Tuesday Tutorial -- TRIPLE Duty!

This Tuesday Tutorial takes a look at the Monday Morning Marty drawing from yesterday.

One of the most important rules of any illustration is economy. In other words, Keep It Simple etc. Limit your colors, your strokes, your subject to the least amount necessary to get the job done.

Even with a drawing with as many lines as this one -- or rather, ESPECIALLY with a drawing with as many lines as this one -- it's important to keep the number down. We don't want the image muddied up with too many lines. That's why the hatching lines on Marty here are serving double duty.

Look closer at the image -- a close-up is provided below. See how the hatching lines do two things at once -- they provide an optical graying effect, giving the viewer a sense of the light and shadow falling on the dog. In this case, he's backlit with the light source coming from the upper right of the frame, so that edge of him is brighter, with the rest cast in shadow. The hatching provides that contrast.

But it also serves to indicate the contours and "roundness" of Marty, like a contour map that shows hills and valleys. While the density of the lines gives us the gray value, the direction of the lines guide us along the three-dimensional shape of the head and neck, creating a sculpting illusion.

It could be said in this particular example that the lines are providing yet a third service -- showing us the direction of Marty's fur, and how it lays on his skin. There were several ways I could have turned the lines to suggest the contours of Marty's body -- wherever possible, I chose those that also followed his fur.

Of course, I'm only referring to the hatch lines in the white, or color-neutral parts of Marty's body. Where the spots or markings go, the lines also illustrate the value differences there, too. So maybe that's a FOURTH duty? Those lines sure are busy in this drawing!

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie -- One Defining Line

Which one's Marty and which one's Minnie?

Talk about simplification! This is a good exercise for artists to help define their characters, real or fictional, and help them distill the essence of their personalities: draw one line that best represents the person (or animal) concerned. Can you guess which one is Marty and which is Minnie? (I'm not sure I made the definitive lines for them, but this is a good start.)

Now, unlike other forms of simplification this one may or may not bear any visual resemblance to your subject, though it often can. Your line should bear as many of the same characteristics as your character's persona. Is your character swift or slow? Ambitious or lazy? Focused or all over the place? Honest or shifty? Smooth or awkward? Your subject's determining line should reflect that.

Now here's the payoff: when you draw your subject, try to use this defining line as often as you can. Look for places where the physical likeness and this defining line meet, and accentuate those points as much as you can. You'll have a portrait or a likeness that doesn't just convey the subject's look, but the subject's personality and character.

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Monday Morning Marty -- The Lap of Luxury!

(Click on image for larger version.)

Since the last two Monday Morning drawings were of Minnie, I figured Marty was due.

This was drawn with a Pigma Brush #1 pen. The drawing is based on a photo, though not traced. The photo was actually Marty luxuriating on my wife's lap while she was on her laptop, but I only wanted Marty in the image, so I used a little creative license. But normally he only looks this happy cuddled up to her.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Fetch Girl Part 2

I know, I know -- I just drew Minnie last week, with a tennis ball, and with the title "Fetch, Girl." But really, she couldn't fetch to save her life then. We'd tried and tried, and all she ever did was gnaw on the felt of the tennis ball.

Well, this weekend the most unexpected thing happened. Minnie suddenly could fetch! She ran after the ball, picked it up, brought it back, and dropped it off in front of us, or even in our hands! It was remarkable, and deserved a commemoration.

My apologies to the estate of Dr. Seuss, but this is just how Minnie looks. It's not up to me.

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Tuesday Tutorial: How NOT to draw Silhouettes

(Click on image for larger version)

When you read most instructional books on drawing, the advice given about drawing silhouettes is usually: draw in your figure as if it's not going to be a silhouette, then silhouette the drawing.

That's terrible advice.

A silhouette has to convey all the usual information about a figure solely through the outline. If you draw in the whole figure you cannot tell if that information is coming through until you fill the whole thing in, at which time it will be too late.

Take your favorite illustration and fill in the figures. Do they still read? Do they still work the same way? Now go find a great silhouette and fill in the details of the figure. Do they make sense?

The fact is, what works as a silhouette may not work as a fully fleshed-in drawing, and vice versa. You need to draw the silhouette AS a silhouette to make sure your pose, your details and your composition all work AS a silhouette. Those interior lines you're relying on are giving you a false impression of what your final drawing will convey.

By all means, if you need to sketch in the rest of the figure to help you figure out proportions or anatomy, do so. But as quickly as you can, get rid of those interior lines. It doesn't matter if the figure looks good with all those interior lines drawn in, does it?

Also: Another pitfall to avoid when drawing silhouettes is looking at the inside of the outline. Most artists, when they draw, they see the inside edge of their outlines as the edge of their object. But when that object is filled in, it'll be the outer edge that is seen. Make sure that outer edge is the one that has all the right details and proportions. Use the thinnest line you can to make sure your outer line is true.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Fetch, girl!

(Click on image for larger version)

Minnie's not much into fetch. While I throw the ball for Marty, who'd fetch himself to death if given the chance, I toss a second ball to Minnie. Sometimes she tries to catch it or pounce on it, and sometimes she tries to chew it and put it in her mouth, but usually she just gets hit in the head and ignores it.

This illustration is based on a photo taken while Minnie had some interest in the tennis ball, but didn't seem to get what she should do. It was inked with a Micron Pigma Graphic 1 pen, and colored in Photoshop.

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Tuesday Tutorial: Mock Woodcut

I've shown this technique before, but decided it should be covered in more depth.

This was a job I did several months ago for Miller WhiteRunkle in Seattle. They wanted a woodcut-style illustration of several objects, one of which was a poncho.

I began with this line drawing of the poncho, done in simple brush. I used this drawing as a guide for the final woodcut drawing, so what I needed here was clarity. I kept the lines crisp, and sketched in the shaded areas using an approximation of the line work I'd use in the finished illustration, but not concerned with the line quality.

The next step was to scan in the guide image, and reverse it. The woodcut effect is basically a brush drawing in negative, where the brush strokes you put down in black end up being white, and the white becomes black. So I needed my guide drawing to be in the negative as well. I then turned the image into a very light cyan and white. This made the image visible to me but not so visible to the scanner. You'll also notice I added parallel horizontal lines to the image -- I wanted my hatch marks to be horizontal, and these lines would help me keep them straight.

Here's a picture of the "final" art in progress, with me inking in the blue parts of the image with my brush. You can see the horizontal hatch lines that will look very "woodcutty" when it's all done.

It's at this stage that the tone for the image is determined. A tighter inking job with shorter, thinner strokes can give you a more engraved look, while a looser stroke with a heavier line weight and rougher edges can make a woodcut or linoleum block kind of effect. If more of the latter look is wanted, then I will try NOT to be too perfect with it. The more of those tiny "mistakes" -- ink going thin, stray line edges, smudges -- the more your drawing will look like a woodcut.

It's very hard to think in the negative, even with this close guide to follow. The thicker your hatching, which makes your work look darker while you're doing it, the lighter it will be when all is done. It takes a goodly amount of concentration.

When the image is all inked in, it looks like this on the left side of the final picture: a negative of the final image. After I scan the image in, and create a negative of it, clean it up and add color, we get the final image seen on the right.

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie -- Good to be back!

(Click on image for larger version)

First things first -- where have I been? I just finished a very long, very busy stint as storyboard artist on the new Terminator movie filming here in New Mexico! I'll have a post about that soon -- likely more than one. For now, I'll just say that the experience left me little time for other activities, including this blog. That's no excuse, though, and you do have my apologies.

Now on to the day's drawing.

Here's Marty and Minnie -- remember them? -- sunning themselves in the summer sunshine in our back yard, under a gorgeous view of the Sandia mountains. They've been doing well since you saw them last, frolicking merrily at my in-laws all day while I was at the studio, getting along very well and enjoying New Mexico summertime.

This drawing was originally going to be inked, but I liked the look of the pencils so I just decided to finish it at that stage. I started with the dogs, then went up and added in the background, then went back to the dogs, then the background. That's an important way to work a picture, especially with a medium like pencil, where you're likely to see a difference in your line work as you go. I tend to get darker and more bold as I go, so if I just started at one point and stopped on the other side, you'd see a marked difference throughout the image. Not that the image should look totally the same throughout -- just make sure your differences are intentional, depending on depth, texture or lighting, and not just the order you drew things.

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Mammalthon 2 Is Coming!

My amazing, talented wife Jennifer -- the force behind The Daily Mammal -- is launching Mammalthon 2 next week. Here's an excerpt from her post about it:


Last December, 36 beautiful, generous, animal-loving art aficionados participated in the first Daily Mammal 24-Hour Mammal Marathon. I stayed up for 24 hours straight and drew a mammal an hour (almost). People who donated to Defenders of Wildlife got to request a mammal, see it appear during the 24-hour mammalthon, and then receive the original drawing in the mail. It was unbelievably fun, and we raised more than $800 for Defenders.

It's time for Mammalthon 2! This time, the contributions will be going to The Wildlife Center, a wonderful wildlife rehabilitation hospital in northern New Mexico. Spring means baby season and hundreds of injured and orphaned baby animals that need a place to recuperate and some help getting back into the wild. Your participation in Mammalthon 2 will help make sure these babies, and all the other animals The Wildlife Center rehabilitates, get the care they need.

* * *

Go to her web site to learn how you can get a beautiful, original drawing of the mammal of your choosing and be part of a great cause all at the same time! If nothing else, stop by on the 19th and cheer her on! See you there!

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Tuesday Tutorial: Make it dirty!

(This is my first of what will eventually be a regular weekly feature: the Tuesday Tutorial. Because of my aforementioned storyboard job, I can't guarantee I'll be able to make weekly updates in the near future, but I will try my best.)

When you're working with photographs, adding new elements or combining pieces of other images, one important rule to follow is to make it dirty! Photos are never perfectly clean and precise, the way computer-rendered images are, and so it's important to give them the same imperfections as the photo, so they'll blend in seamlessly. We'll follow a rather silly example I've put together to (hopefully) demonstrate what I'm talking about.

1. Add the Additional Element. For this example, I'm starting with a photo of Minnie, after she got her first and so far only bath, above. I'm going to draw a simple cone paper hat onto her, and try to make it look real.

