Halloween SpongeBob Magazine Cover Painting

(Click on the image above for a bigger version)

Submitted for your Pumpkin-Day viewing is the painting I did for last year's Halloween issue of SpongeBob SquarePants Magazine...a special Halloween themed portrait of SpongeBob and Patrick as seen from inside a Jack-o-Lantern pumpkin.

Here are a few thumbnails of the work in progress:

(Click on the cover above for a bigger version)

...and here's the published version with all the word-balloons, headlines and logos.This was painted digitally using the fantastic (and cheap) graphics program, ArtRage 2.5

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Here's a whole series of ArtRage Tutorial Videos:
ArtRage #1 - Intro to ArtRage 2.5
ArtRage #2 - Mixing Colors on the Canvas
ArtRage #3 Painting Reflective Light
ArtRage #4 - More Reflective Light & Colors
ArtRage #5 – Bump Modes & Finishing Patrick

ArtRage #6 Painting SpongeBob

Ugly Stickers by Basil Wolverton, Wally Wood and Norman Saunders

In 1965 Topps created a series of Ugly Stickers featuring the art of Basil Wolverton, Wally Wood and Norman Saunders. Check out the beautifully hideous artwork at:

http://www.bubblegumcards.org/Ugly_Stickers.html

…and a video presentation courtesy of the “Hooray for Wally Wood” blog:

Painter Norman Saunders shares some goodies, too!

Have an ugly time!

WonderWorm IV: “The Battle” – Funny Animal Comics from the Golden Age

 

Welcome to the fourth part in the story of Wiggles the Wonderworm from 1945's Taffy Comics #1. If you missed the first three chapters of this golden age funny animal comic book adventure, you can find them here:

Part 1: Wiggles meets the Professor 
Part 2: Casanova's Rescue Party 

Part 3: Death From The Sun 


 

Click on any image to open up
a full-sized vintage comic book scan

 

Next chapter: The Monster’s Cave!

Death From the Sun – Taffy Comics Part 3

Welcome to the third part in the story of Wiggles the Wonderworm from 1945's Taffy Comics #1. If you missed the first two chapters of this golden age funny animal comic book adventure, you can find them here:

Part 1: Wiggles meets the Professor 
Part 2: Casanova's Rescue Party

Next Chapter: Wonderworm in “The Battle”

Gold Key Comics Treasures - Another Fine Comic Book Blog

The last time I wrote about Gold Key comics, I talked about the huge contrast between the gorgeous painted covers and the often-boring-as-cardboard interiors. Although a LOT of great stuff appeared in the Gold Key line, it's a lot of work to find the treasures among the drek.

Fortunately, there's a new comic book blog on the block that features the best of the hidden Gold Key gems. The Gold Key Comics! blog has lots of high-quality, high resolution scans of cherry-picked content from comics like Boris Karloff's Tales of Mystery and Grimm's Ghost Stories. I'm sure many more will follow, so I suggest you get in on the ground floor of this new blog; Click here: Gold Key Comics! at http://www.goldkeystories.com/

Read...Enjoy...Bookmark that sucker!

Casanova’s Rescue Party – Taffy Comics Part 2

Here's the second chapter in the saga of Wiggles the Wonderworm from 1945's Taffy Comics #1. If you missed the first chapter of this golden age funny animal comic book adventure, you can find it here:

Part 1: Wiggles meets the Professor

Next Chapter: Death From The Sun!

The Epic Begins HERE: Taffy Comics - Wiggles the Wonderworm

Welcome to the first chapter of an epic funny animal adventure from 1945's Taffy Comics #1, starring Wiggles the Wonderworm. This comic was produced by L. B. Cole and published by Rural Home/Orbit Publications. Click on any of the pages to open up a BIG comic books scan!

Check back soon
for the next thrilling chapter:

Casanova’s Rescue Party

You can find out more about Taffy Comics and Wiggles the Wonderworm at:

http://www.toonopedia.com/wiggles.htm

and at ComicVine:

http://www.comicvine.com/wiggles-the-wonder-worm/29-65393/

More on L.B. Cole at:

http://lambiek.net/artists/c/cole_l_b.htm

http://www.samuelsdesign.com/comics/lbcole_gallery.html

Storyboards from Where the Wild Things Are

I just came across some storyboard art from Where The Wild Things Are at http://www.smashboxstudios.com/yello/?p=858

I haven't seen the movie, but what I really liked about this article was the interview with Storyboard Artist Federico D’Alessandro. He talks about the creative process of drawing storyboards while on the set of the movie, and about his creative interactions with the director Spike Jonze.

