Friday, December 24, 2010
The Ghost of Christmas Greetings Past
I was going through some old artwork recently and re-discovered a bunch of really ancient stuff that I thought I might share here...
My parents have always been shameless promoters of their children's creative effforts & regularly encouraged of my artistic habit, as well as paying for private art lessons when from when I was 7 until I was 17, even when they maybe might not have really been able to afford it- thanks mom & dad! One way they encouraged my artistic nature was by using my art for their christmas cards & newsletters each year... from very early on.
Here is an example from 1988 (when I was 6 1/2), the very first time they commissioned art from me for the purpose of creating original christmas card art (I just did the manger scene, the rest is my mother's handiwork):
I remember being particularly proud of my accomplishment in creating the illusion of drapery over joseph's kneeling legs, and being slightly disappointed at not being able to duplicate my success with Mary. Kid's artistic temperaments are funny like that...
a couple years later I had begun taking art lessons, and each year, my tutor, Grace Clater, would have a new pen-and-ink christmas design for us to try to copy for our families to use as card covers. Here is the run-down:
1990
1991:
In 1992, we did 2 designs for our parents to choose from. The Hole family ended up using the second design:
In 1993 we were beginning to branch out with customized designs, which incorporated the names of everyone in the family- and I also included a little bootie for my then-baby brother Jacob (and a mouse, which was a common theme in my art of the period, resulting in what I refer to as my "hidden mice" period) :
In 1995 I actually finally did one on my own, at home, a drawing of our own fireplace and mantle, decorated in a christmas theme (and, still in my "hidden mice" period, included a portrait of a mouse that actually did live in a hole in the mantlepiece):
This was also the first year I included the "Holemark greetings" logo on the back of the card, which was an attempt at being clever that seemed to work.
This logo has gone through several permutations...
...including themed series of cards revolving around my comic book and comic strip characters, like this christmas card which must be from somewhere between 1998 and 2001 when I first conceived of the Edwin Aardvark characters:
I even made a couple of birthday cards with some of the early prototypes my comic characters, like these:
Before Rat Cat and Bassett, an early variation of the characters was called "Gumper's Gang":
I have continued creating my own christmas greetings, such as the following:
and inside:
2005:
2006:
2007:
and as my contribution to my parent's yearly Family Newsletter/Update On the Kids for 2008:
My parents have always been shameless promoters of their children's creative effforts & regularly encouraged of my artistic habit, as well as paying for private art lessons when from when I was 7 until I was 17, even when they maybe might not have really been able to afford it- thanks mom & dad! One way they encouraged my artistic nature was by using my art for their christmas cards & newsletters each year... from very early on.
Here is an example from 1988 (when I was 6 1/2), the very first time they commissioned art from me for the purpose of creating original christmas card art (I just did the manger scene, the rest is my mother's handiwork):
I remember being particularly proud of my accomplishment in creating the illusion of drapery over joseph's kneeling legs, and being slightly disappointed at not being able to duplicate my success with Mary. Kid's artistic temperaments are funny like that...
a couple years later I had begun taking art lessons, and each year, my tutor, Grace Clater, would have a new pen-and-ink christmas design for us to try to copy for our families to use as card covers. Here is the run-down:
1990
1991:
In 1992, we did 2 designs for our parents to choose from. The Hole family ended up using the second design:
In 1993 we were beginning to branch out with customized designs, which incorporated the names of everyone in the family- and I also included a little bootie for my then-baby brother Jacob (and a mouse, which was a common theme in my art of the period, resulting in what I refer to as my "hidden mice" period) :
In 1995 I actually finally did one on my own, at home, a drawing of our own fireplace and mantle, decorated in a christmas theme (and, still in my "hidden mice" period, included a portrait of a mouse that actually did live in a hole in the mantlepiece):
This was also the first year I included the "Holemark greetings" logo on the back of the card, which was an attempt at being clever that seemed to work.
This logo has gone through several permutations...
...including themed series of cards revolving around my comic book and comic strip characters, like this christmas card which must be from somewhere between 1998 and 2001 when I first conceived of the Edwin Aardvark characters:
I even made a couple of birthday cards with some of the early prototypes my comic characters, like these:
Before Rat Cat and Bassett, an early variation of the characters was called "Gumper's Gang":
I have continued creating my own christmas greetings, such as the following:
and inside:
2005:
2006:
2007:
and as my contribution to my parent's yearly Family Newsletter/Update On the Kids for 2008:
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Wen's'day Comics Volume 3 Issue 11
See all the previous issues!
or, if the drunk duck site is down, go to here for slightly smaller versions.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wen's'day Comics Volume 3 Issue 10
See all the previous issues!
or, if the drunk duck site is down, go to here for slightly smaller versions.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Wen's'day Comics Volume 3 Issue 9
I've got a crazy goal of creating a new page each week until christmas, so that mean I'm 1/3 of the way there! time to get working on the one for next week, since I'll be away from the desk for the weekend after friday...Previous issues:
vol. 1, iss. 1
vol. 1, iss. 2
vol. 1, iss. 3
vol. 1, iss. 4
vol. 1, iss. 5
vol. 1, iss. 6
vol. 2, iss. 1
vol. 2, iss. 2
vol. 2, iss. 3
vol. 2, iss. 4
vol. 2, iss. 5
vol. 2, iss. 6
vol. 3, iss. 1
vol. 3, iss. 2
vol. 3, iss. 3
vol. 3, iss. 4
vol. 3, iss. 5
vol. 3, iss. 6
vol. 3, iss. 7
vol. 3, iss. 8
OR- See them BIG!!!