Here is a close-up of the image of Minnie with a simple cone drawn on her head in Photoshop. Though I did a fine job masking out her hair and shading the hat, it still doesn't quite fit in the image. (You may need to click on these images to see the larger versions.)

2. Add Noise to Additional Element. Every photograph -- and this includes photos of paintings and artwork, of course -- has some degree of graininess. This graininess runs throughout the image, and if your additional element doesn't have it, it will stand out.

I went to Photoshop's Filter menu, and to Noise. I added 2% noise to the hat. You'll need to look at the photo up close to see that the amount of noise you're giving matches it.

Keep in mind, it's important to make the hat on a separate layer, and to keep it on the separate layer, throughout this process.

3. Add Blur to Element. Every photograph -- even the world's best photograph -- is out of focus, to some extent. It may be the tiniest amount, but there's liable to be some bit of blur to the image. You need to blur your new image element to match the surrounding objects.

Note that in many photos, the amount of blur will vary from the foreground to background, so the right amount of added blur can help pinpoint the perceived depth of your new element.

I went up to the Filter menu again, went to Blur, and selected Gaussian Blur. I then gave the hat a small amount of blur -- just 0.7 pixels.

4. Do Whatever Else It Takes. As you can see from the finished piece, below, Noise and Blur were all it took for the texture of the image to match the photo. There may be additional steps depending on the photo -- if the image in the photo moved, and has a directional blur, adding Motion Blur may be needed. Sometimes lightening the opacity of the picture -- say, to 95% or so -- will allow background textures to show through. This usually ony works if the background behind it is fairly plain, without detailed objects. You also, of course, will need to make sure the colors work well too. But these first two steps -- blur and noise -- will get you on your way.

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Monday Morning Marty & Jenny

(Click on image for larger version)

Last week I started a big storyboard job that will take up all my time for the next month or two, so I didn't have time to draw up a new Monday Morning drawing today.

So instead I took a really sweet photo of Marty and Jennifer and applied a few Photoshop filters, did some nudging and finagling, and came up with this portrait of the two of them. Hope you like it.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Variations

(Click image for larger version)



Taking the simplified image of Minnie from last week, I've made some simple variations to convey a series of moods or emotions.

(Thanks to Jack Atkins for the idea -- the "surprise" variation was his!)

My apologies for the lateness of this post. Blogger is having a problem uploading image files, and I've been trying since yesterday. It wasn't until now that it occurred to me I could upload it myself and then just link to the image here. Duh.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- How Simple is Too Simple?

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As you can see, I'm pushing the simplicity thing a little further this week! This is the first Marty/Minnie illustration I've done in vector format with the Illustrator program.

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Monday Morning Minnie & Marty -- 2-25-08

(Click on image for larger version -- as always!)

Continuing on my 'simplification' kick, this week I decided to make Marty and Minnie into cartoon characters.

Last week I mentioned the importance of exaggerating the differences between your subjects. Marty here is a good deal shorter, and stockier than in real life. It's hard to make Minnie even skinnier than she really is, but I did a little.

I also tried to get across Minnie's eager spirit, and Marty's friendly attitude -- at least toward those he knows.

Notice another feature of simplification -- choosing what to include and what not to. Minnie's tuft of white on her chest is very distinctive, as are Marty's spots. And of course Minnie's "crazy eyes!" Sometimes making these choices means leaving out some peculiar elements that, while accurate, may work against the general look you're trying for.

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Monday Morning Minnie & Marty -- 2-18-08

(Click on image for larger version)

This week I've returned to my quest for simplification, but as you can see the results were mixed. Minnie's tufts of fur and Marty's musculature proved too interesting for me to gloss over. That's okay, because overall the image feels the same. Well, except for Marty's face. It's perhaps a little too simplified, and those eyes are too big. He looks a little too "Muppet Babies" for my liking.

Actually, upon closer study, I think Marty's whole body is a bit more simplified and streamlined than Minnie's. That's not necessarily bad, either -- when you're drawing two subjects, it's often important to highten the contrast between them. Since Minnie's fur is longer and wilder than Marty's, the drawing should exaggerate the difference. I've started drawing Marty more short and stocky since we got Minnie, because she's thinner and lankier.

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Monday Morning Marty -- February 11, 2008

(Click on image for larger version)

It seems all I post anymore are Monday Morning Marties and Minnies!

This little portrait of Marty was done in pencil, then scanned and the tone grayscale tone work was put in digitally.

It looks like Marty is looking to someone hoping for a treat! (Don't worry -- he got one!)

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Monday Morning Marty -- February 4, 2008

(Click on image for larger version)

This week I continue on the theme of simplification.

These gesture sketches of Marty (and one of Minnie -- can you guess which one?) show the value of simplification. The idea is to get the gesture, the movement of the dog, not to dwell on details like fur markings or shading. This is a good technique to help learn anatomy and proportion.

I recently learned that some people don't know they can get a larger, more detailed version of the images here by clicking on them. If you don't know that -- you do now!

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Monday Morning Minnie -- 1-28-08

Following my push last week to simplify my dog drawings, this one is very simple indeed. Minnie is a shock of black with those captivating orange eyes -- one of the workers at the rescue shelter where we got her used to call her "Crazy Eyes."

One of the secrets, in my mind, of effectively capturing a likeness or impression in a simple drawing is to first draw it out from memory. You're more likely to put down the noteworthy, unique attributes of a character and leave out the unnecessary details if you can't see those details in front of you. I first did this drawing from memory, then I called Minnie in -- she always comes when you call her name! -- and double-checked the general proportions and such.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 1-21-08

For this week's Monday Morning Marty I decided, still thinking of my recent post about details, to try and draw a simpler Marty.

In future entries I'll go simpler still, and see how basic I can make an image that still captures the essence of my dogs. Most people think that drawing with more detail is more difficult, but just the opposite is true; finding a way to distill the essential elements of a likeness in as few strokes as possible cuts to the very core of what is most important in an image.

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Details, Details...

How much detail is enough in an illustration? How much is too much? This is an important question every illustrator has to ask. There's a tendency among artists starting out to think that every inch of an image has to be filled with detail, that the merit of their work will be in how much detail there is, and how much it looks like its subject. They think they need to make their illustration like a photograph -- as if photography were somehow superior to what they were doing. Absurd! (And, of course, the best professional photographers go out of their way to limit the detail in their work, with lighting, focus and cropping techniques.)

So just how much detail do you need? Well, before you answer that, you need to ask: What is the purpose of illustration?

The purpose of illustration isn't to look good; it's to tell a story. Oh, make no mistake -- the illustration better look good. I mean, who wants to look at an image that doesn't? But what makes it a good illustration isn't just that it looks good: it needs to tell a story.

By "tell a story," I mean it needs to get something across, to convey something. It might be a narrative, or it might be a mood, or a concept, or a setting. That's the purpose of every illustration. And once you recognize that, the question of how much detail to apply becomes a lot easier to answer.

Detail that enhances the story is good; detail that detracts is bad. Seems simple, right? Well, of course it's not. It's still hard to decide exactly what's necessary to get across that mood, or concept, or story. But at least now you begin with a specific goal in mind.

In sequential illustration, the need for detail varies from image to image. The sequence I'm using to illustrate this point is from my comics work -- specifically, from an early Jazz Age story -- but the ideas apply to all kinds of illustration.

Each of the panels in a comics sequence needs to convey something different, so although they all need to have a consistent feel to them, in a way they're all separate illustrations. Some panels establish the setting of a scene, or perhaps they're meant to be slow-paced, and contemplative. These scenes are often more full of detail than others. This isn't just to get across the factual information of where the characters are and what they're doing -- it also gets the reader to physically slow down his or her reading, taking in the scene and its details. This is a subtle way the illustrator can try to manipulate the pace that the reader uses in reading the story. Lots of detail in every panel will help give the feeling of a slow-paced scene, as if the characters in the story are also noticing these details.

A faster-paced scene -- like some of the action panels in this sequence -- lets the reader "read" the panels faster. It speeds up the reader's experience of the sequence, just as the characters in the story, running or fighting or whatever, wouldn't be noticing the background details either.

Detail in illustration is like pace in fiction writing. I made the comparison to photography earlier, but illustration -- especially sequential illustration, though not exclusively -- is also akin to another storytelling medium: fiction. Fiction writers know how to control the feeling of unfolding pace in their story by the details they throw in. A slow-moving introduction to a new day might be full of long, detailed descriptions of the landscape, the light of the morning sun through window lace, or the slow meanderings of a fly on the wall. But when the action picks up, a good writer knows not to clog up the action with too many details.

"Lefty Adamson, the uncle of Little Jerry, threw a haymaker punch at Rocko, his $300 Rolex watch glinting in the mid-day sunlight that filtered in through the latticework outside the back porch, where Lefty's aunt used to grow tomatoes until her hip began giving her too many problems. This was, of course, before they decided to rent out the twenty-year-old New England style duplex..."

Enough! We want to get to the fight already! We're (hopefully) vested in these characters, and we (should) care about what happens to them. So let's just experience the fight as it happened and leave the long-winded discussions for later, okay?

It's the same with visual storytelling. Give the reader -- or viewer -- just enough to get the point across. That point may need lighting, perspective, landscape or any number of things to fully get it across. But if it doesn't, leave it out.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- 1/14/08

I decided this week to try a portrait of Minnie using the woodcut technique I've used a couple of times with Marty -- on August 27 and December 10 and last year -- which I figured would work out even better, since Minnie's all black and the starkness would show pretty well.

I was right!

We love how Minnie sleeps curled up with her head on her back feet like this!

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Self-Promotion and the iPhone

Yes, I got an iPhone for Christmas. Both my wife and I got one. Wow, it's neat. For those of you who've heard how neat it is -- it really is that neat. And of course, it's ideal for freelance illustrators.

You can check and reply to email while away from your office. I really find it a great way to pass the time while waiting in line at the bank or supermarket checkout. (I know, I know -- who waits in lines at the bank anymore? I was opening a new account. Can't do that from an ATM machine -- yet!)

They're also great for surfing the Web while in said lines.

But they're not great for surfing this website, because the artwork sample pages are in Flash, and for some inexplicable reason the iPhone's Web browser can't view Flash. Sigh.

