Grim Sketches today... literally!

I found some old warm up sketches that related to the The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy comic I drew for DC Comics. I posted the full comic on my blog back in April.

You can see me working out Grim's gesture and basic pose for panel 2. Not sure why he's angry in my sketch and happy in the story. He was always yelling at the kids on the show. I still work out my ideas on cheap paper before I decide what to go with.

Doing warm ups can get you going and I usually sketch stuff that relate to the project I'm working on at the time. Some artists draw whatever they want to draw for fun to warm up but I usually like to get in a rhythm by working on backgrounds, props, or supporting characters. Some make it into the project and some don't.

FROM THE ARCHIVE: My SESAME STREET Storybook Audition

Here are some samples from my archive that I originally did for Sesame Workshop featuring some of the characters from Sesame Street! Done back in or around 2014. 

I did other samples for them, but these were unique in that they were done to show them I could do storybook art as well. I had already done many storybooks by this time but they wanted to see how well I would interpret the art direction they gave me with their characters and not someone else's characters. I agreed with this and it was not an issue. It was also not a paid audition test, but the upside had way more positives than negatives. 

Two reasons why they wanted me to do this: 

1) To reassure them I knew how to draw and layout art for a storybook while working within the given size specs and be able to leave enough room for the manuscript text (very important!).

2) To draw the characters in original poses without relying on style guide art as a crutch. 

There is a different skill and language to doing storybooks and it depends on what age demo they are being produced for as well.

They wanted three samples total, and they just wanted to see rough versions for them. They gave me art direction for two of them and the third I could do whatever I wanted for fun. When I submitted them back to them I put the art direction on the sample as well. That way as my samples made the rounds internally it was all there and self-contained on the main two. I marked the areas for where the manuscript text would go, but it's fairly easy to see without it. It's an art to build and frame areas where the story text will go on any given page and that's part of the fun of designing a storybook. There's so many ways to do it! 

On my samples, I added some gray tone to make them pop a bit more off the page and give some separation. Normally, if you were doing an actual book, you wouldn't have time for it, but you always have to go a bit further on the audition pieces to impress the powers that be. 

My third piece was done for fun and it featured the Twiddlebugs that lived in the windowsill garden outside Ernie's window. I used to love when they would appear on the show when I was a kid as they collected odds and ends to make their home and car. I also thought they were unique, and they weren't in the original reference they gave me, so I thought it would show some extra effort on my part. 

In the end, I was approved and added to the list of artists that were available to work on Sesame Street material. I never did get any actual work though as they had two other artists who had been doing the work for quite some time and they always got first dibs on any new projects. If they turned something down or couldn't fit it in, I would then possibly get it. That was fine as you never know when the call or email will come.

I inquired again a couple years ago to see if the people I knew were still there and if there was anything new going on. They were still there and I was told I was still on the list but that they weren't producing much (if any) new art due to budget cuts (among other funding issues). Turns out they were mostly repurposing the vast archive of style guides and older work for any new projects they did. They were also reprinting older classic material for a new audience. One that has never been out of print since 1971 is the classic Little Golden Book The Monster at the End of This Book starring Grover!

Hope you enjoyed this fun post as I find some more from my vast archives! 

 

 

Do artists really see it on the paper before they draw it?

I recently watched Bob Kane and Stan Lee on this 90's "Comic Greats" video series where Stan Lee had guests on to talk and draw. It's on YouTube. Before you rag on me about Bob Kane and the whole Bill Finger thing (and all the other Bob Kane stories), I want to move past that and pose a question based on something he said. I had to transcribe part of the video for this:

"All drawing is knowing where to put the lines," said Stan Lee. (I agree with, Stan!)

"The brain draws, not the hand. This is the mechanical part of it," said Kane. "I see the picture in my mind's eye as a cartoonist and the reason that I can draw and other people can't is that I can visualize it. My mind's eye is the projector, so before I do a head or a car or whatever, I see it on white paper. I really have that vision as all artists do."

I've heard this notion before and wonder if it's true. I've only had this happen THREE times in 30 years! You average it out to be once every 10 years where I'm so in the zone that I could see it on paper. 

In reality, every drawing is a fight on paper. Not always. Sometimes it's easier but I always seem to only have a loose idea of it in my head. This is why I sometimes hate to get nailed down to being a slave to my thumbnails as things can change. Am I afraid to commit to the line as a better idea will come along? Possibly, as I've had many "happy accidents" as Bob Ross would say.

