and starting getting ready for the parade and these are some pics I took...

After this float/car and the Mayor's car, we were in the maroon pick-up truck.

Some pics of the other parade cars...

LSU is so big in Baton Rouge that these two shaved the sides of their dogs with LSU TIGERS! Talk about team spirit. I hope the dogs were happy.

Hal & Al ready to do a TV spot for the parade for the news as it kicks off!

Scott Innes talking to Mayor Holden

Some more pics before the parade started...

Hal & Al pose with Mayor Holden and some kids for a photo op!

Hal & Al with Mayor Holden!

HAL & AL "ALL-STAR CONCERT" Poster!

Since I posted the cover with Hal & Al on the new issue of City Social advertising the concert, I thought I should post the actual concert poster ad!

HAL & AL On The New Cover Of CITY SOCIAL Magazine!

Hal & Al are on the new cover of City Social magazine this month advertising the Hal & Al All-Star Concert this fall! Saints quarterback Drew Brees will be there as a special guest as well! I had to go back into the photo and add the flesh tone to the Hal & Al costumes for it. From previous posts, I've talked about the steps that I have to do to fix any photos of them since cameras always make them look more white than flesh color. The flash on the camera and the lighting setups keep whiting them out even in the most professional of photoshoot conditions. There are always touch ups to do afterwards. This was fairly easy work as opposed to last year's free CD cover art (posted here last year), which required a lot of work done to it. This cover is a great shot though!

HAL & AL Back In COUNTRY WEEKLY!

The November 16th issue of Country Weekly Magazine is now out on the stands and Hal & Al are on page 25! We got a full page story on the Hal & Al Miracle League Benefit Concert that happened in September and this full page story marks our 4th time in CW this year! You can click on the pics to see the bigger version!

HAL & AL "Baton Rouge Christmas Parade" Free Promo CD Art!

Here is the final artwork I just loaded up tonight to Oasis CD Manufacturing. This Hal & Al CD will be given out December 12 at the downtown Baton Rouge Christmas Parade as a free gift to the first 1,000 people there. It was all paid for by Hal & Al's sponsors and that's why it's all logoed up more than usual, including the CD itself! I reused a lot of art from previous stuff I've done to get it done quick since it was a free promo.

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Above is my original version of the art for the CD label but tonight in the 11th hour when I was going to upload it, I noticed that it was four colors instead of three! I forgot that white was a color as well! So I quickly opted to make the text black. I like the green on it since it broke it up more, so I'm posting it here so you can see it as well. Below will be the final manufactured version.

HAL & AL Benefit Concert "Thank You" Ad!

Here is the ad that was made after the Hal & Al Miracle League Benefit Concert that ran in two magazines as a 'Thank You' since it raised over $100,000 that night!

Evolution Of A HAL & AL CD Cover!

Here is the new CD art for Hal & Al's upcoming Miracle League Benefit Concert CD. These will be given away to everyone who shows up a token gift who bought a ticket. I also had to come up with a two color piece of art to do on the CD itself so I thought a baseball design would tie it together nicely.

As with any new project, each one usually has it's pitfalls or trouble spots that need fixing. I'm posting these last three pics just to show off my Photoshop skills since no one will ever really know the real work that goes into it from looking at the finished product since it will be printed at CD size. If I don't toot my own horn, no one will for me.

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Here is the original photo I got from the professional photoshoot taken down in Louisiana. You can click on it for a bigger version!

The first thing I had to do was separate the background from the characters (as I called them) and once that was done, check all the edges to be sure it was a clean sharp separation. If not I digitally paint the areas that need it. I then fixed Al's turkey neck problem and I also fix little flaws on Al's hands to make them look nice and not so much like a glove. I next take off Hal's eye screen off of his chin.

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Next is the big job of adding a flesh color to Hal & Al. Every professional shoot always whites them out and they look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. For some reason flesh tones on these kinds of costumes never look right after they've been photographed; it most likely has to do with the lighting necessary to get the shot in general. If you shoot in bright sunlight for outdoor events, they get whited out as well. So in order for the characters to print correctly I have to add a flesh tone color over top on a new layer. By doing it that way on a new layer, I can then pull the opacity and then pick the setting that gives me the tone I want.

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Next up, Scott Innes wanted to add Rhinestone Al's scarf in it since it wasn't visable in the original shot and it was tucked inside Al's coat. You can see part of it hanging down past his belt in the original shot. So I took scarfs off of other Al photos, which were all yellow, and then had to change them to purple to match the new scarf since it goes with his yellow shirt. Once I added the new scarf into place I then had to fix it so it looked like it was there originally, so that took some time and then I painted in the shadows to ground it more. Boy, it came out looking great! "Is it real or is it Memorex?"

