Adam's Blog

I googled news people while I was working on Skaar because I wanted ref for what a news anchor would wear. During my search I came across a pic and decided to caricature it.

Everything I've been reading lately is motivating me to vegetarianism. I'll still eat meat most likely, but it'll have to be clean meat.

I helped out on the Skaar Prologue. It was really cool because I am a huge fan of Dan Panosian. I colored about 2/3 of the book. Kelsey Shannon (who I'm also a fan of) colored the other portion.

I was reading Bridgeman's Drawing From Life book and came across a quote that I think is a good reminder for me.

"There should be a decided difference between the tones. The number of tones should be as few as possible. Avoid all elaborate or unnecessary tones and do not make four tones or values where only three are needed. It is important to keep in mind the big, simple masses and to keep your shading simple, for shading does not make a drawing."

George B. Bridgeman

This is the last and final poster for Terminal Press. This time I decided to do an experiment. Most cover artist I like say they do covers in two or three days, so I made myself do it over two days. I now understand why I enjoy being slow. LOL For the most part I'm happy with it, but there's a lot of those little things you catch after the fact that you didn't notice because you were crankin'.

I had the house to myself for about 30 minutes so I thought I'd do some sketching. I didn't use a white background like I normally do for quick sketches. I noticed a few weeks ago a lot of Gil Elvgren paintings that look like white backgrounds, had color in them. So I figure maybe I'll mix it up every now and then.

Though I added the content warning I still haven't sketched too many nudes lately. Now that my "regular" site is back up and running, I'll probably start putting more sketchies on here. ...once I draw some.

On Free Comic Book Day I picked up the Love and Rockets freebie. My favorite story in it is the one featuring Killer--a really stacked kinda ghetto Latina. Killer reminded me of a lot of different gals I used to come across in the "hood". So I decided to sketch her this morning, but I had to put in a gold tooth or cigarette or something! ...I couldn't help it. The real Killer is actually "normal" and cute.

I was going to color it with a single tone like the Love and Rockets style but I opted for this toned paper kinda thing instead. Probably should have went the other direction.

I intended for all the Terminal Press Hard-core posters to have a '70s vibe to them, but for some reason this one screams '80s horror movie to me. I looked at a lot of '80s horror posters while doing the Brom Kah one. Funny how the influence hit without me trying to do it.

I did a thumbnail in pencil, scanned it in, blew it up, and painted over it. Maybe all those Gnomon videos are paying off... This time 100% Photoshop.

I worked out in the middle of the afternoon today (which is an odd time for me), and I noticed this lady was dressed a little off. She had on workout clothes but her top was probably meant for a C cup, and she was like a DD! So needeless to say all sorts of stuff was poppin out. So this little sketch is a tribute to her. :)

This is also one of the few times I didn't do lineart first, I just started painting. ....a miracle.

Garrett asked me to do a poster (like my posters for Terminal Press) for his up and coming Brom Kah graphic novel. The idea sounds great, and when he told me I could illustrate the two evil female characters, I couldn't resist. I wanted to do the whole thing in Painter but I got about 25% of the way thru it and chickened out. Mainly because I couldn't find enough brushes I was happy with and got frustrated. But at least I can say I used both applications, instead of only Photoshop.

Another twisted sketch to prove why I don't design female characters at Dreamworks. But I guess if Larry Flynt starts doing animation...I'll probably have a job there. :) Let's face it...with a name like Ginormica she's gotta have a huge rack! Besides, it would have made the movie more interesting.

I've been scanning in things from my sketchbook over the last few days and decided to post a pic or two. About a year ago I started using grey markers and about six months ago I began experimenting with color markers. It feels funny to see something I colored analog scanned in.

Yesterday I caught a few episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker. I think EVERYONE should watch that show at least twice. Whether you enjoy the show or not it is an excellent trip into human behaivor. Patty is typically a bitch, but she knows what she wants. Millionaire men typically know what they want (women under 25 with huge boobs, especially when they're like 50). If millionaire men shopped at my Costco they'd be set!

Although I did this screwing around before bed, I made myself paint this image entirely in Painter. For me, that's progress.

This was drawn by Garrett Adderley, I did the color. I did a few versions of this pic and really liked how the color come out. Garrett always does such great work.

Over the last year or so I started noticing that a couple of female employees had their boobs done. I thought, "it's America, to each there own", who cares. Then I started noticing a lot of the other female employees had similarly large sweater muffins (my Adam Hughes term for the day)--most of which seem to be real. So I'm thinking either the hiring manager is a pervert, there's something in the water, or EVERYTHING really is bigger at Costco.

I hand drew it, dropped in a photo for texture, and did the rest in Photoshop...my warm up for the day.

I've been working later lately and this was me messing around when I probably should have been sleeping (or at the very least watching Anderson Cooper 360).

I started this warmup sketch just drawing her head and then I decided to paint it. I started losing the forms and shapes I started so the end result is pretty mushy and flat (kinda like that San Girl picture). Maybe I'll attempt another one tomorrow.