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Wen's'day Comics Volume 3 Issue 8
Previous issues:
vol. 1, iss. 1
vol. 1, iss. 2
vol. 1, iss. 3
vol. 1, iss. 4
vol. 1, iss. 5
vol. 1, iss. 6
vol. 2, iss. 1
vol. 2, iss. 2
vol. 2, iss. 3
vol. 2, iss. 4
vol. 2, iss. 5
vol. 2, iss. 6
vol. 3, iss. 1
vol. 3, iss. 2
vol. 3, iss. 3
vol. 3, iss. 4
vol. 3, iss. 5
vol. 3, iss. 6
vol. 3, iss. 7
OR- See them BIG!!!
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Apocryphal Wednedays # 2
With apologies to George Herriman, as well as the millions of readers who expected my usual comics page this week...
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Fair Use Clause Says What?
I finished inking up and cleaning up my comic book story I drew last saturday, check out the whole thing at this link here!I'll color it eventually when I get time, but for now, I think the black and white looks just fine.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
thumbnail acting
before I start animating, I sometimes will do rough thumbnail drawings to plan the basics of what I want to have happen in the shot. This is an assembling of the thumbnail drawings for a scene in the cartoon I'm currently working on, which I've roughly timed to the music here:
all the basics of what I want are there- a lady pig is in bed, is awakened by noise outside, leaps out of bed and angrily stomps to the window to look out. the last pose is supposed to tie into the action of the next shot is her opening the windows then covering her ears.
the shot before the one in the clip is a vertical pan from the following image:
up to her window:
the empty space beside the "Louie's Granola Bar" sign is going to be filled by a building that is bouncing about in time to the music, and will be animated separately and added later.
My next step in animating this "bedroom scene" of my cartoon will be to re-draw the scene again at the actual size I want to work in; first I'll create a layout drawing that includes all the details of the bedroom, and places the character and any other object where I want them to be for optimal compositional effect. On some of my shots I'll do some video reference at this point, though for this shot the actions are simple enough I may be able to skip that step and get right to animation.
all the basics of what I want are there- a lady pig is in bed, is awakened by noise outside, leaps out of bed and angrily stomps to the window to look out. the last pose is supposed to tie into the action of the next shot is her opening the windows then covering her ears.
the shot before the one in the clip is a vertical pan from the following image:
up to her window:
the empty space beside the "Louie's Granola Bar" sign is going to be filled by a building that is bouncing about in time to the music, and will be animated separately and added later.My next step in animating this "bedroom scene" of my cartoon will be to re-draw the scene again at the actual size I want to work in; first I'll create a layout drawing that includes all the details of the bedroom, and places the character and any other object where I want them to be for optimal compositional effect. On some of my shots I'll do some video reference at this point, though for this shot the actions are simple enough I may be able to skip that step and get right to animation.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
another title card
having decided on a title for my animated short, I've finally completed the last of the title cards for the short. Now to finish the animation...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wen's'day Comics Volume 3 Issue 7
it may be late, but it's still wednesday! I just finished coloring the last piece of this week's page, so here it is, hot off the press!Who knows when the next one will be, as I'm gonna try to get some more work done on my animation project, but rest assured, it won't end here. there's plenty more fun on the way!
Previous issues:
vol. 1, iss. 1
vol. 1, iss. 2
vol. 1, iss. 3
vol. 1, iss. 4
vol. 1, iss. 5
vol. 1, iss. 6
vol. 2, iss. 1
vol. 2, iss. 2
vol. 2, iss. 3
vol. 2, iss. 4
vol. 2, iss. 5
vol. 2, iss. 6
vol. 3, iss. 1
vol. 3, iss. 2
vol. 3, iss. 3
vol. 3, iss. 4
vol. 3, iss. 5
vol. 3, iss. 6
OR- See them BIG!!!
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Apocryphal Wednedays # 1
This is what you get when I don't have time to finish the regular comics for the week: a strip that is just a rough doodle and not actually part of the official Canon of any of my usual series. enjoy! hopefully next week I should have an actual new page of comics for you...
Saturday, September 04, 2010
edwin cartoon progress: scene 18
I'm slowly moving forward with the short cartoon. this is a still frame of the Hedda Gobbler character, from scene 18B, which is all of 38 frames long, meaning that it is on screen for less than 2 seconds. I have it basically animated, just need to clean-up the key drawings and do in-between poses before I can ink and color the entire scene to look as nice as this image...
Thursday, August 26, 2010
the Secret Project is progressing...
and here's a couple sneak peeks! I don't want to give too much away, but I'll say this much- it's a 3 minute cartoon, all musical pantomime (no talking!) and it's all done in the same kind of 30's cartoon style as the Edwin Aardvark comic strip series I based it on.
It's got everything you'd expect from a great 30's-style cartoon:
Musical animals:
a dancing moose:
an angry battle-axe:
Impossible visual gags:
Lovely ink-wash backgrounds:
Pathos:
Inanimate objects come to life:
policemen:
and looped animating 3/4 perspective backgrounds:
It's got everything you'd expect from a great 30's-style cartoon:
Musical animals:
a dancing moose:
an angry battle-axe:
Impossible visual gags:
Lovely ink-wash backgrounds:
Pathos:
Inanimate objects come to life:
policemen:
and looped animating 3/4 perspective backgrounds:
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