Case in point, here is a page of Phineas and Ferb I drew quite a while ago. I read the art direction and for some reason saw this complicated scene so clearly that I drew it on paper directly with a blue ink ballpoint pen. No erasing. I still use those pens for writing and they don't have erasers. I did draw a pencil line border that was the correct size spec for the page but that was it. When done I scribbled a blue line border over it to finalize it. When I was done, it was all there. I was kind of amazed by it. So much so that I still have it here. There's also an energy to the piece that gets lost as it goes through the process of refinement and then the cold, sterile look of the final inks.

I know Jack Kirby could start in the top left corner of a blank double-page spread and just work his way diagonally across the page and to the bottom right corner and it would all just be there. Some people have the vision better than others. 

The journey continues...

POKEMON: My Original Thumbnails & Mini Size-Chart From 1999!

Yesterday, while going through my archives, I found a sheet of Pokemon thumbnails and a mini size chart I made back in 1999. The Pokemon guide book they gave me had size charts that went several pages (back then they only had 150 Pokemons or so), and it was just easier to make my own quick hand-made size chart of the characters I had to specifically draw at the time. 

All this was done just for me and I only had to send out the final art roughs. Some prelims they may want to see but that was rare back then. Nowadays, the suits like to see every aspect to justify their jobs.

One that got away: Despicable Me 2

 

One IP that I did an audition for but didn't get was for Despicable Me 2. I did these sketches back in 2012 and while I thought they were fine, they didn't go to another phase. Never heard more about it and I moved on. I'm not sure why I didn't get it, but you do a lot of auditions and keep moving. Or you get the reverse of it, I was approved and was on the artist list to draw Sesame Street material but then just never got any work due to where I was in the pecking order. Ultimately, if you get a gig, it's great... but just keep moving and stay open to new opportunities!

These were also done by hand on paper. Yes, they are really clean and tight for being roughs and I inked the line to match the thin line look they wanted. It was a fast, rough ink just to pick out and fine tune my drawings for the initial approval process as that's how licensing goes. I also inked them in black, but once I scanned them in, I lowered the opacity on them to make them a light gray to simulate a pencil look. I used to do this from time to time.

Last thing about these... Not sure why I did two versions of Margo, but they did give me a plaid pattern to see how it would look as a skirt, so I'm guessing it was done to show them a more detailed look as opposed to a simplified one. Enjoy!

 

Celebrating Pokémon Day with this small tribute!

July 21, 1999 - That was the day that I started work on a thing called Pokémon for Golden Books. I had no idea what it was. I didn't do an audition for it either. In hindsight, I guess they were in a real big hurry to get some American product out there as it was blowing up. Pokémon was one of the first major licenses that I worked on over 25 years ago! There was only 150 of them as I recall back then. I still have the Pokémon model sheets that they mailed me back in '99! Pre-internet, kids!

I didn't do much for it though (only three projects, but they were fun to do!) as I was soon asked to do an art audition for Scooby-Doo in the fall of '99, and that completely changed my life and career.  

Today is Pokémon Day (2/27/2025) and the Pokémon Company believes it can last another 50 to 100 years. I would have to agree! It's got a solid, entertaining concept and you can go a long way with solid, entertaining concept.

 

How Detailed Are My Thumbnail Sketches?

I've been asked before how detailed my thumbnail drawing are since all artists do them differently in terms of how much detail or work is put into them. Mine are pretty loose and rugged and if anyone looked at them at this stage I doubt that they'd know what was going on. Thumbnails are really just for the artist anyway to work out his thoughts and not for other to normally see and you save a lot of drawing time by doing them and working out your layouts and trying to get the best one. Above are some thumbnails that I think the casual observer can get the layout and the dynamics I was shooting for in this P and F comic especially with the first page and the last page. They are about 3 inches high and an inch and a half wide and drawn with a ball point pen. They vary usually and are not exact and sometimes I draw them right on the script in some dead area of the page. Remember that I'm just trying to work out the dynamics of it and where word balloons will go. 

These are RGB scans of my final roughs as I had to work out how the magic pens would work since they had to be done separately and in another media so that they'd translate as "magical". They were done separately and digitally in the end. Hope you like this look into the process!

