HAL & AL Drawing Segment With JAMAR NICHOLAS!

Here is the first of a series of new drawing segments that I am producing up here in the subs of Philly for the Hal & Al TV Show. We had shot a bunch of segments with myself and my friend Jamar Nicholas over at Delaware County Community College (who gave me a room to shoot in) and we wound up drawings all kinds of kid friendly things over the course of two Saturdays. This is the first finished segment, which was produced, directed and edited by John Tatarelli, Jr and Jesse Melchoir. They did a superb job on it and Jesse even did all the artwork for the animated opening himself. Luckily, Johnny T has all the camera equipment to pull off a quality production and Jesse is great with doing the graphics work to keep the pacing lively and kid friendly. I'd thought I'd share the first video! These segments will be cut into the Hal & Al show and also be on a future Hal & Al DVD! For more on my friend Jamar, you can go to his site at http://www.jamarnicholas.com/!

A Busy Week With POWER RANGERS RPM!

I know some of my blog followers are probably wondering what I've been doing since I haven't been posting lately...well, needless to say, I have been busy. I will be posting more soon on a regular basis again! No, really! I mean it! Since my appearance at the elementary school, I've drawn two Scooby-Doo comic stories for DC Comics and I'm finishing up inking the second one that I drew right now. While all this has been going on I also got some super quick turnaround work for the new Power Rangers RPM license and that had a quick deadline so I had drawn the rough sketches over the past weekend (after I attended the Wizard World Philly show) and did the final artwork on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! There were some late nights here at the drawing board, and today, I'll be back to inking Scooby pages. Juggling many jobs is tough sometimes, especially when they have a tight deadline and they need the work done quickly. I'll post of the RPM sketches soon.

I also have another BIG (somewhat secret) project that was approved last Friday! It was in the works as a proposal since late May and it was greenlighted on June 19th. We had a meeting with the client on Monday (the 22nd) to talk about the design and the direction that it will take. Everyone seems thrilled thus far and after Scooby I'll be head deep in this new adventure. I'll be doing the work for CSL Biotherapies with Odyssey Design Group coordinating it all! More soon!

Getting Some Local Press...In The SPRINGFIELD PRESS And DELAWARE COUNTY MAGAZINE!

Here are scans of the printed pages of the press I got recently from my appearance at Sabold Elementary School on May 29. Since it was a local appearance I was only able to get it in two of the local papers: the Springfield Press and Delaware County Magazine. Since I do work for DCM, it was easy enough to get the space and I quickly designed the layout for the half page story myself and added an ad for my next appearance at a local library. As for the Springfield Press, I dropped off a disc with the pics and info at their main offices and they printed one of the pics two weeks later. Here is the layout I did for DCM...

Below is the original picture I saw in the paper for the Comic Book Club at Sabold as well. I'm posting it for an example to any of my DCAD students or other artists who may be beginning their career who are trying to get noticed. Try to get some press for yourself! If people don't know you exist, they won't hire you! I contacted the school and the teacher after I saw this photo and a month later, I'm in the same paper with my own picture and ad. It's all promotion for your career and you have to make it happen...because no one else will!

Meeting THE COMIC BOOK CLUB At Sabold Elementary School!

On Friday, May 29th, I had an appearance at Sabold Elementary School (a school that I went to back in the day when I was a little one) and I spoke to teacher Kathryn Robertson's class about what I do for my illustrious living. Kathryn is also the sponsor and in charge of one of their many after-school programs...one of which is called The Comic Book Club. It's made up of 3rd and 4th grade students who all have a common love of comics, photography, art and short stories. I saw a photo of The Comic Book Club in The Springfield Press a few weeks ago and contacted the school to see if they would like to have me come in and speak to the kids since I draw a lot of the material that all kids seem to love. I'm always on the look out to promote myself so I thought this was a match made in heaven. The members of the Club sat in with her regular class and I told them all about my work.

I did a slide show presentation for them showcasing my work that I had done, and then I showed them examples of model sheets, what original artwork looks like, what sketches look like, and other animation and licensing treats that most people never get to see. Once again, Courage The Cowardly Dog was well known and well loved by the class so I did a sketch of him to show the class how's he's drawn. I also did some simple cartoon drawings so they could all draw along with me. My comics version of Alfie was also a hit with the kids! The school was excited to have me come in and a great time was had by all!

The Comic Book Club also received a large and generous donation of free comic books from comic publisher DC Comics (dccomics.com) and Captain Blue Hen Comics (CaptainBlueHen.com) in Newark, Delaware!

My Original Iwao Takamoto SCOOBY-DOO Sketch!

