One that got away: Care Bears

Back in 2003, I did an audition for the Care Bears. I didn't wind up getting it and not sure why it didn't go past this initial sketch at this point. It was for a book project and you can see the open gap in the center that would go into the fold of the book spine. You can't have anything important get lost in spine of the book so you really have to design a complicated layout well. Each bear was to be doing something in the shot and the art direction would tell you what else was to be drawn.

Overall, I still like it. It was all to be done as vector art (like my work for Strawberry Shortcake) and I think I got this audition either before or during the early stages of my work on Strawberry as other potential future work either down the line or in-between. As I mentioned in a previous post, you try out for stuff and some things you get and some things you don't. I was probably relieved that I didn't as doing it all as vector art would be really time consuming! My Strawberry Shortcake art was extremely complicated vector art though I'm proud of all that stuff and how it turned out.

For you process junkies, the art was drawn on cheap copy paper and then I lightboxed it onto a clean sheet of copy paper by inking it all with a Micron pen to finalize the art. With licensed work, it had to all be there and "on model" first time out as license holders usually do not want to have to go back and forth with revisions and lose any time. If you can nail it the first time with minimal instructions, it's all good! American Greetings owned both properties at that time and if you got in with them they would just keep feeding you work, which is always nice!

 

Have a Smurfy Day!

 

POWERPUFF GIRLS To The Rescue!

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!

 

KUNG FU PANDA 2 - Art Icons & Elements

I thought I'd post these unique pieces that I did amid the work I did for Kung Fu Panda 2. These were done in November of 2010 as the film was released in 2011. These are art icons or elements that are created to accent a project or style guide! 

These were unique in that I did them with the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator at the time. Dreamworks gave me reference to work from and that made it easier as I didn't have to create anything out of my mind and deal with revisions. These were a fast turnaround and I think they came out looking cool! 

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2026!

 

In the immortal words of Stan Lee... 'Nuff said!

COMIC BLAST FROM THE PAST: Ed, Edd n Eddy in "An Ed For An Ed"

Here's another Ed, Edd n Eddy comic I did that was a lot of fun. It was titled "An Ed For An Ed." It was a busy script with a lot going on even though it all took place in Ed's basement bedroom. Page 2, panel 5 took some time in planning out as I had to draw multiple Edd's cleaning Ed's room which was a single background plate. As with any Eds script, there's a ton of "squish and stretch" exaggeration going on at all times. 

Drawing the Eds took some time but I normally could do a page/a page and a half a day. Inking the art was much faster as you had to match the loose "boiling line" look that the cartoons had and I could ink it all in a day if I had to. Everything, including panel borders, were done by hand. No rulers needed and that made doing the Eds comics a lot of fun! Usually I would ink half the story and then scan those pages in, digital clean them if needed, and then format them in the template. I liked breaking up the job into segments to keep things fresh. Nothing is more boring than a full day of constant scanning and file prepping.

Here's the whole story for your reading enjoyment!  

HAPPY EASTER: SCOOBY-STYLE!

For Easter, I thought I'd post this rare drawing most have never seen! 

In my archives, I recently uncovered an alternative sketch to the Scooby-Doo "Sneaky Easter Thief" project which was complete and never saw the light of day. I posted about it in June of '25. 

This was just another concept for the title/credits page that didn't get used.  

COMIC BLAST FROM THE PAST: Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy in "Model Citizen"

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was another cartoon series that appeared on Cartoon Network and was part of what I consider to be the second "Golden Age" of animated cartoons. I have a lot of sketches that I had drawn of Grim as there was a lot of exciting visual poses you could do with him and I took full advantage of it during my morning sketch warm-ups.

Here follows a short comic story that I had drawn and my favorite part of it are the opening panels at the local mall where the characters are hanging out. A lot of planning went into it visually that wasn't in the script and it was a lot of fun to design. Also, I needed to create a magical creature that was made of wire clothes hangers. That was quite a challenge and I went through a lot of scrap paper sketches before I settled on the final design! Enjoy this blast from the past!

COMIC BLAST FROM THE PAST: Ed, Edd n Eddy in "Spare Ed"!

Here's one of my favorite stories I drew featuring the Eds for your reading pleasure! As with a lot of comics based on animated cartoons, the script was rather wordy and I had no control over the placement of the word balloons or sound effects. I did draw the "END" at the end of the story and it was a thing I did to show a defined ending.

I sold the original artwork many years ago but have scans of it here. Overall, I still really love the original final art and layout for the story. The inks were super clean and the storytelling was clear and readable. There was a lot to get into the panels but it all works really well. The word balloons, however, killed some parts of the art though in a lot of spots. One such spot was the word balloon covering up the broken wood leg on the ground on Page 4, Panel 3. You see them all reacting to what happened but you don't see the actual broken wood leg until the next panel. So, I'm posting the original scans of the final inked artwork I did so you can see it in its glory. Enjoy! You can click on the pages and see the art in a bigger format!

As a final note, I used to love working on the Eds as the loose ink line was fun to do. It was freeing in a lot of ways and the Eds always had a lot of "squish and stretch" to them which pushed you to exaggerate the characters. I must have done it well because they kept offering it to me to draw. 

 

I ran across my MICKEY MOUSE work at a BJ's Wholesale Club!

I was doing some shopping at a local BJ's Wholesale Club and came across a stack of Mickey Mouse books in the kids section. They had a Mickey book and a Disney Babies book (where the characters are all drawn like babies). Any time I see a Mickey Clubhouse book like this I feel compelled to check it out and I was not disappointed.

I turned the cover and the first page was MY art! Wow! I turned to the second page and it was mine again! I kept turning and, needless to say, I had to buy it for my archive. While my name is not in it, it features some of my work that sits in the official Disney archive for future use!

This was published in 2024 by Phidal Publications that is in Canada! They have a US office in Florida. I did check out their site (phidal.com) and they have many other Disney books available. I didn't see these particular books so I'm guessing these are now currently out of print.

Always nice to run across my work by accident and I am happy it continues on! 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POKEMON! Today marks the 30th Anniversary!

 

 

Pokemon turns 30 years old today and is still going strong! Here's some old sketches I had kept that were done back when I did some work on it in 1999. I would do sketches as warm-ups and they were drawn on cheap copy paper. Like many of my sketches, I would save the better ones and sell them at conventions that I attended.

 

 

2025 was a PHINEAS & FERB year!

Last year was mostly a Phineas and Ferb year here for me outside of the Scooby sketchcards I did for Upper Deck that were finally released. As chaos reigns in the industry, it was good to have some solid ground under me.

2026 has started with the work on TWO new Phineas and Ferb covers!

My creator page was updated at Papercutz!

 

 

Papercutz has updated my creator page to reflect my current list of available books and they put up a pic and bio I gave them!

https://papercutz.com/creators/scott-neely