DOOF'S LAB - Destroyed! Sketches

Here are three background plates I did in November for a Phineas and Ferb comic. To speed it along, I did these three plates of Doof's lab being destroyed to save time so then I just had to draw the characters and then move them or tweak them as they talked so there would be variation in each panel. Basically it was like doing a storyboard. I've done this kind of time saver before on Scooby as well if it's the same scene in say a laboratory or office building. Animation does this naturally but comics used to have each background drawing drawn separately or retraced in each panel, though with a lot of comics being drawn directly or tweaked in the computer nowadays artists can do these tricks rather easily now. This is a time saver for sure.

ALFIE Sketch

After I finished up my Phineas and Ferb work Sunday night for a Monday deadline, I drew this Alfie sketch before I went to bed last night. It was done in about an hour and was easy to draw since Alfie was tired and curled up to sleep. He occassionally kept raising his head to wonder what I was doing while looking at him. It was drawn with the Micron Pens and I used a PITT Brush Marker for his back body hair.

Working With PHINEAS AND FERB Again!

I've been bad about posting stuff of late but allergies have been killing me this year and it's hard to draw when you sneeze 15 times in a row. But I have been working on some stuff here at Casa de Neely. Since the 12th of May I've been working with the boys again... the boys being Phineas and Ferb! Above is a rough layout that I drew with a blue ball-point pen on some better than average art paper. Those of you who follow me know I draw mostly on cheap copy paper when I do my rough sketches but for this one I somehow started drawing it on good art paper. Can't remember why at this point but I think it was because I was too lazy to go and grab the cheaper paper in the closet at the time. I was probably too tired from sneezing to get up and get it. I'm posting it since it was one of the rare times that I actually had this layout really well thought out in my head and was able to put it on paper. I also drew it with a ball-point pen to change it up; plus not having an eraser on the end helps you draw faster. I sometimes do sketches with just a pen as it forces you to get the image out and not worry about fixing it as you go along. It's kind of like being a writer and banging out a first draft and then going back and fixing it after it's done. A lot of times, I create in pieces and then move the elements around the get the best position for stuff to make a better design. This one kind of came together a little easier than normal and once I had it pretty well etched in my mind I put it on paper. The work was approved and I've been doing the final art the last two days and will be working this weekend on it to get it done.

Quick Scooby Sketch!

Here's a quick Scooby sketch I did in about 20 minutes (whipped out on copy paper and inked with a Pitt Brush Marker) as I'm prepping to start a new Scooby project tomorrow where Mystery Inc. goes to yet another carnival and finds yet another mystery that needs solving. Who'da thunk it?! Is there ever a slow day in Coolsville?

PHINEAS AND FERB! Some New Sketches!

Here's some new Phineas and Ferb sketches I did of late! Just pencil and then inked on top of cheap copy paper.

Even Monsters Need Love...

Something cute and fun...even Monsters have a heart! Burned this sketch out quick as I remember and it got used on a kids book last year. I threw some color on it to make it pop more.

POWER RANGERS JUNGLE FURY - The Purple Wolf Ranger Emerges!

Well, today marked a busy day here at the Neely drawing board...I finally finished the pencils roughs for the 4th Power Rangers book! I'd thought I'd post the last page I drew so you could see it! It's the Purple Wolf Ranger in his opening entrance shot to the story. I left the text blocks in so you can get an idea of where they go. The art direction was to have him emitting power and purple bolts of energy around him as he emerges from clouds of smoke from the battle that was ensuing. Looks cool for a rough, but it will rock when it's in full color. I'm just mapping out a look for the page at this stage. I had to get it done since now I have a new Scooby-Doo project to draw for overseas as this PR book goes into approvals at Disney over here. Enjoy!

POWER RANGERS JUNGLE FURY - Rough Spread Art!

Here's how I spent my Sunday afternoon today before the Eagles game came on TV at 4:15pm. It was a small rush to get it done by game time. Came out looking cool for a rough version, though it's still tight. It's a spread for the 4th Power Rangers Jungle Fury book I'm working on right now. The Rangers team up to use their cannon on the two evil Stone Warriors and the Purple Wolf Ranger amplifies the power of the cannon with his wrist thing. The blast vaporizes the two warriors and the Grizzaka in his fury creates two more warriors the size of skyscrapers...to which the Ranger then form a Megazord to battle them. Work in progress... Enjoy!

Still Protecting People From The Evil Dai Shi Clan! - Prelim Sketch for POWER RANGERS JUNGLE FURY Book 4!

