Archive Findings: Birthday Card Image

This was an image I did for a humor Birthday Card. What's missing here is the HUGE word balloon "BLEECH!" over the character's head.

The caption inside read:

"Heppy Burp-Day!"

Yea, I know . . . pretty lame.
But whatta ya want for a greeting card in the late 80's.

UPDATE Bobby's Biggest Bubble: Bringing Back an Old Friend

This may sound weird, (and yes it's definitely is not completely sane, but remember I am a cartoonist) . . . but I'm getting nostalgic over a cartoon character as I start completing the ending to my book. The reason? This story allows me to use an old favorite character of mine, Professor Knozstuv.

Somewhere in the scrambling of thoughts, stories, toys and products I had the concept of creating a weekly educational comic strip.  Today, comic strips in newspapers are becoming scarce, but still, I don't want to give away the idea for fear of someone else using the concept . . . but let's just say the comic strip starred a talking bear, a huge monster and all-knowing clumsy Prof. Knozstuv. (No, I don't know why those 3 characters.)

The pencil, ink and color transformation: fleshing out ol' Professor Knozstuv

I don't know where my characters come from, I'm sure it's combination of memories, inspirations and brain storming. To be honest, I'm sure over 50% of the things I have sketched in the past were lost, destroyed or thrown away. But every once in awhile, a character appears on the paper - and there's recognition. I can imagine and "see" the voice, movement and personality of the character. Those are the ones I squirrel away; and the Professor is one of those characters.

He's a little bit Chaplin, pinch of Jerry Lewis' Nutty Professor and even a smidgen of Gabe Caplin's Mr. Kotter. It's probably been over 15 years since I last drew an image of him . . . yet there he is now, in my story playing a key part to the ending.

It feels real good to see the ol' Professor back on the paper again.
Welcome Back, Professor . . . 

- - - - - UPDATE - - - - -
I found the very first sketch of the Prof today. This file says it is from Nov 23, 1997 -- but I believe it is much older than that based on the style of my drawing. 

To see this now is strange, seeing the first impression of a character that I have created a few decades ago.  But as time goes on, you tend to improve your characters by eliminating their weaker aspects and emphasizing the better.

(Sidenote: Just look at the first few original comic strips of the Peanuts and Garfield, you won't believe what those characters looked like when they were first created.)

- - - - - END OF UPDATE - - - - -

Favorite Past Projects: Santas Throughout History

{Slowly things are getting back to normal here since the storm Sandy hit our area hard last week.  There is concern that a nor'easter storm is now on the way. . .}

This was a project that I really enjoyed researching back in the 90's.
The prior year, I had made a successful line of plush Santas from around the world, dressing Santas up in their native garb. So the following year, I thought of creating a new line of plush Santas throughout history. Looking into all the origins and connections of Santa was a major task and amazing, especially when you can find so many traditions that were adapted and revised from so many other countries. (And not all of them were connected to Christmas.)

CUSTOM HANG TAGS: This project was to create a set of plush Santas Claus toys, each based of variations of Santa Claus legends throughout history.

Below are the backsides of the custom hang tags; each were to be short factoids about the different versions of Santa Claus throughout history. 

Website Mascot Pencil Sketches

Back in 2006, my friend John Biank was thinking of developing a tutorial service for digital design. His concept was to develop a website with videos lessons of using graphic applications and showing techniques. When we discussed this project, I thought of creating a mascot character to help brand his site. 

Since the site was like an educational service, I thought an owl mascot in the role of a professor might work best. These four pencil sketches were done in several poses to use as spot illustrations for his site.

I had wanted to help John develop more lessons and images for his site, but shortly after these sketches were sent to him, I became too busy starting my own company designing mass market products.

He liked the character at the time, but looking at it now it was probably too cutesy and juvenile for what he really wanted. If I had to do this over - I would have made a robot or techno character instead . . .

(Updated) Daily Quick Sketch: 'Rilla Before and After

(Update - Adding colored version 10-24-2012)

Wrapping up a series of simian characters, this is a quick Gorilla sketch. I wanted to time myself to go quickly from sketch to digital inking.

Quickly inking, you can see the changes made especially with the face/eyes area. It's a completely different looking ape now, in fact the inked version looks like an older gorilla then the pencil sketch. Showing how the slightest of changes makes a difference.

(Update - Color) Daily Quick Sketch: Pencil Monkey

Another simian sketch of a playful flipping chimp.

Digitally colored and drop shadow filtered.

This was done with pencil on a Dura-Lar sheet.

Daily Quick Sketch Before & After: 'Tang

Been awhile since I posted.
With last week's NYC Comic Con and my current workload making Halloween costume designs . . . I've been pretty much exhausted. I'll try to get back into doing more things for the blog on a regular basis.

This post is one of several ape sketches I have been playing around with. I named this character 'Tang, because of the constant correction that people want to enforce on the animal's name lately. The confusion is that the name can be spelled ORANGUTAN or ORANGUTANG, but that "g" at the end is actually silent.

Personally, I think pronouncing the "g" at the end is more fun and more in character with the animal. Mostly because it brings me back to the orange space drink "Tang" when I was a kid and it rhymes with cool words like boomerang. But it's also one of those annoying English-language-breaking-the-rules kinda words with a silent "G".
The English language is full of rules that always have exceptions for no reason.

So go on, and break the rule of the broken English rule and say Orangutang with a "G" sound at the end! And when some smarty-pants tries to correct you - simply turn to them and say, "Oh! I suppose I'm should say boomeran instead of boomerang too, eh?!! In your FACE!!!"
Then walk away.

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: Now available online

Bobby's Biggest Bubble in now available online for purchase at Etsy and eBay!
There will be more marketing locations added in the coming months, but for now I need to control the amount of books being sold until I receive the bulk of my shipment in a few weeks.

Update:
eBay, Etsy, and other online book outlets are no longer linked to the book.
This is mostly due to cost and maintaining inventory.
You can still purchase the book via Paypal (at the lowest price with free shipping.) and with Amazon (which costs more because Amazon wants a larger cut of the sale.)

Bobby's Biggest Bubble: 1st Shipment of the Books have Arrived!

Books are in, and they look great!
Mailing out to KickStarters begins Thursday Oct, 4th.

New orders for the book will available in a few weeks in the middle of October; I'll be sure to provide links to where the book will be sold.

First shipment arrives and looks fantastic

Closer look at the bookmarkers

Showing the white bubble wrapped packet and it's contents going out to KickStarters

WOOT!

Daily Quick Sketch: Before & After Adventure Time

Below is a little Fan Art image of one of my favorite cartoons shows: Adventure Time.

Quick digital inking and color: Adventure Time!!!

Before: Pencil Sketch