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Then I had to paint over the part of the pants and digitally take out the purple scarf that hung down. Once that was all taken out, I then created a new belt loop and then worked my way down and digitally painted in the folds of the pants to match the original the best I could. This part took the longest though the whole thing took about 3.5 hours total. I had to work on the original large high res photo since I didn't know if a larger version of the photo would be needed for other advertising at some point. If I did all this work on a small version, I would have been screwed. It's happen before where I did the work in Photoshop and the place we dealt with needed vector art.

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So Rule #1: Always work big if you can! and Rule #2: Ask what they will be using the stuff for and get exact sizes! If they aren't sure, just work big!

Then came the newest change after 99% of the CD had been done. Scott told me to go back to the original photo again and take the WYNK Radio logo off of the kid's t-shirt. There might have been a conflict with LSU coach Paul Mainieri being on the cover and a radio station affiliation. It was probably nothing and even with it being so small on the actual CD cover, we didn't think anyone would see it anyway. But to prevent any problems that might or might not come, I painted over the logo with blue and then went back into it to fix the folds and such to make it look like a natural blue t-shirt. Then I added the vector art of our first Hal & Al concert tour logo on top of the shirt and tweaked it so that it really looks like it was sitting on the shirt. As I tell young art students, a great knowledge of perspective goes a long way and also works in other areas of art! So you must learn it well!

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After it was done, I then took it and dropped it onto the front cover and resized it to fit with everything else. Normally when I do photos of Hal & Al where the characters are the real versions of them in their costumes and not their cartoon forms, I like to add a digital illustration to the background to jazz it up and give it that kid's show look. Works very much like a green screen. The shadows I painted under the characters ground them really well and make them look like they are standing on the field. I also then have to lighten the whole CD art a tad since it always prints darker on the actual CD packaging, which is why I always get the color proofs sent to me to sign off on from Oasis Manufacturing. Always see the proofs if you can!

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Here is the FINAL version! Click on the big version to see how it turned out!

HAL & AL "Miracle League Charity Concert" T-Shirt Design! FINAL Version!

Here is the final version of the concert t-shirt for Hal & Al's benefit concert. I added the Marucci Bats logo to the bats since they are now a sponsor for Hal & Al! I also added all the acts performing that night of the show at the bottom. We were going to put them on the back of the shirt but kept it simple and added them to the front. Doing printing on the back costs more naturally so we wanted to keep it simple. Jimi Jamison from Survivor will be there as well performing and he's a new addition to the advertising poster and such. The art will be printed on a blue shirt as you can see.

HAL & AL Back In COUNTRY WEEKLY Introducing Our SPECK RHODES Puppet! PLUS, Some "Behind The Scenes" Pics!

I spent the day running around to different Wal-Marts to see if they had the new Country Weekly that features our new Speck Rhodes puppet! I found them in all three of the local Wal-Mart's around me and scanned the article. Speck came out a little pink in the scan so I'm posting the original photo I submitted as well.

Below are some pics of the early mock ups I did in Photoshop, then some photos of the actual manufacturing of Speck, and some pics of Speck that Scott Innes took of Speck when he was delivered. Click on all the pics for a bigger view so you can read the taglines!

HOLLYWOOD HAL & RHINESTONE AL Theme Song Music Video Featuring Country Superstar Neal McCoy!

Here's a new video up on YouTube for Hal & Al! It's a new music video cut to the theme song sung by country superstar Neal McCoy! It's a good photo montage of what Hal & Al is all about! Neal recorded the song back in April of 2006 when we were just getting going with Hal & Al! Grammy-nominated Nelson Blanchard played all the instruments and did the production on it!

The HAL & AL "Miracle League Benefit Concert" T-Shirt Designs!

Here is the mock up for the new charity concert t-shirt that I threw together for the concert in October. The red ribbon is the one we are going with right now. It will be printed on a blue shirt. I still have to do the backside of the shirt and put all the performing acts on it.

The green ribbon was originally done first as I thought that choice was what worked best to my eye. All three actually all work well so it could go any way.

HAL & AL soon to be back in COUNTRY WEEKLY MAGAZINE!

Here is a mock up that Country Weekly sent us about the new 2-page story they are doing on our new puppet based on comedian Speck Rhodes! As you can see they will plug in something else down in the corner maybe an ad or another story. It should be on the stands around August 4th! I'll post more about it then with some pics of the puppet and it's preproduction and manufacturing! Here's the tease!

HAL & AL's "Miracle League At Cypress Mounds" Benefit Concert Poster!

Here is the new poster for the advertising for the Hal & Al fall concert this year which is benefiting the Miracle League At Cypress Mounds. The Miracle League needed a new field, which the handicapped can use to play ball on, and Hal & Al are helping out to raise the money to build it. We got many a country star performing on stage that night in Baton Rouge! More may be added!