Shameless Self-Promotion

As I’ve written before, I spent much of the summer and fall doing character designs for new episodes of 3-2-1 Penguins!, an animated series on NBC from the company behind VeggieTales. It’s a goofball comedy about four penguins and two kids who travel the universe ala “Star Trek”. Each week’s lesson is based on a [...]

New! Portable Cintiq Is Coming…

Thanks to the Drawn! blog, I’ve just learned that Wacom, Inc. is manufacturing a smaller, portable version of the Cintiq. To that I say “Yipee!”, “Awesome!”, and “Woo hoo!”
Earlier this year my studio went all-digital. I traded in my traditional drawing board for a Cintiq, which lets me draw and paint directly onto the computer [...]

“Disney Adventures” Magazine Shutting Down

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the magazine industry has seen better days. Overall readership is on a slow decline, resulting in lower subscriptions and lost advertising revenues. It looks like C. F. Payne is not the only artist being affected by it. I just learned that Disney Adventures, the snazzy comic-book magazine, is officially [...]

C. F. Payne Ends Reader’s Digest Run

(Art by C.F. Payne. Copyright © Reader’s Digest.)
For the last four years every issue of Reader’s Digest has featured an illustration by award-winning illustrator C. F. Payne on the back cover. Payne is an exceptional illustrator, and his charming pieces for Reader’s Digest hearken back to the spirit of Norman Rockwell but with a modern [...]

John Nevarez Character Design DVD

(Artwork by John Nevarez. All rights reserved.)
John Nevarez is an extraordinary talent in the animation industry. He currently works as a storyboard and visual development artist for Disney television animation. His work is energetic and appealing, and I know more than a few people who list him among their favorite modern animation artists. [...]

The Wayback Machine

Since this is a holiday weekend, here’s a fun time waster:
Somebody’s been keeping a record of the entire internet. Go to the Wayback Machine, type in the URL of any webpage, and see what it used to look like. Don’t ask me how it’s done, or why. I can’t imagine how much server space this [...]

Happy Thanksgiving!

(NOTE: There will be not blog post tomorrow. I’ll be spending the holiday with family and trying to catch up on some much needed sleep.)

This sketch was done a year or two ago when my friends at DrawerGeeks decided we should each do an emergency turkey drawing. Draw a turkey–fast! Quick sketches only, no more [...]

Sour Apples

I’m a huge Apple fan. I love their products. I drink the Kool-Aid. I sometimes wander in to the Apple store just so I can drool.
But lately the effects of the Kool-Aid are starting to wear off.
My biggest beef is with Leopard, Apple’s new operating system. Leopard’s new features promised to bring a new level [...]

Interview With Illustration Instructor Marshall Vandruff

Fanboy Radio is a weekly radio show/podcast devoted to comic books. I don’t really read comic books anymore, but the industry has some amazing artists whose work I enjoy following. Fanboy Radio interviews a lot of them, and it can be inspirational to hear the various creators talk about the industry and their work.
A few [...]

Advice For Building A Career As An Illustrator Or Cartoonist

My friend and fellow illustrator Paul Fricke recently sent me a great link:
Advice for building a career as a freelance artist and/or paid cartoonist by Dave Roman
Dave Roman has been working at Nickelodeon Magazine for the last nine years. He is also a frequent lecturer at the School of Visual Arts. This article summarizes his [...]