(Mental note to self: when you get the chance, make an iPhone version of your site without Flash. It'll be ready just as they launch the next upgrade to the iPhone system that allows Flash on its browser.)

But I found an even better way to show people my work when I'm networking and talking to people. I put the samples from my website into the photo library.

Jennifer and I visited some artists we know who have a studio near us, and after seeing their work, they were disappointed that we'd forgotten to bring samples of our work as we'd promised. Luckily I remembered my iPhone! The pictures are nice and big and bright, and you can just flip from one to another.

There are only two downsides to using the iPhone this way:

1) People may be more impressed with my iPhone than with my artwork, and

2) Now that the iPhone goes in the back pocket opposite my wallet, there's no room for my business card holder.

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One New Year's Resolution: Watch The Hills!

I usually don't make big New Year's Resolutions (with the big "R"), as such. I'm more the type to make little resolutions (with a small "r") throughout the year, as the ideas come to me. So this resolution (small "r") just happens to come to me on January 2nd. Coincidence.

I'm working on some storyboards for some anti-drug ads, aimed at teenagers. So I'm drawing teenagers. I've never been too fashion-conscious, especially young women's fashion, and I know I need to do better with that. My wife Jennifer likes to point out how often my "trendy" young people tend to look more like they're following the trends of the 1980s. Oops.

So my resolution is to observe current fashions more and try to note them whenever possible, so that I'll be more familiar with what the kids today are wearing and not have to go look up reference all the time. Specifically, I'm going to watch The Hills.

For those of you who are like me, and who otherwise wouldn't know, The Hills is a so-called "reality show" following a group of young women in L.A. and watching their terrible tastes in young men. My wife likes to watch it -- it's one of her few "mindless" programs, what she calls "comfort TV." I'm not a fan, but I'll sometimes watch it with her because she likes it, and I like her.

But now my resolution is to watch it carefully, noticing the fashions and talking to my wife about them. She has her finger of the pulse of current pop culture, and will be able to tell me which outfits are the most popular, which are no their way out, or not appropriate, or whatever. I may even do some sketching while I'm watching. But either way, I'll make fashion awareness a major reason to watch.

Well that, and to see if Heidi finally dumps that Spencer dude once and for all...!

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24 Mammals in 24 Hours!

On December 22, Storyteller's Workshop illustrator (and my wife) Jennifer Rae Atkins is having a unique event over at her site, The Daily Mammal: 24 Mammals in 24 Hours.

To quote from her site:

"On Saturday, December 22, I will be drawing a mammal every hour. That's right, I'll stay up all night, draw and scan like crazy, and post the mammals here for you to see.

"I'm not just doing this because it will be fun, though. It's for a special cause: Defenders of Wildlife, a 60-year-old nonprofit organization operating nationally, that works to protect wild animals and their habitats. For more information about what they do, visit their website. If you have questions about how and why I chose them, post 'em here.

"Now, here's where it gets fun for you, too. If you make a donation of at least $25 (using the DONATE button on the right-hand side of this website), you get to request a mammal. I'll draw it on December 22, then I'll send you the original art! Each mammal drawing is about 5" by 8". I draw on tracing paper (but I don't trace!) with markers, pens, and colored pencils. I'll send your original art along with a gray piece of cardstock, like the ones I use when I scan my drawings, to provide the perfect background for framing your mammal. I will send all the mammals out on Monday, December 24.

"Tell me your favorite mammal (or, if you don't have one, let me choose one for you) and donate at least $25. You'll help animals and get a lovely piece of original art. The button's just right over there! And please stop by throughout the day on Saturday, December 22, to give me some moral support!"

Jennifer is a talented artist and a real lover of animals. Your support, financial and otherwise, will mean a lot to her, and to me. Make a donation, request a mammal and watch the fun all day and night on December 22. I'll be supplying the coffee.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 12-10-07

Today's Monday Morning Marty takes us back a few years. This is Marty as a puppy, about three and a half years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. Such a Sweetie!

The picture uses a Micron pen, most of it using the same line width. The result reminds me of illustrations from the 1970s, which were often traced from photos (as this one was) and have that expressive cross-hatching intermixed with a close tight following of the original photo. In this case the hatching was used to simulate the grass that Marty was sitting in. I put the hatching in fairly loosely, less interested in capturing detail than I was in making a general impression, and in creating a gray tone that Marty's white body could stand out against.

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie: Comparison

This sketch was done as a comparative study of Marty and Minnie's chests.

Though they're both roughly the same size, Marty is a lot heavier than Minnie. That's because Marty is solid muscle, whereas Minnie is mostly fur.

In this sketch comparison, you can see Marty's barrel chest on the right. He's got the muscles. His wide chest accounts for his front legs being so far apart.

Minnie's front legs are often far apart, as they are in this sketch, but that's more to do with poor posture than athletic physique. You can see her chest is a lot less bulging, a lot less muscular. And much of the volume that's there is her longer fur.

The odd perspective regarding the legs and tail, etc., are due to the fact that both the dogs were sitting right in front of me while I sketched, so I was looking down at a sharp angle. At first they were hard to keep still, but the more attention I'd give one, the more the other would want it, and they quickly figured out that sitting still was their way to get it. Quick learners, these two.

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Elasticity: How Much Can Characters Change?

I want to talk about how much characters can change from one drawing to the next in a comic strip or other series of illustrations. There are two ways a character can change; one way is in the gradual stylistic change over the years, as the artist's style simply grows and evolves.

When I got the assignment to draw Annie, I had no time at all to work on developing my own style and finding that stable convergence between my style and that of the strip's predecessors. The strip was behind schedule, so I had to just start drawing, and figure it out as I went. The side-by-side comparison, above, between one of the first Annie drawings I did, back in August of 2004, and one I just finished for an upcoming strip, shows just how much my style in drawing the character, and the strip, has changed since those heady days of yore.

But the kind of elasticity I want to talk about is the day-to-day, panel-to-panel variety. The elongations of a character's face to exaggerate a facial expression, or the stretching of the body or parts thereof to make expressive gestures or to convey action or movement.

The fact is, elasticity is an important part of any illustration. It gives the illustration an expressionism that is a crucial component to any good image. Yes, some illustrations are supposed to look more realistic than others. But even the most photo-realistic image needs a little bit of exaggeration, a little touch of elasticity, to help emphasize some things over others.

We all know what a caricature is -- the extreme exaggeration of certain traits about a person, and the downplaying of others, that brings about an expressive likeness of that person. But the truth is, a so-called serious portrait needs to highlight and downplay those same characteristics in order for the portrait to be recognizable. They'll be much subtler, but they still need to be there.

Without any elasticity, whether based on mood, movement or both, drawings will feel stiff and wooden. Anyone who's tried to draw a expressive or dynamic pose using one of those wooden posing models knows how static and dull the poses usually come out. Also, anyone who's ever tried to draw, say, a ballplayer hitting a home run or a tennis player hitting a backhand winner from a photo in a sports magazine knows that even a photograph doesn't often have the flow and feeling that you need; you still need to push it just a bit.

The question, of course, is: how much is too much? I'd have to say it's too much when it's obvious. It's too much when the characters stop looking like themselves. It's too much when the average viewer says "that arm's too long" instead of "Hey, he's really throwing that ball fast!", or "his mouth is really big" instead of "Wow! She sure is hungry!"

Where exactly is that point? It's impossible to say; every style, every context has a different level of willing suspension of disbelief. Which ultimately is what this is about. I mean, if you can accept a girl without pupils...

...

(Okay, I was going to end my post there. Cute ending. But since I sometimes do get asked, very seriously, why Annie has no eyeballs, let me state for the record: Annie does have eyeballs. Of course she has eyeballs. everyone who can see has eyeballs. It's just her picture that doesn't. We see images all the time that are missing essential features -- ears, noses, sometimes mouths -- and accept that the characters have them, but they weren't included in the drawing for various reasons -- simplification, highlighting other features, etc.. Not having eyeballs gives Annie, and the other characters, a simplified, open expression, which is meant to convey their honesty and clarity of vision. It's notable that in the original Harold Gray comic strip, (and usually in ours now) all the shifty types, all the bad guys and most of the enigmatic, hard-to-read ones (The Asp, Punjab) didn't have those white open eyes.)

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie!

The other day Marty and Minnie were tugging on the same stick. It was really cute, so we took a few pictures.

I used one of those pictures as reference for this drawing. I decided to do another woodcut technique, like I did back in August. Since the technique requires that the image be drawn in negative, then reversed digitally, it's difficult to visualize as I'm drawing -- every black line I drawn in ink will become a white line, and wherever the white paper is left will be black. So it's difficult to gauge exactly how it'll look. That presents a challenge, but also makes the project fun -- the end result is always a surprise.

I did retouch the image a little, around the dogs' eyes and some of the outlines. But overall, it turned out as I expected.

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Introducing Monday Morning Minnie!

Now that she's been with us a week, and begun to settle in here (?) It's time to give Minnie her formal introduction. Notice the black coat and those piercing orange eyes! Okay, you can't tell they're orange from a black-and-white sketch, but I was able to capture the piercing part. And those ears that tuck down onto her head -- sometimes you can't see them at all, and then she really looks odd.

I mentioned last week that Marty's first reaction to her was a bit -- well, aggressive. Well now they get on like a house on fire! They jump on each other like Grecko-Roman wrestlers, trying to get underneath each other and flip, trying to pin each other down. Their play is so fierce it's frightening -- Minnie will bite on Marty's face and pull on it, and Marty will bite Minnie's ears -- but it's all in fun. The tails keep wagging, and moments later when they're tired out, they'll just fall asleep next to each other. Crazy.

This sketch was done in pencil, then scanned and the tones added digitally. When I augment a sketch like this, I like to keep it minimal. There's a danger of the digital effects taking over, and it's easy to go overboard, but I want the piece to still feel like a sketch.

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Monday Morning Marty -- Marty Deco!

This week's Monday Morning Marty is an Art Deco-inspired poster of our favorite pup. I wanted to get in some practice of my Pueblo Deco style, and I wanted specifically to recreate the look of the WPA posters of the thirties for our beautiful National Parks. Those posters are characterized by colorful, simple backgrounds, solid blocks of color making stylized subject imagery of animals or whatever.

