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!

"Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance" Art Donation!

Here's a donation pile of cool stuff I donated to the Rocky Mountain Alley Cat Alliance this April for their annual fundraising auction. There are two pencilled pages from a Scooby comic and one from an Eds comic I did, plus a bunch of signed books I drew and some art prints I made which I signed as well. You can check out their site and make a donation at http://www.rmaca.org/index.htm.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! This Saturday!

Posted here again is the flyer for my appearance with other fine artists for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY that will take place THIS COMING Saturday! If in the area, come by and you can get a free comic and a free sketch! We'll be there all day at Captain Blue Hen in Newark, DE!

The New HAL & AL Magazine Ad For The New DVD!

Here is the new ad I had to design to promote the new DVD. It will be running in the Baton Rouge Parents Magazine for the next two months I'm guessing. I also had to redo the ad specs for City Social Magazine as well since it will run in there as well.

The New HAL & Al DVD is released!

I got my box of DVD's today from Scott for our new DVD and it looks GREAT!! It manufactured beautifully and the colors really pop!

The New Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al DVD Art!

Here's the artwork for the new Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al DVD that went to manufacturing in late March. It came out looking great! I'm really happy with the design and color scheme of it all. The second pic is of the label art that is on the DVD itself and the last three pics are of the menu screens which I had to do as well for the DVD. We kept it simple this time. This is our third DVD for Hal & Al and I think it's our best (though the Christmas Show DVD is quite good too!). It's loaded with two hours of Pre-K fun for the kids! To order go to www.halandal.com! Or if you live in Louisiana, you can go to School Aids or the Bass Pro Shops to buy one!

SCOOBY-DOO #133! "VMOTW:The Calchona" comic story!

Here is the new two-page story I just did for Scooby-Doo #133. I did the cover which I posted before but now here's a story that will be in it as well. It's another "Velma's Monsters of the World" history lesson featuring "The Calchona" which is in Chile! I like posting the original art like this since you now get to see parts of the art that usually get covered over by the word balloons.

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!

ED, EDD N EDDY in "Where's My Ed?"!

Here I am back again to post the goings on at the studio artwise. It's been a super busy three months! Here's the final art to the Ed, Edd n Eddy comic book story I drew that will be in Cartoon Network Block Party #47 in a few months. It's a 6-page story called "Where's My Ed?"

POWER RANGERS, more work and the Wrath of the Flu!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted. Almost a month. But I've been busy working through a sickness and then playing catch up. The day I lasted posted, March 10th, was the start of a flu bug that knocked me down for a week and I lost around 8 days on doing the final artwork for the Power Rangers work I was doing which got final approvals that day in fact.

It was really bad back on March 11th and 12th as I drew two Ed, Edd n Eddy comic book pages with a massive 103 degree fever. It was a 6-page story which I'll be doing the final inking for this week. I finally went to the doctor on the 13th and it was an adventure getting my prescription for an antibiotic, but I was finally up and running a few days later as I started getting better.

During this time since my last post I did the new Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al DVD artwork for our new DVD which is being manufactured as I type this, then I did two business card designs along with a letterhead, envelope design, and a flyer design for a client. I then did some patent drawing for a new invention for the same client, then I drew a six-pager for an Eds story as I mentioned for DC Comics. Not to mention designing the April issue of DCM magazine that had a new Alfie cartoon as well...and then I just finished all 83 illustrations for the Power Rangers on Monday night! Whew! That's a lot going on but it all got done. The best part is sending out invoices to get paid! Money, money, money!

Right now this week, I have a two-page Scooby-Doo story to draw (which is due at DC Comics on April 23rd) so I have to pencil it, then ink the 6 pages of the Ed, Edd n Eddy comic (which is due ASAP) and also in that time to draw and work on the art for a Power Rangers storybook which is due on April 24th! YIKES! It's a busy time! Plus, I have to get my taxes done this week as well!

I'll post some new art soon!

POWER RANGERS: JUNGLE FURY - sketches approved!

Got an email today that I was looking forward to getting! The sketch art I drew (and posted some of here) for Power Rangers: Jungle Fury was finally approved by Disney today!! It took three weeks to go through the process since there was a lot of pieces but there were more people who had to approve it than normal. In an exciting moment, ALL of the art was approved with NO changes needed! Kind of an amazing thing considering how many pieces were drawn. I was happy with that (as was Disney) since now I can move onto doing the final artwork without having to redraw some aspects of it and getting it approved again. I'll be plugging away to the final art for the next few weeks.

HELLO KITTY! A commissioned sketch request!

In an effort to draw anything and everything when called upon, I got a request to do a sketch of HELLO KITTY. Some of you may be laughing out there, but commissions are a strange thing. This is the first time I've drawn this character. This art was done by hand naturally since the as you can see by the pencil sketch lines and I did it in about 20-25 minutes. All of the HELLO KITTY art you see in the shopping malls is actually produced in Adobe Illustrator so that they can blow it up to a skyscraper if need be. Plus, you can get perfect line quality all around the character that you just can't do by hand. The same type of stylized character as the Powerpuff Girls.

Scooby-Doo #133 Cover Art! Welcome To The Jungle!

Here's the new cover I did for DC Comics for Scooby-Doo #133 this week. Finished it early Friday after tweaking the color a hair or two and loaded it up to them via the FTP. I'm really, really happy with the design of how it came out. The triangle of danger (Mayan Mummy, Snake and Gator) frames Shaggy and Scooby and draws the eye right to them since they are the focus. The angle of the sinking temple and the log the guys are on gives it movement even though they are still. It was a rush job and as usual with rush jobs I seem to do better work because I don't overthink the thing and keep going back into it and keep screwing with it. Sometimes the first thing one does is the best thing. Below this text I've attached the cover again with the logos and UPC symbol I use as a guide when I draw. I also came up with two word balloons and the title text as well to help sell the idea to the editor since there were no thumbnails again in the creation of this piece. The text could change as well on the final printed version. The final printed comic will be out in June!

DC Comics also loaded me up with a ton of work! I got two Scooby-Doo scripts FedEx'ed to me Thursday night and then I got 4 Ed, Edd n Eddy scripts to draw today from another editor! Apparently I'm the only artist for the Eds now so I got the motherload! Yowza!!! They all have loose deadlines as well! I couldn't believe it! I'll have to fit them in between the final Power Rangers art that I'm still waiting on Disney to give me the final approvals for. Always good to be busy!! Enjoy! And as always, you can click the image to see the bigger version.

My DCCC "Rising Star" Alumni Award!

As with the last post, these are photos I finally downloaded off my camera of the award that I won back in late September last year. It was from Delaware County Community College, a local community college that I went to back in 2001-2002 when I had to learn the digital end to doing the art that I do now. I went to the college for one year and learned Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Quark. I guess I was nominated for this alumni award since I've done a lot art wise in the field and my teachers whom I still talk to nominated me to get it. It was a nice night out with my parents and friends at a local casino when I officially received the award. There were five 'Rising Star' awards given out that night at the banquet. As my mother had said as we were leaving that night, "Some people go to college for four years and get no awards, you go for one year and..."

I took two pics of the award and a third one with the flash on so you can see the etched lettering on it. My friend Joe said that it looked like a crystal that should have been in the Fortress of Solitude! Haha! It is a nice award to put on the mantle. I have two now! This one and a fine art award I won from the Franklin Mint back in 2000 or so. Also I've put two press clippings that were done. One in a local press paper and one from the college's newsletter.