Like usual I started this warm-up sketch with just blocking in some colors and quitting. Then I remembered it was my goal to render more, so I worked on it more this afternoon. Ah....the Kardashian backside. :)

I stumbled upon a blog by Sirspamdalot who wrote a few things about Alex Toth's work. Sometimes I think I have a hard time analyzing and putting in words the works of the great ones...I feel so insignificant. But he did a good job with his list here.

Now for 7 Reasons Why Alex Toth Drew Better Than I Do:

1. RESEARCH & OBSERVATION.
Despite resembling quick, offhand sketches, Toth's drawings were very well researched and carefully rendered. Every detail, from the cars to the shirt folds, was drawn from careful observation, and you can tell by looking at his pencils that he really worked at those careless-looking lines.

2. ARRANGEMENT OF EDGES.
His foreground, middleground, and background elements were positioned carefully, so that their edges convened and related in pleasing ways while suggesting depth. Imagine hanging a dozen photographs on your bedroom wall, but instead of being square, each is shaped like what it depicts, and they must all overlap while looking orderly and uncluttered. That was a challenge Toth took on with every panel. (Most cartoonists are satisfied if the figures' faces are visible.)

3. "CAMERA" ANGLES (or "station points," if you prefer a drawing-based term).
Toth chose camera angles that not only set the scenes clearly, but resulted in balanced and distinctive compositions. Where others like myself would pick a simple "two shot" of a pair of conversing characters from the chest up, Toth would pull back to include hard-to-draw foreground elements that add verisimilitude and depth, or shift to one side to offset the shot's obviousness with a daring helping of negative space. A conversation on a simple air field might be shot from beneath a nearby plane, whose silhouetted wing and landing gear would frame the figures beneath a diagonal black "ceiling" and "wall," focusing us on the pair while adding visual interest and local color. Toth used this cinematic approach to storytelling better and more often than any other cartoonist.

4. BODY LANGUAGE.
Figures in Toth's work show us their emotions even in silhouette. Their postures and gestures tell us before they speak what mood they're in. And where the average artist might cheat a pose or gesture into profile for easy drawing, Toth never shied from the difficult task of foreshortening characters' bodies and limbs, often pointing them toward the reader to add depth and lead the eye into a scene.

5. LINE.
Toth's trademark -- the skill for which he is most praised -- was his ability to draw with maximal succinctness. Often this skill is summed up as "drawing more with less," or some other cryptic phrase, but what it comes down to is that he used as few lines as possible to delineate objects, and his lines change direction as infrequently as possible. Where others will trace every nuance in a form's contour in an effort to mimic it, Toth would draw a straight line (or follow a basic curve) along its edge until hitting a hallmark corner on the form, then decisively shift direction around the corner and continue going straight until the next hallmark. His lines are like swift rivers, carving the most direct paths around landmarks, sheering off any trivial corners en route. The result is that the objects and people he drew read like kanji or letter-forms. There's no impediment to absorbing their key visual information; as one critic said: they are easier to comprehend than not to. This approach is difficult even with "cartoony" forms and figures (see Walker's Beetle Baily or Ketcham's Dennis the Menace for fine examples of such), but the difficulty increases the more realism one attempts. No one balances such a high degree of realism with calligraphic simplicity as Toth did.

6. DESIGN.
Design is an ambiguous term in art, but it usually refers to the way lines are bent and arranged for compositional purposes. When shapes are arranged to look nice, we call it composition; when values are arranged to look nice, we call it spotting blacks and greys; when lines are arranged to look nice, we call it design. Toth is highly praised for his design, which is perhaps best seen in the model sheets he drew for Hanna Barbera. Any good animation designer knows that simplicity is paramount, but Toth often excelled his animation peers by alternating curves with straight lines. It's tempting when aiming for unified simplicity to reduce a figure to a series of curves and bends, or a series of straight lines and sharp corners. But the eye craves variety. Toth found ways to introduce variety in his lines without adding detail or creating disunity. He'd use curves to delineate one side of a limb and straight lines to delineate the other side, or straight lines for taught folds and curved lines for loose folds, rounded bends on one limb or fold and sharp corners on another...etc. The result is a pleasing verisimilitude of form that sets his designs above most Disney offerings (which err on the side of curves) or, say, Mike Mignola's excellent work (which errs on the side of straight lines and corners).

7. LIGHTING.
Toth lit scenes for drama. Lesser cartoonists like myself typically light every scene like an office cubicle, with no dramatic shadows in sight... or inconsistently, with occasional shadows to shore up a weak figure or composition. Toth was more diligent than that, choosing lighting for each scene to give it a sense of time and place, and to establish mood. A lit desk lamp in a darkened office... the last lateral rays of sunlight stretching across a plain... shadows cast on a storefront by figures passing a streetlamp... his scenes were often lit with the care of a movie set, to great effect. And always, his patterns of dark and light strike a pleasing balance of order and variety.