I'm not sure of these colors for the final piece -- I just made this Sunday night, and may want to look at it again in a couple of days and refine it. And I'm not entirely sure of the drawing itself -- a couple of the legs are worrying me. But it's a good, solid start, and with a little tweaking should make a fine addition to my portfolio.

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Another Key to Success: Ideas!

Last week I saw an item online about a certain historic theater here in New Mexico celebrating its 80th anniversary. (I'm leaving out the theater's name, because no deals have been signed, but anyone in Albuquerque can probably guess the theater in question.) I immediately thought of the Pueblo Deco, World's-Fair-style tricentennial posters I did for the City of Albuquerque last year, and realized that this theater -- a Pueblo Deco landmark -- needed a poster like them for its own. (Now the rest of you in New Mexico have figured out the theater.)

So I emailed the theater manager and told him that if we worked quickly, we could have Anniversary posters printed up in time for the Holiday shopping season. He wrote back saying they weren't interested in anniversary posters, since they'd become dated quickly, but were interested in putting together a new poster for the theater. We're now in the midst of working out the details.

See how easy that was? This could be a big project for me, and all it took was for me to see an opportunity and make an inquiring email. Email! I didn't even have to send a letter or -- yikes! -- make a phone call!

In a profession like mine, it's easy to get passive, to wait for the work to come to you and then get it done. Even with aggressive self-promotion, the focus is usually that I'm available, that I can do what you need getting done. I sit back and hope for a big break. And big breaks do come -- occasionally. But in order to get further in your career you have to make those breaks. You have to go out and do more than say "I can do whatever you want." You have to say "This is what you want."

The biggest break in my career was probably the Albuquerque Tricentennial posters, but that didn't exactly fall in my lap. I was hired by Rick Johnson & Company to draw up sketches of what the posters would look like, to sell the concept to the Tricentennial Committee. They hadn't picked an artist for the final work yet, but were looking at some guy in Toronto, I think. I told them I could do the job, and they were wary. I hadn't done anything of that scale before. So when I did the sketch, I made it very, very tight, to show them I could do this. That, my enthusiasm, plus the good PR they'd get for hiring a local boy (doesn't hurt!) got me the job.

That's a great story, but the fact is I should have been pitching ideas to companies for years now. I'm very slow at learning this business, but I am learning. I need to do this more often -- go out and look for possibilities. Since that theater anecdote, I've sent similar proposals to two other organizations -- this time by mail, to make things a little more formal. That and I couldn't find an email address for one of them.

Whatever your field, if you're not where you want to be, you need to go out and make it happen. You can't wait for a big break to fall in your lap. If you want to work on more important projects at your job, tell your boss that. If you want your writing hobby to become a business, find someone who could hire you to write and then convince them. You can't afford to be passive, to hope that someone else can see how you could help them in some way. You need to come up with the ideas, and then show them. Sometimes that's all it takes. Even if they don't like the idea you're pitching, they'll see that you do have ideas.

Just don't be pushy. People hate that.

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Monday Morning Marty -- Marty in the Rio Grande!

Yes, the Monday Morning Marty is back!

This weekend Jennifer and I took Marty to the banks of the Rio Grande, which is about a mile from our new house. Marty had never seen a big river like this, and we didn't know how he'd react.

After a little initial trepidation, Marty took to the water like... well, like a duck to water. He loved it! We tossed sticks for him to fetch, and he loved jumping through the water to get to them! At one point he found the rather disgusting skull of what we hope was a coyote, and despite our repeated attempts to get rid of it he kept bringing it back. He was a muddy mess by the end of it, prompting a long-delayed bath when we got him home.

These are sketches of a couple of my memories of the adventure. He sure loved diving into that water! We'll have to take him back again, the next time he's due for a bath.

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"I'm here to win, not to make friends."

You see it all the time on the reality TV contests -- candidates who snub their fellow contestants, are rude to them, lie to them, get into shouting matches with them, all to supposedly gain some sort of advantage in the show. This makes good TV, of course -- but does it really help? And even if it does, is it worth it?

I'm not talking about the shows like Big Brother, The Amazing Race or Survivor, where the show is just a game. I'm thinking of the career-oriented shows, like The Apprentice, Project Runway, Top Chef -- even America's Next Top Model. Shows where the contestants are trying to show what they can do in their profession, or would-be profession.

Let's leave alone for a moment whether such a strategy actually helps you win. Overall -- with the recent exception of Evil Dick in Big Brother -- the abusive people, the bullies, the "b*tches" rarely make it to the top. But let's assume for a moment that it will help you win. Is it still worth it?

On the career-based contests, I'd say the answer is no. And that winning the game isn't really the most important thing you can do on such a show.

Shows like Project Runway and The Apprentice are wonderful PR opportunities for the contestants. The chance of coming away with the grand prize are slim, but once you're on the show, the chance to demonstrate your professionalism and hard work ethic are is a sure thing. Comport yourself well, be courteous, respectful and no-nonsense, put out your best work with no excuses if you come up short, and you'll just about assure yourself a good career after the program airs, regardless of how far you make it. Your future clients, bosses and coworkers will want you on their team. You'll have cemented a solid reputation, which is the most valuable prize you can take away from such an opportunity.

Be one of the "villains" of reality TV, and you'll assure yourself a future of spots on Best Week Ever and The Surreal Life. But you won't make yourself very attractive to the people you need to work with in your chosen profession. (Unless being a reality TV whore is your chosen profession.)

This lesson is well worth learning even for those of us who somehow don't make our way onto a reality TV show. (Full Disclosure: I was a contestant on The Weakest Link. No, not her, the daily syndicated version with some American guy as host. No, I didn't win, but I made it just shy of the final round, and I only got one question wrong. Yes, it was a Harry Potter question.)

When you're trying to land a job, or get a client, or score a big assignment, don't get so caught up in that short-term goal that you lose sight of your long-term aim -- to build a solid reputation for honesty, reliability and achievement. That other guy you back-stabbed to jump ahead of him may be the one who ends up working for the next company you want to work for. Or your contact at a client that you consider too small to give your best efforts to may get a job with that really big client who's looking for an illustrator and asks her who she recommends.

In the freelance illustration business, as in any business, the winner is the one who does make friends.

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Have Fun!

I know, I know -- I haven't posted in a while. It's been very busy here, what with getting the new house in shape and starting teaching and all. I'll try better, I promise.

Back in August I was hard at work on entries for two competitions -- next year's Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta commemorative poster, and the logo for Santa Fe's 400th Anniversary. I've since heard back officially from the Balloon Fiesta. They didn't select my image for their poster next year, but they are interested in making it a t-shirt. So that's a nice consolation prize. The Santa Fe 400 people I haven't heard back from officially, but the word is that my entry wasn't one of the finalists.

So, I didn't hit two home runs, in terms of outcome. But I did in terms of my happiness with the final work.
I'm only putting portions of each image up here, since I'm going to be selling one to the Balloon Fiesta and the Santa Fe logo may indeed end up being picked -- until you get official word, nothing is certain.

With both entries I went with my newly-discovered woodcut technique. I'm really happy with both results. Originally the Balloon Fiesta poster was simply drawn in black outline and colored -- the woodcut effect adds a whole 'nother dimension to the work, making the drawing style as interesting as the subject and the composition.

I had a blast putting these entries together. While keeping in mind what I thought the judges would be looking for, I still went with what I wanted to do. I felt much more freedom than I have in a while with most of the work I've gotten. I definitely have to enter more of these competitions in the future. Even though I didn't win (although I didn't lose, in the case of the Balloon Fiesta entry that's going to become a sold piece!) I came out with some great portfolio examples.

But of course, it occurs to me that I can apply this sort of freedom to my other work, too! If a client calls and says they want such-and-such, I need to feel free enough to suggest they look at other solutions, too -- and then show them what I mean. I need to ask for more freedom -- "would you mind if I went with more of this sort of direction? I think it would work really well here." I'm not just being paid for my hands, but for my judgment too -- I need to exercise it more. It'll make me more in demand, and besides, it's more fun.

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Monday Morning Marty -- Woodcut

I'm very happy with this week's Monday Morning Marty.

Years ago, in art school, my illustration teacher Stan Zagorski taught be a great faux woodcut technique. You painted on the illustration board with white gouache, where you want the image to be white. You wait 'til the gouache dries, then cover the surface with India ink. When that dries, you rinse the board in running water; the gouache dissolves, taking the ink on top of it with it, leaving the surrounding ink. It's a great technique; my Storyteller's Workshop logo, above, was done that way -- with a lot of retouching.

Retouching is always a big part of the process, because you never know how well the gouache will dissolve, or how well the surface of the board will handle the water. It's touch and go there.

Well, last week I was working on a logo proposal for Santa Fe's 400th anniversary, and I came up with this new technique. I designed the logo the way I wanted it, then created a negative of it, so everything white was now black and vice versa. I then turned the image into a very, very light blue and printed it out onto card stock. I got out my brush and inked in everything that was black -- or rather blue -- adding lots of stray strokes that resemble woodcut marks. I scanned in the artwork -- the light blue was light enough not to show up -- reversed the image again, and got the woodcut look.

For this Marty picture, I started with a photo that I turned grayscale, then followed the process listed above. The final image wasn't too easy to make out -- I also printed out the photo untouched to help me make sense of it. I had to constantly remind myself that the ink strokes I was putting down would be white, and that the darkest shaded areas would be the lightest in the final piece.

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Shangri La

Last year I drew a large full-body portrait of Lutcher Stark for Shangri La.

Shangri La is a botanical garden and nature center in Orange, Texas, which is southeast TX near the Louisiana border. It's scheduled to open in March 2008.

Lutcher Stark was a lumber heir who took his family's land, bought more to augment it, and turned it into a botanical garden. He especially loved azaleas and camellias. In the late '50s, a "killing frost" destroyed much of his garden, and he closed it, heartbroken. It was more or less left to the elements since then and became a pretty wild place, but a haven for animals and birds. Now the Stark Foundation is reopening it to the public. This exhibit is in the visitor center and is part of an introduction to the place.