Storyboard Artist Federico D’Alessandro is a very accomplished feature film board artist...his credits include I Am Legend and Chronicles of Narnia, and he is working on Marvel's THOR movie as well. His website has storyboard examples from many different films: http://www.thefilmartist.com/

D’Alessandro ends the interview with some good advice on what it takes to get a job as a storyboard artist -- as you would expect, there's no magic formula, but at least he's candid and realistic about the job prospects.

Comic Book Scans - A New Fountain of Youth at The Big Blog of Kids' Comics

Welcome a new entry to the world of comic book blogs: Mykal's "The Big Blog of Kids' Comics!" This wonderful new blog is full of classic comics scans from the golden age of funny animals and other jewels like Harvey comics and Little Lulu, too. Take a look at: http://www.bigblogcomics.com

The scans are good quality, and when you click on the comic pages you get to look at a nice big scan that's easy to read. Classy stuff all the way. Make sure to bookmark The Big Blog of Kids' Comics 'cause you'll want to come back to it often. Thanks, Mykal!

Meet Wiggles the WonderWorm – Golden Age Funny Animal Comic Book Scans

Obscure Funny Animal Comics Department: Meet Wiggles the Wonderworm from L.B. Cole’s 1945 Taffy Comics…Published by Rural Home/Orbit Publications.

Wartime comics often had superheroes battling the Axis powers, but I’ve never seen anything like this image of Wonderworm fighting a Hitler-Spider!

 

 

 

Over the next few days I will be posting every chapter from the epic adventures of WonderWorm from Taffy Comics #1 March 1945

Aside from the actual comic book scans, the only other information I’ve found on Wiggles the Wonderworm is at:

Don Markstein’s Toonopedia
http://www.toonopedia.com/wiggles.htm

and at ComicVine.com:
http://www.comicvine.com/wiggles-the-wonder-worm/29-65393/

Adobe Illustrator Cartoon Inking Tutorials - Now in ONE Convenient Playlist!

The Adobe Illustrator Cartoon Inking tutorials I created a few months ago have been a big hit on YouTube...thanks to everybody that left comments and ratings!

From some of the questions I get, I realized that it isn't very easy to find all the tutorials in one place, so I created a "Playlist" on YouTube that includes all the videos:

Even though you can watch them
on YouTube, I recommend you
use the list below to watch them
(with written and visual commentary)
in a LARGER, high-resolution format...
right here on the CartoonSnap blog:

here is the COMPLETE list of all eleven

Adobe Illustrator

High-Resolution

"Freehand Brush
Cartoon Inking Tutorial Videos":

#1 - How to Set Up and Import Images

#2 - Palette Options and Settings

#3 - Freehand Calligraphic BRUSH Tool

#4 - We Start INKING in Illustrator!

#5 - How to Use Shapes & Ellipse Tool

#6 - How to Use Illustrator Graphic Styles

#7 - Working With Reshape Tool and Layers

#8 - Arrange, Transform, Reflect in Action
#9 - Picking Up The Pace

#10 - Finishing SpongeBob Inking

#11 - Inking Patrick and onward to Photoshop

Because of the way that Illustrator is usually taught, a lot of people have no idea that you can do beautiful freehand cartoon inking with the freehand brush tool in Adobe Illustrator. If you want to quickly learn to do digital cartoon inking in Illustrator, you're gonnna love these videos.

Sketches from Danger Planet!

Have you seen the Danger Planet pilot yet? Somebody managed to leak the Cartoon Network pilot out of development limbo and onto YouTube:

Well, there’s a lot more cool cartooning goodies where that came from. Show creator Derek Drymon is sharing a pile of concept art on his new Danger Planet Blog

Here’s one of the delicious background paintings from the show…reminiscent of the semi-abstract science fiction paperback paintings by Richard Powers. These were painted by master designer Nick Jennings!

Lots of funky character designs by Craig McCracken, Thaddeus Couldron and of course Derek Drymon!

This stuff is only a tiny sample of the cartoon bounty over at Derek’s new Danger Planet Blog…go on over and take a look, and then call up Cartoon Network and tell ‘em we want more Danger Planet!