Someone I'll Be Working With Again At The End Of August!

Got the call late Monday and asked if I was interested since I did stuff for the 3rd one. Of course I said yes... I'm easy like that.

HOLLYWOOD HAL & RHINESTONE AL Theme Song Music Video Featuring Country Superstar Neal McCoy!

Here's a new video up on YouTube for Hal & Al! It's a new music video cut to the theme song sung by country superstar Neal McCoy! It's a good photo montage of what Hal & Al is all about! Neal recorded the song back in April of 2006 when we were just getting going with Hal & Al! Grammy-nominated Nelson Blanchard played all the instruments and did the production on it!

SCOOBY #151 - Teaser Comic Page For "In The Spirit"!

Here is a teaser comic page from Scooby #151, which I did an 8-page story for as well. It was finished about a month ago now. I'm posting the first page since it's the teaser intro for the story and Scooby and the Gang appear on the next page as they come in to solve the deal. I really like the set up for this page. You get a lot of great exposition and a great shot of the monster. The storytelling is working for me as well all the while leaving room for the credits and word balloons. I'll post the other pages as it gets closer to release. The book will be out in the fall.

SCOOBY #148 - Teaser Comic Page For "Stars Behind Bars"!

Here is a comic teaser page from Scooby #148, which I did an 8-page story for. I'm posting the first page of the story since it's the teaser page and Scooby and the Gang appear on the next page. These teaser pages are much like the opening teaser to a Scooby cartoon where they introduce the monster in a scary and spooky way and then cut to the opening credit sequence and then go right into the story. It's all formula, baby. The book will be out in a couple months.

My New Promo To Celebrate My 10th Anniversary & To Promote My Art Blog!

Here is a mock up for my own t-shirt I'll be getting printed for this fall to celebrate my tenth anniversary and to promote this art blog of mine! I'll be getting them printed in two sizes I think, which will be Adult XL and 2XL. They normally seem to shrink a little and people keep asking me for bigger shirts since I made the Power Records shirts a few years ago. I think they look cool myself!

The HAL & AL "Miracle League Benefit Concert" T-Shirt Designs!

Here is the mock up for the new charity concert t-shirt that I threw together for the concert in October. The red ribbon is the one we are going with right now. It will be printed on a blue shirt. I still have to do the backside of the shirt and put all the performing acts on it.

The green ribbon was originally done first as I thought that choice was what worked best to my eye. All three actually all work well so it could go any way.

Scott Is Back In The SPRINGFIELD PRESS Again!

The Springfield Press printed the new pictures of my appearance at the Springfield Library this week and they really gave me a big spot in the paper! I also like how they hyped my blog with the second picture.

As a note to all artists (and my DCAD students) who are trying to build on their futures... I took the pictures of the color corrected and cropped photos to the library on a disc for them to give to the Press. Well, as usual, they just sat there and when I called about if they were submitted they of course said, "Oh! We thought you were going to do it." These could have been in the paper a week earlier or not at all unless I didn't take the upper hand and do it myself and drive them down to the paper as soon as I got off the phone with the library. I typed out the taglines myself really fast and the Press printed what I gave them. Lesson One: If you want something done right, do it yourself. Don't rely on anyone to do it for you.

HAL & AL soon to be back in COUNTRY WEEKLY MAGAZINE!

Here is a mock up that Country Weekly sent us about the new 2-page story they are doing on our new puppet based on comedian Speck Rhodes! As you can see they will plug in something else down in the corner maybe an ad or another story. It should be on the stands around August 4th! I'll post more about it then with some pics of the puppet and it's preproduction and manufacturing! Here's the tease!

Computer Problems This Week...

There I was working on the new Hal & Al t-shirt design for the Concert in October and I stopped when I was done and did a little bit of labelling the info tags on some MP3's when my computer started acting a little weird. I thought it nothing and maybe it just needed to be refreshed so I cut the power off and then tried to reboot. Well, it came up to the Windows XP screen and just stopped like it hit a wall. I turned it off again and then tried to get it into 'Safe Mode' and that was no good either. I tried several things and couldn't get it going. They used to give you an installation disc when you got the computer but they didn't give me one with this model since it had a mirror image of it on the drive and didn't require an actual disc. Though I could have used one at the time. At any rate, I wasn't really panicking since I had everything backed up onto external hard drives. I have about 6 of them. I have one for all my art, one for all my Mp3 and audio files, and one for everything else. The other three drives are just back ups of the back ups. It may sound nuts but you have to in this day and age. I have my artistic life on the one drive and if I lost that I'd be screwed, so I have a second drive that is a copy of every file on it. All I was potentially about to lose was this t-shirt art! And I didn't really want to have to go back into it and recreate it all over again.