I was hired to draw Mr. Stark in a style similar to that of a naturalist's sketch book. I'm not sure I quite pulled that off, but the designers were happy with the final product, and so am I.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 8-20-07

I'm cheating on this one -- twice.

Once because I didn't draw this just for the blog. This is a close-up of an illustration in progress I'm working on for Cisneros Design in Santa Fe, for a fundraiser invitation to benefit an animal rescue organization.

The other cheat is that I didn't ask Fred Cisneros, or the animal rescue organization, if I could use the image. I'm hoping they'll understand.

It was, in part, my Monday Morning Marty series that convinced the client I could draw dogs for this assignment, so what better dog to use for it? (That other dog in the picture is just a model. We've never actually met.)

I always find it harder to draw a specific individual for an illustration, rather than a fictional character, even if the individual in question is a canine one. After all, when I'm making someone up, no one but me will know if I get the likeness exactly the way I envisioned. And I never say. But when I'm drawing someone's portrait, suddenly I have a measurable standard to be judged against. Yikes, that's scary! If I hadn't been drawing the Monday Morning Marties I wouldn't have had the confidence to even try this one.

Oh, and if you didn't catch the moral in all this -- ironic in a post about cheating -- it's this: whenever you put your stuff out there, good things result. My Monday Morning Marty series turned out to be good portfolio samples as well as a weekly exercise and a segue into moralistic lecturing. I've found that whenever I do work for fun, it seems to become a means to paying work. My long-running comics series Jazz Age (originally Jazz Age Chronicles) has been an off-and-on labor of love for twenty years now, and though it's hardly ever made much money, every good-paying comics job I've ever got, I got from samples of Jazz Age. All you freelancers out there, listen up: Get your stuff out there. If it's good, it'll produce results.

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Jazz Age/Annie Crossover!

Fans of my webcomic Jazz Age may want to pay extra attention to the Annie story unfolding now in papers around the country and online: Annie, Sandy and Santiago have found themselves in 1927 Boston!

And while I won't reveal yet whether any of the characters of Jazz Age will be making an appearance in the strip, I won't rule it out either. I will say, though, that some memorable landmarks will be seen, such as Scollay Square and the Public Garden.

Annie, Santiago and Sandy were flying to Boston in the present day when Annie's old friends from Atlantis accidentally scooped her up in their time machine and set her down in 1927.

Follow Annie's adventures in 1920s Boston, and keep an eye out for any private eyes or archaeologists!

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WARNING: Have Fun OR ELSE...!

I've been having more fun drawing lately.

I don't know what it is. Perhaps it's being back in New Mexico, after two years in Philly, a city I like, but don't really feel at home in. Maybe it's feeling less pressure financially, now that Jennifer has started working again after getting her degree in the aforementioned City of Brotherly Love.

Or maybe it's just that I've made a conscious decision to have more fun.

Illustrators, like all freelancers, cannot forget to be responsible -- meet deadlines, be responsive to the clients' needs, solve problems, budget their time and their money, and market, market, market. But sometimes those responsibilities can overload your circuits, 'til you're blind to anything else. A new job becomes just another deadline, just another necessity, just another paycheck. Sure, there are times when the workload is so heavy I just don't have time to enjoy myself. I have to get the work done and out the door, just to I can breathe.

But then I have to remind myself that I can breathe again, and that I can go back to having fun -- even if it means a little loss in efficiency. Which it usually doesn't, even, by the way. But I'll get back to that in a moment.

Having fun is not only important because -- well, because it's fun. It's also vital to my abilities as an illustrator.

The simple, demonstrable fact is that when I'm having fun drawing, I'm drawing better. My work is more fluid and dynamic, my ideas are sharper and more interesting, and I have more of them.

Last week I needed to draw up some ideas for a project. I had one idea, which I just thought I'd draw up and send to the client. I often provide just one idea, especially when the client provides me with very specific parameters. This time, though, the client gave me lots of freedom to come up with a good layout. But all I had was one idea. I didn't really think I needed more than one, really.

But anyway, I got tired of sitting around the office all day again, so I went to a local coffee place to sketch -- you know, the kind of place with wireless Internet and free refills. I really enjoyed the energy there -- getting a cookie as well as coffee helped there -- and my first sketch was a stupid one, which I knew we'd never use, but which I thought my client would find funny. That got me having fun!

I then drew up the one idea I'd already had. But then a couple more ideas came to me. I ended up having several ideas to show the client, and the one we're going with wasn't that original one. It was much better.

Having fun also helps you maintain your style -- or develop it. When every job is a chore, when all you're doing is satisfying the client, and not yourself, there's the danger that you'll lose your own original style to the dictates of the assignment. Let that happen often enough and you may find the only work you're getting is work you really don't like, work you're not happy with, and work that isn't the best you can do.

Now, getting back to that efficiency argument. I sometimes rationalize not having fun with the argument that there isn't time to have fun, that the project has to be done quickly and efficiently. But having fun with a project doesn't have to slow you down; quite the opposite. Working in a dreary mindset will quickly slow me down because I'll lose all motivation to keep working! I'll find excuses to leave my drawing board, take frequent breaks, longer lunches, and develop a substance abuse problem.

And even if having fun does take longer -- so what? If I'm having fun with the project, why would I want it to be done in such a hurry? What am I rushing through work to get to that could be as much fun as my chosen profession? Right? Because there are times -- numerous times -- when drawing, creating, and solving problems is the most fun thing to do in the world. And with a little bit of reminding yourself, you can have those moments much more often. Don't wait 'til the project is too good not to have fun -- have fun with the projects you've got today!

Because if you can't find something fun about every project, you shouldn't be working on that project. Because having fun is the whole reason we freelancers give up the security of a steady paycheck and the simplicity of automatic withholding. And because having fun is FUN!

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Monday Morning Marty -- 8-13-07

Here's a Marty comic strip that I drew with my wife, Jennifer.

This was a fun game Jennifer came up with while we were waiting for our food at a restaurant somewhere. Jennifer took the page out of her Filofax, wrote down the title she made up and drew up the panels. I then had to come up with a story to match the title and draw it in the panels.

This is a fun exercise to pass the time, and it also helps sharpen your storytelling abilities. Trying to find a logical reason for each panel to be the size and the placement that it is helps you decide the pace of the story, and that may come before you think of a plot or even a subject.

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Confession: I Draw on Letter-Size Copy Paper!

One of the first things you learn as a working freelance illustrator is when you can cut corners and when you can't. Or more appropriately: What's important.

When I first started out, fresh out of art school, I had learned the importance of using the right equipment, the best paper, the most precise and elaborate methods. We had been indoctrinated from our freshman year in the importance of proper technique. We learned to be precise, thorough and detail-oriented. And, above all, we learned not to cut corners.

Well, those techniques and procedures are fine as a starting point, but over time you learn to develop your own methods and routines, ones that are attuned to the importance you put on things.

In a previous post I talked about the procedure I use to create comic strip artwork. It took me years to develop this technique. For years, concerned with the "proper" way of doing things, I had a much more labor-intensive method; I'd cut down large sheets of Bristol board, used Rapid-o-Graph pens for all the ruled lines and (GASP) the lettering, and everything else was done with a pure sable brush and India ink. Anything else wouldn't be kosher, I told myself; anything else would be a cheat.

Well, thank God I got over that mentality. Now most of the line work I do comes from Micron pens. I still use a brush for most of my more realistic comics illustration, like Jazz Age, but 90% of Annie is done with the pens now. And as I'd gone over before, the lettering is now done in InDesign! The pure Bristol Board has been replaced by 11" x 17" 80-pound matte cover stock and fed through the printer for the lettering and panel boarders.

For most of my other freelance work, I draw on good ol' letter-size copy paper. ( I originally put "typing paper" before realizing that it hasn't been called that in a few decades!) It works as well as any kind of paper for inked line work, it's cheap, easy to find, easy to scan or fax -- the only down side is when the job calls for the original being given to the client, which has happened less than half a dozen times in the twenty years I've been doing this. On those jobs, I break out the thicker card stock. (This, of course, is in the context of the freelance work. For the comics work, I still use the card stock that's very much like Bristol board because there is a market for the original art.)

In short, I figured out what's really important: Do what works. Get the job done as well, as quickly and as reliably as you can.

People are paying me for the digital file of an image. They don't care what paper it was drawn on, or even if it was drawn on paper at all. It doesn't matter to them that I drew it with India ink, or if it was on 100% rag content paper. They want their image, and whatever is the best, easiest way to make it is the proper way.

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Responsibility: Drawing a Legend

Last Sunday, August 5, was the 83rd anniversary of the very first Little Orphan Annie strip, created by Harold Gray back in 1924. Last Monday, on August 6, I received a very nice card in the mail. It was a birthday card, addressed to "Annie Warbucks," in care of my address, and it was sent to me by a nine-year-old girl. Her father had bought some Annie original art last year, and so he knew where she could send her card.

Annie is known the world over. Little girls everywhere can sing the songs from the movie and the musical -- which came to Philly twice in the two years I lived there, and is coming here to Albuquerque in a few months. People know the archetypes of Annie and Daddy Warbucks (Sandy too!), and the strip is as ingrained in American culture as Superman or Snoopy.

And I draw that comic strip.

Wow.

Now, let's be frank -- the strip ain't what it used to be. It's running in a smattering of papers across the country, mostly smaller ones -- though it's still running in the New York Daily/Sunday News, where it's been since August 5, 1924 -- and most people I talk to don't realize it's still going.

But people are reading the strip -- if not in papers, online -- and they compare our work (Jay Maeder of New York has been writing the strip since 2000) with Harold Gray and every other artist and writer who've worked on it. Last week, when Drawn.ca posted a link to my post on creating the Annie strip, one reader commented that the strip "...is so far removed from Harold Gray’s Annie it isn't even funny."

We have a responsibility to stay true to the roots of the comic strip. When you take over an established property like Annie, you take on that responsibility. If I completely reinvented the strip, throwing out all that made it what it was, then what I'd really be doing is marketing my own, new strip under an established brand name. If I want to do my own, wholly original work, I should go ahead (and I did) but not within the old strip. People expect, and deserve, continuity.

