It's Strawberry Fields...For A Little While...

Oooooohhh! A blog post with a good title that works for it. I had the Beatles song going through my head as I was uploading up the pic. This past Thursday I found out that I was approved again (or re-approved?) to draw Strawberry Shortcake. I had to do a new audition for it since they changed the look for her in 2008 and they aged her a smidge more than the version I originally drew back in 2004-05. I guess to compete with the newer version of Dora the Explorer as they both now look like they could almost exist in the same universe. I like the newer face and head shape designs and she's just as colorful as she ever was. I did several pieces for an audition and there were little tweaks here and there, with only two major complete redraws. It takes a bit to get the female body language down and the ultimate feel of it again, but once you figure out how to do it, it's not hard. I've done so much male dominated work the past few years that you do lose something when you go back to a feminine one.

I'll post some of my sketches, and the changes that were made, since some like to see the process of how this all gets done.

MERRY CHRISTMAS SCOOBY-STYLE!

As Scooby says above, Merry Christmas to all those who like to view and read my blog of current goings-on at the Neely Studio! This Scooby vector art was sure an old file, the final art was finalized back on July 17, 2000! Yikes! Time sure does fly! Sorry I've not been posting any new art since my trip ended and I came back, but as soon as the plane hit the tarmac back in Philly I was hammered with the last Power Rangers Jungle Fury project to do, which was finished yesterday artwise and now it just has to be colored. Later this week, I also have to finish a new Scooby project for overseas as well! I also have two possible new jobs to do in the coming month of January so 2009 looks to be off to a great start as well! Also of note, Hal & Al may be on local TV in North and South Carolina very soon as well! It just keeps building!

SMURFS!

Here come the Smurfs! I did these back in 2000/01 in Adobe Illustrator for fun inbetween Scooby work and have tried to use them as samples for getting potential Smurf work over the years. I had designed the first two as book covers so they are cropped quite a bit here to make them more of a single image with not much dead space. Maybe that future work will come to fruition when the CGI animated movie comes out next year...

More POWER RANGERS prelim sketches!

It's still a Power Rangers world over here and looks to be for a while more which is fine by me. These are some new poses of the main three Rangers I did which will be in a a second PR: JF storybook I'm working on right now. These sketches will be final inked and also be a part of the official PR style guide as well which is why I drew them separately and with a full body. They will be cropped in the storybook. Anyway, enjoy!

PRECIOUS GIRLS CLUB line art! Or How I Spent My Weekend...

Here is how I spent this past weekend here in the studio. I got a call on late Friday afternoon to do some quick, single character line art illustrations for the Precious Moments licensing line. I had till Tuesday or Wednesday to get it done, but I banged it out and had it all done around Mid-Sunday afternoon. It was a fun and quick job for some great money. This was quite a nice change from being so immersed in the world of the Power Rangers: Jungle Fury art I've had been doing since Mid-February.

Now Precious Moments is mostly known for it's whimsical baby or young child illustrations and sculptures, which all have the tear drop eye look that is the signature to it's style. This project was for Precious Girls Club, which is a line where (I guess) they aged the kids up to about an 7-9 year old range. The bodies and clothing style has the Strawberry Shortcake feel to it, which as most people know I drew as well back in 2004 for the better part of the year.

Here is a small batch of the characters I did. I did ten of them in total. For a better look click to enlarge!

My Scoob's On A Matchbox Car!

I was out at Walmart tonight buying some vitamin water cause they got it cheap there and trolling to see if there was anything new that I worked on and I came across a Scooby Matchbox Car set and saw that my art of Fireman Scooby I did for the style guide was on the firefighter hummer! Here's the pics of the product and my original artwork which was done as BW and in color in Illustrator. Pretty cool.

Also, I was in the comic store today and noticed that there was one comic that really popped out on the new issue wall...and what do you think it was? Ok, I'll tell ya. It was Scooby #131 with the 'Earth Day' cover I did! And it printed GREAT!! It POPS! That yellow was a beacon amid all the other DC and Marvel stuff. BooYah!

Disney's Handy Manny!

Here's a small batch of Handy Manny art I did last October for Disney's Handy Manny. You'll be seeing it around in a month or two now as more HM products are released. All the art was done in Adobe Illustrator and there were a total of 63 pieces that had to be done in a month. Last October was the busiest month of 2007 for me and I also did a Scooby-Doo project and an Ed, Edd n Eddy project as well. Plus I taught a class for "Drawing For Animation" at the Delaware College of Art & Design and I had my monthly commitment to do editing and layout for Delaware County Magazine. Yikes! But amidst the stress and lack of time it all got done on time! Enjoy some of the Manny stuff....