Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tips on finishing a sketchbook

This morning, I finished another sketchbook. I had started this one on 09/22/07.
It's kind of beat up. I have taken it on vacation with me, to the DMV while I was waiting on line, just dragging it where I was going to be spending time so instead of reading old magazines and stuff, I would draw.
I have also posted a random drawing , and the drawing on the last page.
The great thing about filling a book with illustrations is that years from now, I can page through it and see how I was drawing, what kind of media I was experimenting with, etc.
When I look at my old stuff, it almost works like a diary. I can remember what was happening in my life at the time my pencil was hitting the paper
Here are a few tips that may help you to fill your sketchbook:
1. Buy a book you want to grab everyday.
It's very important to get a book that feels good in your hands, something that you want to pick up,
because you'll be picking it up everyday until it's filled with your creations.
The book pictured here is a Paperchase brand book that is filled with grid paper. I didn't care for
the grids, but I did like the feel of the covers, the heft of all that paper in my hand, and the fact that it
was on sale at Waldenbooks for three bucks and change.
2. Relax and let go.
Every drawing doesn't have to be a masterpiece. To be completely honest, there are some real
crappy drawings in this last book, but there are also some that I really like. I have liked some of
these drawings enough to use them as inspirations for finished pieces, either animated or as
cartoon illustrations.
That's the beauty of letting your critical self sit one out while you draw.
3. Be consistent, ( or as consistent as you can be).
Try and set a time everyday that you can sketch in your book. I get up early, and like to draw while
the family is still asleep. Sometimes I have missed days drawing in the book, but it seems that I
made up for that on other days, cranking out up to 10 sketches in a session.
The key is to establish a habit, but not to beat yourself up if you miss a day or two.
4. Above all, have fun.





Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Ultimate Arcade


In June, I was contacted by Ultimate Arcade, and offered a position with them as an animator for their Flash games.
They really want me to go wild and be really creative in terms of character design. Above are a few characters for one of the games.
I'm really excited to be part of their team!

Friday, July 25, 2008

FRIDAY FREAK: VOODOO DOLL!


Oh No!!!! VOODOO! Looks like a job for Karl Kolchak!
This is a character I designed for HardKore Records.
Here's the story that inspired me to dig this out :
http://www.local6.com/news/16975929/detail.html

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A break from OBAMAMANIA!

Take a break from the Obamamania...and spend a few minutes watching this wonderful, short film.
Trust me..it delivers.
http://en.zappinternet.com/video/nilSqaMboM/HISTORIA-DE-UN-LETRERO

Friday, July 18, 2008

Friday Freak: DA BOID!


Today's FRIDAY FREAK is another dip into my old Kubert School days. Towards the end of the year, we would do sketches for each other, and this is one of my favorites from a very talented guy named Jim Rohn.
The guy had a great style, and he also had a great sense of humor.
This is a great drawing filled with a few inside jokes. The bird's thought balloon refers to an article on space travel that I had read in the now defunct OMNI magazine.
One of the problems of zero gravity is that the astronaut's organs migrate to the middle of the body,
and the fluids tend to collect high up inside the body.
"Getting my money's worth.." is pretty self-explanatory. : )
The potato salad remark is the real reason that I pulled this out of my files. I bought a jar of kosher dill pickles from COSTCO, marketed by the New York Carnegie Deli.
Towards the end of our last year at Kuberts, our Film teacher, Bruce Wands, took the class to
New York. We visited his studio, checked out the Museum of Broadcasting,(very cool watching Jonny Quest there), and a few other places.
For lunch, we went t the Carnegie Deli.
Let me paint the picture:
I'm sitting with a few of my friends, and the waiter, a chubby Jewish guy, takes our orders, and leaves.
My order : A hot pastrami sandwich,(this was back when I still ate red meat), potato salad, and a St. Pauli's Girl beer.
He comes back with all of this food and drink, and sorts it all out to us.
Now me, being a big goof from the Midwest, thought I would help this guy who obviously made a mistake.
I had my beer, and my sandwich, plus a pickle, but no potato salad.
I said.." Excuse me sir, but I think you forgot my potato salad."
Just like in the movies, it seemed as though everyone stopped talking, not wanting to miss a word of what was going to be said.
The waiter said .."What?"
I repeated myself, then added, " You brought my beer, and my sandwich, but you forgot my potato salad."
I found myself suddenly cast in the starring role of "Rube in the Big City".
He said, " Young man, the sandwich and the beer come from the front, the potato salad comes from the kitchen in the back. I didn't forget, I just didn't get it yet." He took a step and then turned back to me.
" You have a beer, and a sandwich..you don't have enough food in front of you?"
As I was trying to stammer out an apology, he kept pouring it on.
" This place is busy, but I should drop everything for you?"
" I should put roller skates on to get to you faster?"
"I should have a heart attack to get your potato salad?"
"Drink your beer, eat your sandwich, and I'll get your potato salad."
He finally left, and my friends were going nuts laughing. I was as red as I could be....and then the capper.
The waiter comes back and says, I kid you not, " Mr. Lucky, here's your potato salad," giving it to me with a flourish, just to bust my chops even more.
Jim used to do an impression of that guy that was spot on.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Friday Freak: PHOENIX