But it's also important to allow the strip to evolve, to change, and as the author of the work I have another responsibility -- to be true to my own artistic sensibilities, and to my own style and strengths. The artist picked to take over a strip should already have a similar, or at least compatible style, from that which came before, and I think that was the case this time.

But if I were to just ape Harold Gray's style -- which I have done once in a while, when it was appropriate, such as in the art sample above, when modern-day Annie went back in time to visit the Annie of the 1930s -- then I'd be cheating the readers. There's no way I can draw like Harold Gray better than Harold Gray did, so my work would be inescapably inferior. When an actor takes on a role that another had played before, should she simply try to imitate the previous actor? Or do we want to see a new interpretation of the essences of that character?

That's what I try to do with my work on Annie -- take the essential characteristics of the characters, both in terms of their personality and in terms of how Harold Gray drew them -- and build from that, using my style, my strengths and my perspective. I feel what I've come up with works, but I'm constantly refining and redirecting the work I do, checking to see that I'm still on course, still remaining as true to Mr. Gray's ideas as possible while also being true to my own. It's a difficult task, it's a huge responsibility, but it's also very, very rewarding.

Annie got the little girl's card on Monday, and she'll be sending a thank-you card by the end of the week.

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Monday Morning Marty 8-6-07 -- Fur

Here's a little portrait of Marty to start your week.

When you're drawing a furry creature, like Puppy here, your pencil strokes can do more than just follow the contour of the general shape -- they can take on the qualities of the fur itself. If you notice, very few of the actual lines in this drawing follow the edge of Marty's head -- they follow the direction and the length of the fur, and the succession of these lines creates the contour. This lets me convey not just the shape of the head, but the direction of the fur, the thickness, and in some places helps suggest the cheekbone and other structure beneath. It's important to be economical in your drawing, and to let every stroke, every line contribute as much as possible to communicating your subject.

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Specialization: How Much is Too Much?

One of the questions freelance illustrators, like freelance writers and a lot of other professionals, have to face is this: how much should you specialize? How much to narrow one's focus?

On the one extreme is the complete generalist, who will draw, paint, digitally create or sculpt any and all subjects, styles, and viewpoints. Obviously, an illustrator who spreads himself so thin probably wouldn't be very good at any one style: "Jack of all trades, master of none."

But the biggest problem for such an illustrator isn't one of talent or ability, but of marketing. For without a specialty, without a niche, an artist has a hard time being remembered, and a hard time finding a place to shine.

There are plenty of illustrators out there, and they're all reasonably good for most applications. Why go with one over the other? For most clients, the answer lies not in ability, but in specialty; if you need an illustration of a car, you hire the one who's drawn cars. If you need a portrait in Byzantine style, find someone whose portfolio shows Byzantine portraits.

You need to stand out from the competition, and being very good isn't enough. You need to show potential clients you have experience at what they want.

Many of the most successful illustrators out there today specialize pretty narrowly. They have readily-identifiable styles, and many of them specialize in subject matter as well. There are medical illustrators, editorial illustrators, children's illustrators, comics artists...

So some degree of specialization is necessary. But how much?

The other extreme is the overly-specialized. Narrow your field too much, and you may never be called. If all you do are pointillistic children's illustrations of people in diners, there may not be a need for your services too often. But if you specialize in a pointillistic children's illustration style, that might be a good style that is specific to stand out, while also being applicable to many projects.

Those of you who've looked through this web site have noticed that I haven't narrowed my specialization too much. I have a fairly wide variety of work, though there's a consistent style and sensibility throughout. Instead of trying to be a guy who does one thing well, I like to do many things well -- or, perhaps, do one thing well in many way. One reason is that I want to offer lots of choices to my clients; If they need an illustrator, I can approach the project with a great deal of flexibility, and deliver the solution that would work best for them. With the highly specialized illustrator, you have to know exactly what you want ahead of time; with me, you can come with your ideas and we can brainstorm together on them.

The other reason I don't narrow my work more is simply because I like to do a wide variety of things. I get bored with doing the same thing every time, and part of the fun I get from my work is applying a technique in a new way, or finding a new solution to a problem.

Whatever strategy you take, realize that there will be a downside to your decision. Narrowing your specialization means clients will need your talents less often, so you'll need to reach a greater number of clients. And it means you'll have to turn away work that falls outside your range. But it will also eventually brand you as an expert in the narrow field you've chosen. A less narrow field may mean more work from your existing clients, but may prevent you from being marketed as the expert in that one thing that only you do as well as you do. It's a decision that should be weighed carefully, and pursued aggressively.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 7-30-07

For today's Monday Morning Marty, instead of a single image, I decided on a series of quick gesture drawings. I'd said last week that I wanted to keep the Marty drawings loose and fun, to make them more of a series of studies than worry about perfect image-making or slick, polished illustration. So this week I'm pushing that to its ultimate.

Quick gestures like these make great warm-ups before going into more detailed illustration, and they make excellent study and learning guides for getting familiar with a subjects proportions, mannerisms or expressions. But they're also great drawings in and of themselves, as they capture a quick snapshot of a moment. In the fact that the strokes and lines are quick, unpolished and unrefined, they can reveal as much about the artist as about the subject.

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Inspiration: Joseph Lorusso

Yesterday I went up to Santa Fe -- about an hour or so's drive from Albuquerque -- to visit with some agencies there and show my work. While up there I sent some time with my lovely wife Jennifer. In addition to her Daily Mammal and Atkins Institute blogs, she also works full-time with a museum exhibit design firm up there.

While up there, Maggie -- our friend and Jennifer's coworker -- told us about her brother-in-law painter. His name is Joseph Lorusso, and he's having an opening this Friday in Santa Fe.

I was floored by his work. Here's a guy who can paint. His work really hearkens back to the Golden Age of illustrators -- few painters today have that style or, frankly, the ability. But Joseph Lorusso's got it!

Check out his work, and if you're in the Santa Fe area on Friday, come out to the opening. He's showing in other galleries across the country, for the rest of you.

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Inspiration: Otto Soglow

Goofbutton.com has posted a great collection of single-panel cartoons and sequences of Otto Soglow.

Soglow's one of those artists whose work you've probably seen, but didn't know who did it. I've seen his work in countless old books and magazines growing up. His little king character might seem familiar. Enjoy!

Thanks to Drawn: The Illustration and Cartooning Blog for letting me know about this post.

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Monday Morning Marty -- July 23, 2007

Here's my contribution to the Monday Morning Marty catalogue for this week. It was drawn from a live model, not from a photograph. I have no problem with drawing from photos -- most of my work uses photo reference, including several of my Marty drawings. But one of the reasons for taking on the weekly Marty drawing series was to get back to drawing for the sake of drawing, and drawing from live models, and drawing just for the fun of it.

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How I Make A Comic Strip

Welcome to my summary of putting together a comic strip. Or at least, my way of putting together a comic strip. This isn't going to be "how to draw" (I'm sure I'll cover something along those lines before too long) so much as it is "how to set up to draw."

Everyone needs a system for putting together a comic strip. Drawing comics is as much a job as it is a calling -- and on days when you don't really hear that calling, it's still a job. And for most cartoonists, it's not a very good paying job. So it's essential that you have a system in place, a streamlined and standardized way of going about the task. I draw seven strips for Annie a week -- six dailies plus the color Sunday strip -- and I need to get that work done quickly and get it out the door by deadline, and still leave time for other freelance work, my webcomic Jazz Age (I'm on hiatus right now, but it's usually a full-color strip written and drawn every week) and, if I'm lucky, my family. I don't want to waste any time here. I need to get the boring stuff out of the way, to give me the most time actually drawing, and get it all done fast.

The system I show won't work for everyone. It may not even work for anyone, except that it works for me. Other comics artists use other systems -- maybe some of them will comment here on theirs -- but this is the one that has evolved for me. Even if none of this is applicable to you, young apprentice, I hope you at least come away with an appreciation for the need for a system.

The process begins with the script, which is written by Jay Maeder and gets to me from my editor, Tracy Clark. the script tells me who's doing what, who says what and what is being shown in each panel. Since we've worked together for some time now -- just over three years -- Jay and I have a pretty good understanding of what each other wants and expects, so his scripts are not very detailed. He trusts me to know the right angles to show things in, and to make the new characters interesting and appropriate.

After reading through the script, I go to my layout worksheet. This is a worksheet I made up that gives me little boxes, scaled-down versions of the individual strips, and lets me sketch out the six dailies on one page. These layouts are loose and sketchy -- since I'm the only one who needs to refer to them and since I'll be drawing the final art in a day or so, I don't need to go into much detail -- I'll remember what I had in mind. The most important aspect of the layouts is to show roughly where all the important elements are.

The next step surprises some people. I do the final lettering. Years ago I made the best investment of a couple hundred hours I could ever have made -- I created a digital version of my own hand lettering, in Fontographer. And I made alternative versions of most of the letters, which you can access by hitting OPTION with the letter, so double letters don't look quite so obvious. I also made up a library of word balloons in Quark -- which I've since transferred to InDesign -- that I can put the lettering into, and which are resizable and adaptable to any need. Using the layouts as a guide, and an InDesign template that has the strip dimensions preformatted, I create the panel sizes and add the lettering balloons, copying and pasting the dialogue directly from the script emailed to me by Tracy.

Why do I do the lettering first? After years of frustration with trying to make lettering balloons fit a tight space because I underestimated it when I drew the panel, or having to cover up some really nice background art I drew with a balloon, I realized that the artwork was more adaptable than the lettering. It's easier, in other words, to make a figure, or a face, a little bigger or smaller in the panel to fit the space after the balloons are put in than to make the balloon bigger or smaller to fit the space after the artwork is put in. A figure, or a face, can be partially cut off and still work -- words are rarely that flexible.

Once the lettering and layouts are completed, I print them out on good card stock. I used to pay a small fortune to buy Bristol board pads, cut them down to size and throw away the extras -- they never did learn to make those pads 11 x 17" -- and then start doing the lettering by hand. Now, I can buy 11 x 17" card stock and print out the lettering, all ready to go, for a lot less! Even before I got my large printer, and had to email the InDesign files to a printer to output onto the card stock, it was still cheaper than buying the Bristol board. And it works just as well for drawing on. Nearly. It's not quite as thick, so it can warp if you lean and sweat on it too much. Oh well -- everything's a trade-off.

