Tech-a-nick-nick-el DIFF-i-cult-ees!

Seems the iphone game I was working on will be delayed a bit and probably not ready by Halloween.
The design flaws slowed the playing down a bit and I had to do some revisions on the bgs and add a new one.
Their site is mostly under construction but there are some pretty cool things on there already-CHECK it OUT!
http://musclecrowstudios.com/concepts.html
Meantime here is the garden bg and some knocked down elder characters-probably my last post til after the ALWAYS AWESOME CARICATURE CON!
CHECK it: http://www.caricature.org/index.php?page=convention-upcoming

Character designs for iphone app

Each character had to be done in front back and side view. Funny story on the needle nurse-the rear view is supposed to be her sccrubs bbut the client thought it was her bare ass!...so I had to change the color otherwise apple could slap a 17+ rating on the game! Crazy world where a cartoon ass is monitored closer than all them porn pop-ups...

MORE SCREENSHOTS FROM IPHONE APP

MORE SCREENSHOTS FROM IPHONE APP. Characters created in Flash for animation on iphone.
"Nursing Home Defense" Video game app from Muscle Crowe Studios set to be available for download Oct 19th!

Old Fogeys, Zombies, & the iphone!

Coming to an iphone near you in time for Halloween...!
I am just finishing up the final work for an iphone ap about zombies in a nursing home.
Titled: Nursing Home Defense

This was probably one of the most enjoyable and challenging character design projects I ever had.
The characters had to be viewed from a 3/4 overhead viewpoint to gel with the bg.
I had LOTS of artistic freedom(ALLWAYS a big plus) and Brian is a great guy to work with!
All the character designs had to be done in FLASH- the bg are done in Photoshop.
I feel I learned a LOT and have a lot more to learn about it, but I'm really digging this project and hope to do more!
Now I gotta but an iphone.

Here's some of the playaz and a shot of what the game screen should look like for one of the levels:

2nd Cartoon for New Choice Canada.

This is the 2nd cartoon I was commissioned for by New Choice Canada.
It's more of a clarification of the GST character from the 1st toon.
Unlike the 1st one, I came up with all the wording/ text for this one myself.
The GST & the IRS must be identical twins.

The Winds of Change may blow around you...Cartoon for New Choice Canada

I'm so pleased to have been contacted by Murray from New Choice Canada. He loves my cartoon illustration work and approached me with this opportunity....He is starting a new political party. A new beginning. He's got a lot of great ideas and I wish him all the best.
And I will be doing some editorial illustrations for him.

This is the 1st cartoon I was commissioned for by New Choice Canada check it out:
http://www.newchoicecanada.com/?page_id=3
He was VERY specific about the details, wording etc, but he also let me go hogwild with the characters and cartooning, which I love! I used plasq's awesome Comic Life Deluxe for wording balloons and "Swine" Pish posh" lettering.
I wasn't sure what the topics would be for Canada's politics but apparently the political climate is very similar to that of the U.S. I guess their GST is our IRS.

Eagles Vick cartoon-finished!

Just finished up this piece. Feel free to share.
(Click on pic for larger view)
Pretty much sums up how this Eagle's fan feels right now...cept my lawn never looked that nice.
Anyone else feel the same?

Michael Vick

This is a little piece of a cartoon I'm working on about the Eagles and the dog killer.

FLASH toons for kids interactive books

Just finished up a REALLY FUN project.
Client gave me virtually complete artistic freedom (within reason) and LOVED my finished work!
These are all done in Flash so maybe I can anim8 later.
Looking forward to more like this.
Thanks Kris!

..or Get Off the POT!

I have sooo many drawings, sketches and toons that are just sitting there and I think they could make great tee-shirt, mousepad, coffee mug, etc. designs and I think now is the time to look into zazzle and cafe press.
I'm also going to look into self publishing my comic soon. All this takes time away from drawing but I am trying to discipline myself with a better balance of drawing AND marketing what I draw.

