Dusting off some Internet Cobwebs...

and now for something completely different... here is a website that I designed way back in the college days for the web design class I took, oh, sophomore year? We just had to come up with a simple concept, create multiple inter-linking pages with interactive features and some extras like roll-over buttons, on-click buttons, etc. the content was entirely up to us. so I quickly threw together some special drawings for the titles and buttons, and dug up some old cartoon doodles I had laying around, filling out the collection with pictures of some friends and family I happened to have about. If you browse the site you may even notice some early prototypes of characters that I currently am using (or will be using) in my When's Day Comics that I sporadically post here.

be sure to check out the "search for a date" feature to discover such hidden treasures as:


an early version of whippersnapper kitty...


a primitive (but kinda cute) version of Edwin Aardvark...


and Hookhand Harry, a villain who has yet to appear in the regular comic strip series! (but stay tuned!)

You'll even find some visual disney references on the page, along with a couple of pretty fun roll-over animation on certain links!

I chose not to post the photographs I had used for the Toon page's Search for a Date feature, for obvious reasons, but most of the names were already falsified, so I just left the page itself up minus the pics.

old art

okay, I don't have anything new to post, so if it's alright with you, I'm just gonna post some old drawings of mine.

my earliest extant piece, dated on the back to 10-1-86:

8-18-86:


it's interesting how kids make an expanse between earth and sky, based on their simpler reasoning that the sky is way up overhead, and couldn't possibly touch the ground at the horizon...

and from around 92-93:
one of my favorite shows was Ducktales, and combining that with my Little League experiences seemed natural.

Portrait of the artist as a young man, perhaps annoyed to have to pose with his origami project:



I've got more of these so pray that I can finish something new so you don't have to be put through more posts like this. :-)

more graphic design work

I had an opportunity to do some more graphic design work recently, for a small business out of Webb City, Missouri. They gave me this logo--and asked if I could do something to spice it up a bit. so after a bit of tinkering I came up with a few ideas, and sent them the following mock-ups:

they ended up asking me to do both of the last two, so after I wrestled them into shape in adobe illustrator I sent them off & collected my nominal fees.

We'n'sday Comics Volume 2 Issue 2

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

Homework!!!

The latest homework assignment for Animation Mentor is...well, from the options given, I chose a 180 degree turnaround with this character, called "Ballie."


My initial reference video is a little bit different from what I've got now, but it was a nice jumping-off point...


If you jump ahead to the third angle, you can kinda sync it up with the animated version and compare the two...

We'n'sday Comics Volume 2 Issue 1

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

Henchmen Fever

They say a villain is only as good as his henchmen, (okay, so actually, they don't say that, I just made it up- just go with me on this) and the next installment of the Frogman and Tadpole strip will be introducing 3 of The Beatle's henchmen.

Gentlemen-er-Henchmen, step forward and say hi to all the nice blog readers...

Wacky Walkabouts

here is some reference video I shot for a walk cycle assignment in my animation studies.

Graphic Tanning

I did a quick graphic design today. Here it is, along with the initial sketches.

planning doodle done with a ball-point pen on a scrap of paper:
Quick mock-up done to get feedback:Inked images which I used as basis for my final design:
Full final design, after I re-sized and aligned all the elements, added color and special touches in Adobe photoshop:
Postcard image advertising the location:Grayscale version:a b&w version for miscellaneous purposes:

New Character Roll-out

I have all sorts of characters in my head and on paper whom I have yet to introduce into my comic stories, but I am trying to introduce them gradually and in a logical fashion which will allow their different personalities to be illustrated and their relationships with established characters to be displayed clearly. One new character that will be seen in the next Edwin Aardvark page is a female turkey named Hedda Gobbler.

She is a close confidante for Edwina, the object of Edwin's affection. The name I gave her is an example of the theater nerd in me coming out, as it is a reference to the Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler.

Here is a cleaned-up pencil from the first panel of the upcoming strip: