Been kinda busy, my apologies for missing a few days of posts. I realize that this isn't a pulitzer winning cartoon, but it was fun to draw and color. I think the shine on the windows and the clouds turned out nicely.
This piece also taught me a lesson about getting my perspective correct during the sketch. While it's not 100% in the drawing, it's FAR better than it was thanks to some digital trickery.
I've long known that two issues of TT get delivered to "The Office of the President of the United States". It's always been kind of a joke for me. Well today I got word that I had a new fan, Congressman James Oberstar (D-Minn.). Check him out with my toon he appeared in a few weeks back. Makes me glad I did a little extra work on that piece. Even more glad that I snuck in the Kite Eating Tree, just for the hell of it.
Kinda pointless, but always fun to see my work in the wild.
This toon has been lingering around all year. Went through some revisions and came out the other side stronger. Heck, I was revising it - adding dents to the sports car - even after I started coloring it.
For you locals, texting while driving became illegal, in Virginia, on July 1.
Meant to post this last week, but the holiday got me all out of whack. I feel I should add that in six years of cartooning, this is the first time I've ever HAD to have an African American in the cartoon. I caricatured a few, specific, white men and women, and one asian man, but this is the first specific black guy.
My editor surprised me this morning by moving the deadline from tomorrow to today. As you can guess that put a bit of a rush on this toon.
I used a nib pen on some of the inks and experimented with paintbrushes and blurs, in Photoshop, to emulate the watercolor/inks of Chuck Schulz. I'm not a huge fan of reusing other peoples gags. But the football gag is a really iconic reference, and fits the bill in this case.
This is actually the revised sketch for the fourth of July cartoon. The original one had Obama smiling, and even though it was smaller and rougher, it looked more like him. Partly I think that is because we the President smiling allot. Course it could be my original sketch was simply better. lol.
Oh, he's off center because I needed to leave room for Rocky reading a newspaper. It's the second newspaper we've used recently, which means I've got to nix it as a prop for a few months.
Kind of a simple idea this week, so I took the opportunity to try something new. This cartoon is 100% digital. No pen and ink. Interesting exercise, helped me hone down some cross hatching stuff. Have to wait and see what it means for future toons.
In the long run working digital is making me a little more ambitious in my other drawings. I scan my sketches and way overwork them. Gives me an opportunity to see what techniques are going to work, or not, on the analog piece.
There's a little Gary Treudeau - flavor - in here. I don't always go for reference material with these things, but I did search down the Mexican National Palace and a rendering of the White House. Had to use a rendering because all the photos for the South Lawn either have trees or helicopters in the way.
OH, and Rocky's half glasses are definitely Homer Jay Simpson inpsired.
Monday's TT Toon. There's an increasingly large amount of digital tom foolery in these things. Basically I'm using these to hone my Wacom skills. Fun fun fun...
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