Bass Ale gigs Cont'd

This gig at Houlihans in Secaucus NJ was on one of the stormiest nights ever.
Strange request from a customer to draw some crazy stuff with the barmaid-he bought a Bass (and me one as well) so I happilly obliged. She never sat to get drawn so I drew her from afar and she kinda looked like she had a "surprised" look on her face ...I saw this other employee running around so I thought it COULD BE FUNNY TO THROW HIM IN HER BEER-that would work with the expression. He was a great subject w/ dreadlocks- the predator guy kinda tied the whole "strange" theme together.... I also drew the bald guy w/ glasses from across the bar, when he came over to shake my hand and thank me, I was pretty happy w/ the accuracy I got except his chin was square, not round.

Bass Ale gigs Cont'd

Looking forward to more of these...

Bass Ale gigs Cont'd

Some really cool people at this bar Jimmy Geez-and relaxed enough crowd size where I could work on the coloring a bit.

Bass Ale gigs

I have been doing a couple gigs thru the-Nose.com for Bass Ale. Lotsa fun at these gigs-some bIgger crowds than others-and some sitters younger than others-but always a fun time!

Go IGGLES!!

This top guy was laughing at me laughing at him-he said I looked like I might pee myself while I was drawing him-so I capitalized on the idea....He LOVED it!

Go IGGLES!!

These are some pix from the Eagles ticket holder party I did with fellow Toonsters Angie, Joe, and crazy lunatic Johnny Sprague .This was one of those gigs where you get geared up for a giant non-stop crowd-B&W heads only-no frills semi-speed competition drawings,..... and then you find out the crowds aren't there. This can bring a real feeling of relief, and now you have time to create more elaborate work tailored to the lucky few who are there.
It's always great when you get someone like this 1st guy who requests to be ripping off a (Dallas) Cowboys head and this sets the stage for the rest of the sitters. I worked some Phillies games before and had a good time, but Football is inherently a funner sport for caricature with the blood, mud, and dirt an integral element of the game.

I will Follow....

I just noticed the "followers" tab option. Makes so much sense, So if you want to keep track of the sporadic postings of this blog-please click on "follow" and I will try to post more regularly. Thanks!
In meantime-here's my dog Jackson skateboarding..... just because....

Bank job Caricatures cont'd

I like how the one girl's hair was tied so tight it made her head look like an overstuffed Glad bag (to me..)

Bank job Caricatures

Here's some from a gig for PNC bank employees with crazy lunatic Johnny Sprague! Lottza FUN!

MORe Live Stuff...Picnics, BBQs, etc. CONT'D

I THOUGHT IT was Funny watching the cute little kid tryna climb up her Dad's beer belly so I tried to capture the moment....

MOre Live Stuff...Picnics, BBQs, etc. CONT'D

More Live Stuff...Picnics, BBQs, etc.

Here are some faves from latest couple of gigs. Didn't get as many pix as I'd like (well... not counting the blurry ones) since these were pretty high intensity gigs with no time between sitters.
This was a fun gig with fellow Toonies Mike & Joyce Edwards and crazy lunatic Johnny Sprague.

George Carlin-REVISED

It was brought to my attention, George wears black 99% of the time-Thanks Ang!

GIFT CARICATURE- SCUBA DIVER

I 've been doing gift carics over 20 years now, and I think this is my all-time favorite! (non-digital, maybe even digital, too..l)
I LOVE No-Mercy requests, and he gots a great face.
I spent over half hr on the beard & chin alone!

George Carlin

Loved his stuff-I know I'm late w/ my tribute but here it is..

GROUP CARICATURE FOR 91st BDay

This is the 2nd time I was hired through About Faces (link on left) to do an on-site Group piece for Bill G.
When doing groups I prefer to see how the people relate to eachother in size/ shape dynamics.
I think it adds a lot to it and makes it a funnier cartoon.
It's always a fun challenge to do these in the 2 hr time slot while the people come in to get drawn one by one and there is ALWAYS someone who doesn't come in til the last minute and then you have to squeeze them in somehow...Last year there were 3 really big guys and the last guy comes in-he was twice the size of the others!
This time it was the skinny guy on the far right, he was @ 1 hr 57 minutes late-so I drew his watch broken. They kept me another hr to finish it up and gave me lunch with a Heineken to boot! It's all good!

There was a golf tournament going on, so everyone was eager to hit the greens-so I didn't get any pix of the victims.

The middle guy w/ glasses is 91 yrs old and you can't tell from this caricature, but he looks GREAT for his age.
Bill's the big guy top left.

Bill and his crew have great sense of humor and love to laugh so I pull no punches...This was alot of fun at 10 am!

3 Gift CARICATURES for obgyn doctors!

These are done in Flash-(my favorite new program!)
They're all obgyn docs so I put the different babies in there. The themes were "Happy Feet", "Yosemite Sam" and "Tony Soprano"-my favorite is baby Soprano-could be Silvio or Paulie....
These were a LOT of fun and a LOT of work-and he paid UpFront and he LOved them so it was ALLL GOOD!
LOVE to get more clients like this do more of these!
Thanks Owen & Deb!

new Brunswick HS Project -cont'd-VIDEO

New Brunswick HS Project -cont'd

Ahh..the group shots..this girl said her arm was burnt-so I put it on fire....the other said I'd probably draw her talking-cuz she never shuts up!...ok

New Brunswick HS Project -cont'd

More ...you can tell it's near 2-3 am now...

new Brunswick HS Project -cont'd-VIDEO

He LOves his caricature!

New Brunswick HS Project -cont'd

MILESTONE ALERT!
This is the largest I ever drew a zit at a live gig!............ (applause subsides....)

This guy came up to me and asked me to give him the works! He says "I don't know how you could possibly make it any more brutal than the one he did!" pointing to Wacky Lunatic Johnny Sprague, who was assaulting people's faces like he was MJ's plastic surgeon (AWW-I didn't want to go there....). I said I'll do my best... to do my worst..!
I noticed he had 2 itty bitty pinpoint zits on each side of his face (the camera didn't even pick them up..) so I EXAGGERATED them..that's what Caricaturists do...ExAG-jur-ATE! He loved it!

New BrunswiCK HS Project -cont'd

NEW BRUNSWICK HS Project Grads

June was a crazy busy time with 10pm-3am gigs... sometimes running into 12pm-3pm and later, grad parties.
This was one of my favorite gigs ever-drawing alongside Angie Jordan, Emily Anthony, and Nutcase Johnny Sprague!
Along with a couple other artists...
The NB gigs are always a BLAST-These kids always have the BEST sense of humor and pretty thick skins (even the girls ask to get nutty drawings)
Sometimes, the drawings get even crazier than normal-with the encouragement of the kids-
and that is just how I LIKE IT!-Thanks to all who made it happen!
Here's some of my faves...

more pix from vid

PIX from video

These are bettter quality pix from the video...

New Video Live Party Samples! BIG LAUGHS!

I've been trying to blog more effectively and came across theses clips.
This 1st lady is no doubt-thee NUMBER ONE BIGGEST LAUGH I have had in 20 some years doing this!
There were a lot of close-2nds, but the decibels and duration of this lady's enjoyment stand out from all the rest!
She loved her caricature! I laugh at this everytime I see it! Hope you do too!

FUNATICO

Check out this site:
The first I heard of it was on Steve Silver's blog
Steve is an awesome character designer and very cool guy.
A few days later I got an email from Ivan at Funatico.com-a cool new site with lotsa fun stuff, pix, games, etc.
He said he was impressed with my work and would like to feature it!
It's great that he is also interested in my Flash toons for future posting.
It's also awesome that he posts the pix at a pretty large size so you don't have to strain your eyes.
Thanks Ivan!

Funatico is one of the most popular entertainment sites on the web with huge collection of funny videos that will make you lol. If you want to have fun and you have some free time at home or school you can play something from Funatico flash games archive. Don't forget to check out their cool gallery of funny pictures too.