I finally got my original Iwao Takamoto Scooby-Doo sketch from the Van Eaton Galleries in Los Angeles, California today. It took a while to get the letter or certificate from Barbara Takamoto before they were able to ship it to me. It was an expensive piece of art but worth it since his creation of Scooby has given me work for ten years now. I felt I should have a piece of his art just on principle. It's too bad he's still not really known for his contribution to the cartoon world and to pop culture as he should be. Hanna-Barbera got all the gold off of it along with all his other visual creations and designs he did for them for over 40 years or so. When I told some friends of mine that I got an original Scooby sketch that was drawn by Iwao, I mostly got back a pause and then a "Who?" And I'm like, "It's the guy who created Scooby-Doo!" But I guess that's the price of fame when we artists work for the studios for too long. Most people know it was Hanna-Barbera who created the idea and story, but the designers who take an idea and flesh it out always get lost in the shuffle since we're just cogs in the wheel. Iwao created the look for many HB characters, but his main show that he designed all himself was Scooby-Doo, and of course, he designed Shaggy, Freddie, Daphne and Velma. I scanned the 11" x 14" art as a grayscale so that you might see the brush strokes more on the paper instead of just scanning it as line art. It's a beautiful and clean marker sketch straight from Iwao's head to paper. He was a master of just seeing it on paper and drawing it cold! I'm able to do that for a couple of things when I'm drawing, but not like that. Drawing still is a struggle and a process for me. I also attached the letter as well so you can see that his wife has set up a foundation for struggling or aspiring artists...

My SCOOBY-DOO Art in the new COUNTRY WEEKLY MAGAZINE!

My Scooby art is in the new Country Weekly Magazine this week! I just picked up copies of the magazine in the local Wal-Mart tonight and it printed great! The article is all about Scooby voice-actor Scott Innes, and I got my name dropped as well at the end of it when they mention Hal & Al! The art of Scott with Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy was a piece that I did for him as his press photo back in 2007. He now uses the new one that I did last year, which has 20 characters that he's done voices for over the years. You can find that on my blog if you search for it. Here's a post of the cover and 3 page story from Country Weekly! Click on the images to view them full size so you can read the article! Check your newsstands and pick up a copy this week! Newspapers and magazines are in danger of going away so support your favorite magazines before they are gone!

My New SCOOBY Cover Art Becomes The New SCOOBY House Ad!

This was an exciting moment today! I was paging through the new issue of Looney Tunes and saw the new house advertisement for the Scooby-Doo comic, and it featured my art on it that was used for Scooby #143! Who 'da thunk it? A very cool moment and a nice surprise I sure wasn't expecting. I'm honored that someone at DC Comics picked my piece to advertise the Scooby comic book on a regular monthly basis! As a design it works great and it's an attention getter!

SCOOBY-DOO #143 Cover Art! It's Finally Printed!

For those who follow my stuff, you've seen this cover before on my blog since it was posted late last year. It was to be on Scooby #138, but Scooby had some production issues and it got moved to #143. Here is a scan of the actual printed comic which I got from DC Comics on Saturday. It should be out soon on the stands in the comic shops. They even used my exact verbage that I submitted with the color art! You can read more about the art from my previous entries!

HAPPY EASTER!

HAPPY EASTER! Here's a pic from the ye olden times that I did that was colored with markers and pastel. Mid 90's I'm guessing it was done, maybe somewhere around '95 or '96.

Nashville Star BUCKY COVINGTON Shows His Support For Hal & Al!

Former finalist of Season 5 on American Idol and Nashville Recording Star, Bucky Covington, is a star that's rising! The Lyric Street Records star has delivered three consecutive Top 10 hits and has sold more than 400,000 units of his selftitled CD, Bucky Covington! Bucky stopped by the studios of WYNK Radio on Thursday and he shows what he's watching on the tour bus these days!

Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al are huge Bucky fans and voted for him every week on American Idol...and are very happy for Bucky and his country music success thus far.

Fans can also catch Covington make his big screen debut in Hanna Montana: The Movie (April 10th)! Bucky's new single just hit Country Radio stations and it's called "I Want My Life Back". For more on Bucky, you can visit http://www.buckycovington.com/ or visit Hal & Al at http://www.halandal.com/!

HAL & AL In COUNTRY WEEKLY MAGAZINE Again!

Hal & Al were in the April 6th issue of Country Weekly Magazine yet again! This is a pic from our shoot with Marty Raybon in Baton Rouge right before Christmas when I was down there. We shot a lot of footage with Marty to cut into the Hal & Al TV shows for the new season!

SCOTT INNES Promotes His New Book On WAFB TV In Baton Rouge!

And He dropped my name during it! A second of glory! WooHoo! It's funny though that the spot is 2 minutes and 35 seconds long. That's the same length of our segments for the Hal & Al Show! Ah, TV limitiations! You can buy it at ScottInnes.com. He has a small batch of books so far, but more are still being printed at Baker Printing so we'll have the full order hopefully soon.

SCOTT INNES "CARTOONS & COUNTRY MUSIC" Book Advertisement!

Here is one of the ads for Scott's new book that I did for one of the magazines down south. It was done and the refigured for different formats for other newspapers and magazines. His first book signing is tonight!

HAL & AL In The O.C.!

Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al start April 1st in Orange County, CA on COX Channel 3!