I took my tower to Computer Renaissance (whom I bought my laptop from a year ago) and they fixed it in a couple hours. I got the 48 hour rush service for it and it took from Wednesday at noon to Friday at noon to get it back. Right on time! They were backed up with a lot of work for both PC's and MAC's that had issues. I didn't find out what caused the issue as the tech guy who worked on it went on vacation after he fixed it. I'll have to call them next week and ask him what was exactly wrong with it. At any rate, I didn't lose any files, and it's back up and working great! As soon as it was powered up, I copied the two files I feared for right over to the externals.

For this post, I'd like to recommend this particular hard drive to anyone out there. I've had no issues with them as a brand and it's super easy to use! You can get a 500gb from Amazon.com for $75! Or you can get the 1 TB drive for $99! Here is the link to it and a product description!

Iomega 500gb External Hard Drive

The Iomega Prestige Desktop Hard Drive USB 2.0, 500GB provides a simple and affordable solution for all your storage needs. Ideal for adding capacity to your system, this stylish drive offers a sturdy aluminum construction and included stand. It's the easiest way to save photos, music, videos and more, in addition the Prestige Desktop Hard Drive is powered by an Energy Star qualified adapter for a better environment! Included free with your Iomega hard drive purchase, choose either EMC Retrospect Express or Retrospect Express HD for PC or Mac for easy file backup (software via download). Also included is free MozyHome Online Backup (2GB online capacity).

HAL & AL's "Miracle League At Cypress Mounds" Benefit Concert Poster!

Here is the new poster for the advertising for the Hal & Al fall concert this year which is benefiting the Miracle League At Cypress Mounds. The Miracle League needed a new field, which the handicapped can use to play ball on, and Hal & Al are helping out to raise the money to build it. We got many a country star performing on stage that night in Baton Rouge! More may be added!

An Art Tease For My BIG Secret Project!

Here's a sliver of art as a tease for a new project that I'm now working on! Well, actually it's not that big of a secret since I told some of my artist friends the basics about it so far. But you, the general public, are left in the dark to wonder "What could this be???" It's a big advertising job that is quite involved and it should be quite exciting to work on as I progress on it over the next several months. I submitted the first finished character designs late today and Odyssey Design Group was thrilled with them so now we'll see what the client thinks of my first color sketches... I'll post more as more gets approved!

A SCOOBY-DOO DRIVER'S LICENSE! My New Promo That Celebrates My Tenth Anniversary Drawing Him!

I wanted to make up a promo item for my tenth anniversary of drawing Scooby this year and to also advertise my art blog, so I made up a Scooby-Doo driver's license! It came out swell! I think Scooby fans will love them and I've given them out at some appearances of late including my Springfield Library appearance and I handed some out at Wizard World Philly as I walked it. Smart Scooby fans will know that the 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. address and zip code is the original Hanna-Barbera address in California. I got them professionally printed on glossy stock paper and they're business card size as well just like a real driver's license. I laminated a bunch of them as well to give them an official look. It's a quality piece of promo! I got two backs printed: one has my anniversary on it and the other version is just a generic Scooby background. I'll have them up for sale with a link up soon since the lamination costs money to have it done! They also would make a great cheap gift for the Scooby fan who has everything! I'll also be getting a Scooby t-shirt printed up later this year too for my anniversary! I'll post the art for that soon!

Scott Makes A Local Appearance At THE SPRINGFIELD LIBRARY!

On Monday evening (June 29) at 7pm, I had an appearance at the Springfield Library (which is in my area) and I spoke at one of the summer programs for kids. It ran for an hour and a half and all the kids were thrilled to have me there drawing in front of them from the feedback I got at the end. I wound up staying after to do free drawings up till the library closed for the evening. Here are some pics from the evening that a librarian took for me...

In addition, I also donated over 10 short boxes of comic book graphic novels and hardcovers to the young adult section of the library! I had to start cleaning out my storage unit, and since the state cut the library's budget, I figured I would help them out my donating a bunch of books that will hopefully get the local kids all reading comics of some kind...