So now, with the lettering and panel borders printed on the card stock -- I put two dailies on one 11 x 17" sheet, or half of a Sunday strip -- I'm ready to get down and draw. Which, as I mentioned, I'll have to cover another time.

With the line art all done, I scan the artwork. Until I invest in an 11 x 17" scanner, I have to make two scans of each page and splice them together. Then I clean up the scans, and send the strips to the editor for approval. Ta-daah!

For the Sunday strips, after I scan the artwork, I create a color guide for the print house, which they use to put together the final color files for the newspapers. That'll also be another post.

So there you have it. My system. My regular process for breaking down a very large job into bite-size pieces and taking care of them in order. Like I said, it may not work for others, but it works for me. Every week. Now I feel tired.

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Monday Morning Marty -- 7/16/07

Here's the Monday Morning Marty for this week -- and instead of the usual pencil sketch or line drawing, I went with a different approach, and digitally altered a photo of Marty into a painting look. I still plan to have the Monday Morning Marty series be predominantly sketches, drawings and maybe the occasional real painting, but digital illustration is legitimate, too. So today you get a little variety.

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Tutorial Will Have To Wait...

Dad-gum it. Wouldn't you know it?

I was just in the middle of some really good writing, explaining the need for a good comics-making system and outlining the beginning of the process. I was writing about the rough layout stage, and the layout worksheets I use, and was going to scan the most recent one.

Then I realize I'd thrown it out. And it went out in the trash.

Sigh.

I saved the draft, and I'll pick up working on it next week, when I will SAVE the next layout worksheet in preparation for this series.

Boy, it's going to be a good one, though. Just you wait. It really, really is...

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On Being a Comics Reporter

Last week Alan Gardner, the guy who runs the excellent Daily Cartoonist blog, put out a call for cartoonists and people in the comics world to help fill in for him during his vacation, which began yesterday. I wrote in saying I'd be happy to! It'll be good exposure for me, I figure, and it should be fun, too. He says great, thanks me, gives me the login info and all, and off he goes on vacation.

And then it hits me -- I'm supposed to find NEWS STORIES for this blog!

The Daily Cartoonist, for those of you unaware, is a great news source, with all the latest about who's doing what, what comic strip collection just came out, who got fired, who got picked up -- and I'm supposed to contribute to this? Daily Cartoonist is where I find out all this stuff!

Luckily there are two other volunteers who are also filling in for the vacationing Mr. Gardner -- Charles Brubaker and The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon -- both of whom seem more than capable of filling in single-handedly. I've been supplying a few stories so far, and I'm actually enjoying tracking them down, but it's clear I'm not needed for my journalistic sleuthing. I can't compete with these guys there.

But one thing I can do, that neither of them can lay claim to -- I can talk about what it's like to draw Little Orphan Annie!

I'm going to put together a series of posts on the creation of a comic strip, and link those posts to Daily Cartoonist. I know, it's shameless self-promotion -- except that I am, just a little, ashamed -- but that's what I was asked to do, dammit. Daily Cartoonist is a site for fans of, well, cartoons. And cartoonists. And cartooning. Even if you prefer the term "comics illustration." (I know I do.)

So look for those posts to begin some time soon. Maybe in mere moments, depending on who calls me in the next few minutes with work.

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Clients: Illustrators Help with Summer Vacancies

It's that time of year again, folks -- summer vacations. I've seen several business-related sites talking about coping with the vacancies in offices that these vacations cause. Wells Fargo's Business Roundup has one such article. One resource those articles don't mention, but which you should consider, is... well, me.

A good conceptual illustrator can help take the burden off your hands. I'll go into the difference between a conceptual illustrator and the other kind in a future post, but for now let's just say that a conceptual illustrator is more than a pair of hands. He or she has a variety of styles and applications, and works at finding the right solution to the problem, instead of needing everything laid out in front of them to just follow skillfully.

As a conceptual illustrator, I can work with an art director to come up with a piece that's the right fit for the project. I can be given some rough ideas and can run with them, freeing up the art director or designer to get on with other things.

If you've got a project that could use some illustration to give it some pop, some project where you can't even think of how to approach it, what visual to give it or what style might work with it, I can not only provide you with some great illustrations but can help shape the direction of the piece. Give me a call, drop me an email and let's see what we can come up with.

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Monday Morning Marty

This week's Monday Morning Marty was drawn on Sunday afternoon, after Marty had had a nice long fetch session in the park near my in-laws' house in Albuquerque. Since we moved here, Marty's really been enjoying himself. He just couldn't get this relaxed and have this much fun in Philadelphia. The closest he every came was at my parents' house, which has a beautiful big lawn just like the park here. Marty loves fetching the tennis ball at full speed about a hundred times, then for some reason he's tired. Like he was here.

The drawing, like previous Marty drawings, was first done in pencil, then gone over with a Micron pen. I liked the line work as is, so I didn't color this one.

He looks pretty happy, I think. He's wearing his red bandanna. So cute.

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Monday Morning Marty -- July 1, 2007

Here's my Monday Morning Marty for the week -- just a quick sketch of the pup while he sits in his kennel. We have another dog staying with us a couple of days, while her owners, family members, are on vacation, and while she eats, Marty stays in his kennel. Perfect opportunity to sketch the ol' hound dog.

Still the least happy with the head. He moves it around too much. As I get more practiced drawing him, I'll be able to do it quicker, and capture the gesture more accurately. But this does look like him. Especially that sweet, hangdog expression. And the crossed paws in front. He's so classy sometimes!

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New Job Decisions

It didn't take long. We'd been back in New Mexico for three days when I got a lead on a possible storyboard job for a movie being made here, the new Kevin Costner comedy "Swing Vote". I got the job, and start today. The job should last through next week, with the day off for the Fourth, of course.

I've done loads of presentation storyboards for commercials, and a few production boards for films, but no matter how many I do, starting a new one is always a little scary. Everyone has a different approach to storyboarding -- some directors want you on site, reporting to them often, and some prefer you work at your own office, emailing or faxing the work as you do it. Some don't really care.

I prefer working in my office at home. Maybe because I'm such a homebody, and maybe because I like the freedom of not having someone looking over my shoulder. I've never had a problem with a director not liking my work -- I may have to make revisions or redraw some panels, but not often, and I've never had a director or client think my work isn't good -- but I still get anxious that someone will look over my should and tell me I'm doing it all wrong. I'd rather get that kind of news over the phone, or better yet, by email.

But maybe I'd enjoy being in the film production offices for this job. I don't know yet what they're going to want me to do, but if they want me to stay on-site and work, I'll give it a try. Maybe I'll split my time between the two, based on the availability of the director, or director of photography or whomever I'm going to be reporting to. It might be fun working in the offices with the film's art department, and would certainly give more networking opportunities than if I stayed hidden away at home.

The other consideration when I get a job, especially a storyboarding job like this one, where I'm hired for the day and am supposed to devote my time exclusively to it, is dealing with the other work that I have. Even times such as now, when I don't have any other freelance gigs going on, I still have Annie to work on every week. (Luckily, Jazz Age is on a hiatus right now, so there isn't that to worry about.) Fortunately, there will be plenty of time this weekend and next week in the evenings to keep up with the little orphan child.

I always remind myself, even if I have a week to get a job done -- like Annie -- and even if there are no other jobs looming, to get the work done as quickly as possible, while still pacing myself and not stressing out about it. You never know when another job will pop up, and if your other work is done, or at least well underway, it'll be a lot easier to take on the new stuff.

I won't be posting any images from the storyboard job here, until after the movie comes out. But I will post updates on how the work is going, and what it's like there. Wish me luck!

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Monday Morning Marty

Today begins a regular weekly feature on ShopTalk, Monday Morning Marty. A new sketch of my beautiful puppy Marty every week.

This week I worked from a photo. We just moved back to New Mexico from Philadelphia, and Marty -- who's from New Mexico and who can tell when we're entering the state by the scents coming in the car's vents, and who really didn't like most of Philly -- is having too much fun and is too excited to sit still and pose for me. The photo was taken last winter, during one of the few snowstorms Philly had. You see Marty's tail is down -- I told you he didn't like Philly. It hasn't been down since we got here.

I decided to try a limited palette coloring effect, recreating the spot-color look of old magazine illustrations. The picture needed a little punch. I thought blue was a natural choice, conveying the cold of the scene. I was originally going to just use the one color, but when I tried giving Marty a simplified version of his own hazel coloring, it worked.

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Frank E. Schoonover

Yet another link to Golden Age Comics Book Stories. But this one is a good'n. It's a look at the beautiful work of Frank E. Schoonover. Notice how his paintings look so polished and refined from a distance, but when you click on the image and get up close, you see the individual brush strokes and Impressionistic approach. Really nice.

We're in the midst of our big move to New Mexico, so there's been no time to sketch or anything. I want to make sketching Marty a regular feature here -- after we settle in.

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Red Panda

I drew this red panda for my Daily Mammal blog, but I like it so much I'm previewing it here. Choose to snooze!

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Multi-Tasking Hand

This is an odd thing to confess, and I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but -- I think my hand doesn't write as well when it's been drawing.

Let me explain.

On the best of days, my handwriting is pretty bad, as anyone who's seen it can confirm. My writing is usually a block lettering anyway -- yes, like the kind used in comics -- because my cursive, and even my upper-and-lower-case print writing, are rather -- unsophisticated, shall we say.

But when I'm in the middle of drawing, it's a lot worse.

I just came upon this thought now, as I'm drawing up the layouts for another week's worth of Annie strips. I have these pre-printed blanks I made up, with a rectangle representing the strip, some guidelines marking the 1/2, 1/3 and 2/3 spots, and lots of room on the sides for notations about the sketches, which aren't very elaborate. Jennifer has commented occasionally about how I never use those notes areas, and just now, as I was writing a little comment about what one of the characters was doing, I realized why.

I can't write worth crap while I'm sketching.

Maybe writing and drawing use different parts of the brain. That makes sense, since they're very different ways of seeing, and different ways of thinking. And since creating images and putting down letterforms are very different ways of using the same hand muscles, maybe transitioning quickly from the one to the other causes some stumbling -- like shifting gears in a car without properly using the clutch or something.