THE BLACK URBAN TIMES-FIFTY CENT

This is my 2nd editorial cartoon for The Black Urban Times.
50 cent & Rick Ross (the rapper, not the redhead painter guy on channel 12 with fluffy clouds...oh that's BOB Ross, nevermind...)
Check out www.theblackurbantimes.com!

Charles Barkley's golf swing

Funny as hell-
Check it out:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=charles%20barkley%20golf&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wv#

but he's still probably better than me...

Flash toons

Heff & Hogan...
2 classic lecherers....God Bless them.
Marty Feldman's calendar & James Bonds hand.

Flash toons

More Flash toons-really digging this program now!
Just wish I could show the animated ones....

Chris Brown, Rhianna, Jay Z

Chris Brown & Rhianna.
My First editorial cartoon for theblackurbantimes.com

Lotta fun with this!

Ozzy's Dog-Bone Crazy

More Flash fun!
My first ANIMATED piece.
Hope it shows on blogger....

Flashing Simon Cowell

More experimenting in Flash-really starting to love this program!

Memory Sketching-Silver inspired

I've always been inspired and influenced by the brilliant work of Steve Silver, lately I've really tried to study his approach.
I've always done memory-sketching of faces, but he introduced this brand new aspect of it, challenging as hell, but fun as Hades-it's memory sketching FACE AND POSTURE. These are a few from my latest stabs.

These peeps were all in my Dr's office. One guy was grumbling to the girl behind the counter about filling out forms.
He kept talking to himself loud nuff for all to hear..."Same SHIT as Last Time!...he had great face and a flesh scarf of wrinkles in back of his head. Another guy walked round with his belt unbuckled, and this girl had a cool belt buckle.
I like these but over all I grade meself b-, c+ for capturing the actual posture...the grumbling guy though is A+!

MORE FLASHES-AHHH AHHH

This is it for now...more to come

MORE FLASHES-AHHH AHHH

CARICATURES IN A FLASH!

Man, THAT is one misleading title, since some of these took a helluva lotta time!
I've been trying to teach myself FLASH and doing some caricatures in it to keep me interested in it, sometimes the only way I can learn is to make it fun...
It's a little frustrating in that a lot of features in PS and Illustrator are so intuitive to me and they are non existent in Flash. It's starting to grow on me now though and it does have some really cool features.
I approached these in a character design way-some of these I'm pretty happy with, and that made it worth all the wall-headbanging in the beginning! Any Flash gurus, feel free to enlighten me!

CARICATURE SKETCHES

IMMMA TRY to BLOG more in 09!
I know lotsa people like to sketch in coffee shops, but the REAL caricature gems are in Walmart after 11pm.
Crazy weather lately so I guess you could go barefoot & shirtless in suspenders in Dec.
and this Indian lady looked like she was holding on this tv for dear life...although these are memory sketches, I gotta admit I really didn't exaggerate too much at all!

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Here's our Christmas card for 08.
I got a big head.
Wishing everyone a great 2009! New Year!-(It's gotta be better than 08, right?!)

Full-body Caricatures

The skinny guy said he really does steel-cage matches.....ok

Full-body Caricatures

THE English guys and Fred & Wilma were my favorite!
(English people are always SOOOOO Crazy looking!)

FUll-body Caricatures

Full-body Caricatures

BIN a long,lonely, lonely lonely ...lonely ....TIME.
Some oldies here....

This was a very interesting gig with fellow Toonster, Angie Jordan.
HAD to be 8x10 paper and we were to ask the sitter HOW THEY MET the birthday girl AND WHAT THEY WERE WEARING!-we were then to draw that outfit in the cartoon-60's, 70's, 80's garb etc
Interesting thing is the sitters who were the nieces or nephews and had no idea what they'd be wearing-so we just went with a theme or event of their recall. This was definitely more demanding drawing at smaller size with full body and I approached it more as character design, drawing a lot tighter than my usual loose quick lines, but I really started digging it after 2 or 3. The mars graphic duo was great for this and would really like to do this again.

McCain-Palin bye bye!

McCain-Palin bye bye!
This was my studio piece for the NCN con. Digital photoshop.
Man, he is fun to draw!