This is one of my favorite possessions from my Kubert school days. We had so many great teachers, just about all of them were famous in the comic world, and a lot of them would knock out a quick sketch for you if you weren't a jerk.
Sal Amendola was one of those pros. He was one of our teachers for "Methods and Materials", or else it was " Sequential Art ", I forget.
He once assigned us a really cool project. We were all supposed to create a comic, by folding layout paper, so if you had four sheets, folded them, stapled in the middle, suddenly you have 16 pages to draw on., front and back.
Hope I made that clear. So we all worked hard, and created our comics. I still have mine. I did a story about a rock that floats down into a canyon, gives birth to a baby rock, and then they both fly away into the distance leaving only the placenta, etc. As I write this I realize how nutty it sounds, but we were supposed to be creating a story that could appear in Epic or Heavy Metal.
Anyhow, this one girl turns in a story that she copied out of an older Heavy Metal, where a woman, after eating some fruit, becomes pregnant, and her belly peels away to reveal this same fruit. Trust me, it looked more artistic than it sounds.
As soon as I saw this project, I called her on it in front of the entire class. Not only that, I had the same issue that she had copied the story from, and brought it out to show Sal.
Everyone started to laugh, she turned red, and Sal got real quiet and said "Fuchs..out in the hall. I wanna talk to you."
Now Sal was maybe 5 foot tops, if he was wearing his boots, and I towered over him like the Minnesota goof that I was, but I was still kinda scared.
We go out into the hall and he asked me why I did what I did.
I told him that I was mad that I worked so hard on my story, doing the roughs and finishes, etc., and that I paying a lot of money to go to the school, and that it just made me furious to see this cheater at work.
He was real cool about it. He told me that he knew she didn't create the story, and that she traced it badly, but that didn't make it right for me to embarrass her like that. He said that he knew she wasn't as talented as me, and that she probably wouldn't even stay in Kubert's for another semester, so what harm would it do to just let her slide on out, unchallenged.
He said that I should concentrate more on what I was doing, then worry about what someone else was up to. That was a lesson I never forgot.
One day, he was talking about some of the awful jobs he had had , and mentioned a book he did for a comic company called Atlas. I instantly perked up and said that I had bought many of the titles that came out. I mean, back in the 70's, to have a company put out first issues...I thought I was buying the next Superman.
At first Sal thought I was busting his chops, but after I told him about my favorite character, Phoenix, he said that that was the one book he had hated to work on.
He told me that the company was almost floundering when it started, and that the name of the game was to crank out the work, because no one knew when the lights would be turned out.
So this comic character, who is an astronaut, gets rescued by these aliens after his experimental ship crashes in the Arctic.....you can read the synopsis here,( open this link in a new window, so you can close that and come back here for the rest of the story. It's a good one...I'll wait for you) :
http://www.atlasarchives.com/comics/phoenix.html
Ok, you're back.
So the crazy part was this this guy was supposed to be like Jesus, and save humanity from these aliens who were going to wipe us out.
The insignia on his chest was supposed to transform into a cross-like shape during the many issue story-arc.
But, because word came down that the book was being canceled, the writer or editor told Sal to make the changes on the insignia, during the course of the last book.
So what you have, is a superhero that, from panel to panel, and from page to page, has a logo on his costume that is changing without any explanation.
I thought that was one of the coolest insider stories I have ever heard.
So at the end of the year, I asked Sal if he would do a sketch for me, and he whipped out the Phoenix.
Plus, he wrote down my phrase that I still use to this day to explain to people how to pronounce my last name: "...FUCHS like BOOKS.."
Sal also did some of my favorite Batman stories.
He was the first guy that I had ever heard sum up the Batman as : " a guy who became psychotic because he witnessed his parents being murdered when he was a kid."
What a cool guy.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Sniffer dogs to wear ‘Muslim’ bootees


Once again, Britain comes through to help break my cartoonist's block!
The story:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4276489.ece