And maybe, since I'm an illustrator through and through, and since that's what I've always been, maybe that's why my handwriting has always been so bad. Maybe, as soon as I pick up the pencil or pen, my drawing instincts take over, and don't want to surrender control to the writing part of my brain.

I know this is an odd theory. I don't even know if it's true that I screw up my writing more often when I'm in the middle of sketching or not. It seems to be, but who knows? And I don't know what possible practical application this could have, other than to try pausing a moment when switching from one to the other -- like waiting for the clutch to engage in the car. Maybe just being aware of this brain change will be enough to improve the situation. I'll let you know what progress, if any, I see.

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Drawing of My Dog, Part 1

My wife Jennifer believes in drawing for fun.

Wow. What a concept.

She's started her own blog, The Daily Mammal, wherein she will draw a new mammal every day. If she keeps it up, she can draw every named mammal in just 14 years! Wow! But whether she does or not, she's having fun. And she's always telling me I should draw for fun. Not for an assignment, or for a deadline. But for fun.

Fun.

Fun?

Well, tonight I gave it a try, sketching our dog Marty. Here's the result.

Not bad for my first attempt at drawing him. And not bad for my first sketch from life in a long time. It even kind of looks like him. Okay, it looks a lot like him. Not perfect, but pretty good. I'm sure this won't be the last time I draw Marty, and I'm sure my next one will be even better.

But you know what? I had fun.

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Why "Storyteller's Workshop?"

A couple times a year, it seems, I get a call, or an email, from someone who wants to hire me for a children's party, or some Native American event. They think from my business name that I'm a storyteller -- that I sit around and tell people stories.

Well, I'll admit it may not be the best name for a freelance illustration business, but there's a reason why I chose Storyteller's Workshop.

The name was originally for a self-publishing business I had in mind. I was going to publish my own comics, the way so many others at the time were doing -- this was the mid-90s. But as I became more serious with my freelance illustration business, I realized it would be a perfect name for it.

You see, illustrators are, above and beyond all else, storytellers. It's our job to tell the story. The story of the client's business. The story of the magazine article. The story of the comic strip. It's great if the artwork looks good -- in fact, it's very important. But if the illustration doesn't convey what it needs to convey -- in other words, if it doesn't tell the story -- it's a failure.

The dictionary defines illustrate as "explain or make something clear by using examples, charts, pictures, etc." That's the job of the illustrator. To get the point across. To present a viewpoint. to be a storyteller.

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ANOTHER Great Vintage Illustration -- and One of Mine

I know, I know -- another link to Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog. Maybe you should all just subscribe to them instead. (Or better yet, subscribe to us both!) But I can't get enough of these beautiful illustrations. And this first picture -- by Mead Schaeffer for The Black Buccaneer (1920) was just too gorgeous for me not to pass along. And it's by no means the only amazing painting that Door Tree (what can I do -- that's what he calls himself) just posted tonight.

I'm going to have to try and recreate this style digitally. I've done some acrylic painting in this vein, though nothing close to this kind of quality. But I've done some digital work for a real estate developer where I took photographs and altered them in Photoshop to look like paintings around this vintage. (See second picture.) I think I could push that style further and maybe do something in this spirit.

Of course, even if I could recreate the brushwork and the texture of these classic illustrations, that'll still leave the composition, lighting, pace, mood, period detail -- there will be loads of challenges in trying to match the impact and the flavor of these amazing paintings.

Sounds like fun, huh?

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Baldo Artist Draws on YouTube -- and I Open My Big Mouth!

The Daily Blogger has a link to a YouTube video of Baldo artist Carlos Castellanos drawing his character. Well, when I say drawing... He's really just doing the inking, which he does digitally. It's a nice video, but ever since I was a kid, whenever I hear about someone showing how they draw something, I want them to reveal everything. I want to discern all the secrets of cartooning and storytelling and illustration, and all I get is to see someone drawing a picture.

It's a standard no one could live up to. And this wasn't supposed to be a tutorial -- which Carlos himself tells me in his response to my curmudgeonly post. Me and my big mouth, I had to say that I wanted to see the whole creative process in this quick little video.

So now that I've said that, and Carlos so graciously turned the tables on me, now it's on me to produce a video of my own -- one that shows the entire creative process. Are you kidding me? I have to live up to my own standards? What have I gotten myself into?

Well, it's going to be a while, since I don't even have a video camera, and I'm going to be moving cross-country in two weeks, but once we get settled in, and I find a camera, and I figure out how to do this...

...I'll have that video.

In the meantime, some really great stuff happened from all this. I got to communicate with Carlos, who said he liked my work -- cool! This whole blogging thing is already paying off!

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Little Orphan Annie ALSO Back In New Mexico

Art, indeed, imitates life -- or vice versa.

The current Annie storyline takes our heroine back to New Mexico, where she visited three years ago and met the Broadcast Ranch boys and confronted a cross-dressing Satanist and his iguanas from Mars. No, really.

Now Annie, Santiago and boy inventor Tom Short take on the border security issue head-on—or perhaps sideways—as well as a crooked lawyer exploiting xenophobia.

Now, the irony is that by the time Jennifer and I get to New Mexico, Annie will probably have moved on, so I won't be able to use any firsthand reference in drawing the Land of Enchantment. Of course, I really don't need to -- wherever my memory might fail me, we have our own photos, the Internet has photos, and if needed, Jennifer's family could take photos.

When I say Annie will have moved on, I'm speaking about the strips I'm drawing. We're about five to six weeks ahead of publication, so Annie's New Mexico strips will certainly still be running when we get back.

Anyway, the storyline is good, and I'm happy with how it's going. You can check out the strip every day at www.comicspage.com!

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More Gorgeous Old Covers

Golden Age Comic Book Stories is fast becoming my favorite blog. They've got another winner posted on there -- more beautiful pulp magazine and book covers, like this cover for Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back. Not only does it use color beautifully and have a dynamic composition, but I'm a sucker for a good detective story! There's also a great cover for an issue of The Virginian, which not only sports a great Old West image, but has a beautifully slick Art Deco style logotype. Check out these gorgeous covers!

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Old Pulp Covers -- Make Your Own!

If you haven't seen my previous post about the old N.C. Wyeth pulp cover, go take a quick look at it. In this post I'll briefly show how I took an old cover of my own -- the cover to Jazz Age Chronicles #1, which came out back in 1990 -- making it rather vintage in its own right.

What I wanted to do was make the cover look like it's 100 years old. I wanted it to look like a beat-up old book cover, so to do that I found a beat-up old book cover. (Specifically, it's an old book of Jennifer's about the Beatles. She wanted to make sure I included that.) It has a blank cover, which is essential here, so the only features on the cover are the wear and the tear:

Now, ideally an old pulp magazine cover would be best -- the wrinkles and tears in an old magazine cover are different from the ones in this hardback book -- but I couldn't find such an item, and pulp magazines with blank covers are a little hard to scare up. So this cover would have to do. And it did.

I sized the cover to fit the original cover perfectly. Then I started with the Photoshop hokus-pokus! My first step was put white in the foreground color palette and go to Select>Color Range, and make a selection of the white tears and peels in the surface of the cover. I played with the value until I was getting most of the white and none of the blue. Then I made a new layer and using Option-Delete, I filled in the selection with the white, making a nice opaque white layer of the tears and scraps over the cover art.

Then, going back to the layer with the book cover, I went to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation (or Apple-U -- get it? U? Hugh? Oh, that one cracks me up every time!) and played with the hugh, and the saturation, and the lightness, until the blue of the cover became a nice yellow-ochre of old, faded pulp paper:

This example shows the cover before I went into Image>Adjustments>Curves and played with the contrast until the outside edges were dark again. I don't have a picture of that, but you're visual people -- I'm sure you can see it in your mind.

Then I set that layer on Multiply, so the original cover art shows through underneath. I added a new layer over all of these others and filled it with more yellow-ochre color, and set it to multiply also. Then I just played with the opacity of all these layers, until I got the final look I wanted:

Ta-daah! Not bad, huh? Now, there are other effects I could have used on this, and have in previous work, such as adjusting the color saturation of the artwork, adding some noise texture to the top layer, "tearing" one of the corners by using the lasso to select it and turning it slightly, or even pushing one of the color layers -- cyan or magenta works best -- just a tad, to make it look like slightly out-of-register old-style printing. I never do the exact same effects every time, and that's the fun part -- improvising and finding different ways to make different effects. But these are some basic steps, one basic approach, and if nothing else, they should help you find your own way to go about it.

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Old Pulp Covers -- Look At These!

Another blog we recently subscribed to is Golden Age Comic Book Stories, which actually covers a lot more than just Golden Age comic book stories. For example, see this beautiful old N.C. Wyeth pulp cover from a 1912 issue of The Popular Magazine.

I love this old style -- if you haven't already noticed. I always have. It's hard for me, really, not to make my work lean towards an old-school flavor. So I've stopped trying.

In fact, I've been inspired by the tattered old look of this cover to take one of my own covers and give it a worn, distressed look. And I'll show you that in my next post!

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Mission Statement

Welcome to the blog of Storyteller's Workshop, Inc.

I'm Ted Slampyak. Storyteller's Workshop is the studio of me and my wife, Jennifer Rae Atkins. I've been a freelance illustrator for twenty years, specializing in comics and storyboards, as well as spot illustrations, posters and even vintage style postcard illustrations. Storyteller's Workshop has been my business name for over ten years now. Jennifer's work includes animal illustrations as well as graphic design and museum exhibit design and development. She's done occasional work for the studio for the past three years in addition to her own brilliant career.

This blog will detail the studio's latest work and newest directions, showing projects in development and discussing the process. (Clients, take note: I will never discuss projects or show work, in progress or finished, without your prior consent.) I'll give tutorials and tips on illustration techniques and talk about all aspects of freelancing, and share other articles, illustrations and illustrators I find interesting online.

And of course, I'll invite discussions with you on all this as well. The whole point of a blog, as opposed to just a web site, is the interactivity of it all. I want to hear from you, and I know you'll have insights and perspectives I'll have never thought of. And together, we'll have fun!

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