Here's a sketch prelim for y'all! I did this rough for one of the new spreads for Power Rangers Jungle Fury (Book #4) called Enter The Wolf! I'm almost done the pencil stage of it and it's proven more difficult since there is a TON of detail on the villains of this story! I've got about 5 spreads left to tighten up from my thumbnails. This art that I'm sharing will have their three animal spirits floating behind the Rangers. I do it all separately so that I can play with the composition in the computer later once I scan the art...

In other news, I also got a new Scooby project this week from Schibsted in Sweden called The Forest Phantom to pencil now as well for a December 1st deadline! Moving right along I'll start that mid-next week after I finish the Rangers roughs! Also this weekend, I have to finish a new Alfie cartoon and layout the new issue of DCM Magazine! We got a great interview with James Bond actor Daniel Craig so I have to lay that out as well.

ADRIAN PAUL as the HIGHLANDER...DUNCAN MACLEOD!

Here's some art from my sketchbook I did back in the late 90's being a HUGE fan of the TV show version of Highlander. I thought Adrian Paul was perfect as Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. He fit the mold of what I think the look and feel of a movie/TV hero should be, much like my father would probably say Buster Crabbe or Clayton Moore. There was a presence to him that made him stand out amongst the other immortals on the show. You knew he was the good guy. I even liked Duncan MacLeod more than the character of Conner MacLeod (who was played in the movie series by Christopher Lambert). Lambert was good with what he did, but I'm a Paul fan.

At any rate, here's a peek at the process I can go through. Here is the pencil sketch from my sketchbook and then I blew it up to 11" x 17" on a copy machine and then lightboxed it onto a new sheet of art paper as I inked the final piece. I still like it as a whole and the pencil version has a lot of energy to it. You can click on the art to enlarge it! Enjoy!

Unused Background Art From My Sketchbooks!

Here is a pen and ink sketch from my old sketchbook. I think I did it for a background for a Wonder Woman piece which I think fell through. I just found this background art and not any character art to go over it so I guess it did fall through or the character art is some place else around here. Came out looking dramatic and moody though...

Here's a sketch of a living room that I did for a Green Hornet comic waaaaaayyyyy back when. I was working out the set design first before I drew any characters to get my thoughts down on paper as to the room and feel of it. It never did see print since Now Comics who published the book went under. So who knows, maybe I'll use it for something else at some point...

MARSHAL MATT DILLON from GUNSMOKE! Old Pencil Sketch Prelim!

Here's a pencil sketch of the great James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon, the main lead character on TV's greatest show ever... GUNSMOKE! It's my favorite show of all time though I wasn't around when it had originally aired. I've got video tapes and DVD's of the TV show and audio tapes, CD's and MP3's of the radio show here. Great morality tale stories that had characters with real depth! The radio show version of GUNSMOKE (1952-1961) came before the TV version (1955-1975) and that was just as incredible with William Conrad playing the part of Marshal Dillon.

I did quite a few GUNSMOKE (and other old western TV show) pieces for The Franklin Mint in the late 90's for a proposed old west series of items that never got past the conceptual design stage. I still have most of all my originals that I did for these products. They are some of my finest work and I kept them since I loved them so much. A few are framed and hanging around the house here. This piece was a rough early pencil version of Marshal Dillon that I drew for one such product design. I'll post more soon! Enjoy!

GO, GO, POWER RANGERS! More sketch art...

Here's some more Power Ranger sketches for the main three Rangers that I'm mostly drawing. The Red, Yellow and Blue Rangers are the main Rangers for the Jungle Fury show and they're pretty cool in their design so I'm glad I have a chance to work on this material than the previous incarnations of the Power Rangers where I though the costumes were less than interesting. These sketches, as the other PR art I've posted here thus far, are what I submit and wait for approvals from Disney before I do the final art. These poses will be in the Jungle Fury style guide when finished and also the poses will be used in the second storybook I'm doing as well, so I'm doing as many poses as I can to keep the look fresh without reusing art over and over and it's nice having enough cool action poses and static poses of them just standing heroically to do more with for a layout.

As an aside, that's one of the things I hated about the Bratz work I did in 2004 was that the poses and character art were so limited in the beginning that they were reusing and flipping the art to get the maximum use out of every piece of art and it got really boring seeing the same exact art used all the time. Luckily they got new art for the Bratz during the second year of licensing but the first year was brutal. I wonder what the Bratz fans thought though...