Tom's Mad Blog
November 13th, 2015 | Posted in Freelancing
In the art world “illustrators” sometimes get dismissed as nothing but image making machines for other people’s ideas or concepts. According to that point of view, we draw and paint nicely but we have no original ideas of our own, and only draw what people tell us to draw. I remember in college, the fine arts majors called the illustration majors “wrists”, since the considered us little more than human copy machines with art filters. To be fair, I think I might have referred to a few of the fine arts majors as “future baristas”, since 99% would never manage to make a living with… READ MORE
November 12th, 2015 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Since I posted yesterday about Veteran’s day, this week’s SotW is a day late but a full TWO dollars short. Another in my series of caricatures of the cast of “Firefly”, here’s Adam Baldwin as Jayne Cobb. As always, the original of this sketch is available for purchase in The Studio Store. READ MORE
November 11th, 2015 | Posted in General
Today is Veteran’s Day. It’s a day where we all should take a little time to thank the men and women who have served our country in the military… regardless of your politics. I never served in the military. It wasn’t something I ever even considered, being focused on college and becoming a professional artist. My grandfather was a World War II veteran, serving in Guam and the South Pacific. He was not at Pearl Harbor, but traveled to many of the other islands in the Pacific, especially after the war to clean up and secure the areas. My uncle (his son) served during the… READ MORE
November 10th, 2015 | Posted in On the Drawing Board
Thanks to sudden death in the family that took up a lot of my time in October I just spent the last two weeks digging myself out from under a pile of several freelance jobs, so actually the drawing board is a bit light at the moment. Here’s what I finished up since the beginning of the month: Two (count ’em… TWO) jobs for the upcoming MAD #537, both different from my usual work. A Marlin Co. illustration (pictured above) A couple of smaller projects that had been put off for way too long What I’m working on now: Another Marlin illustration “Z-People” comic book… READ MORE
November 9th, 2015 | Posted in Monday MADness
Back in MAD #476, April of 2007 I did the art for a parody of the TV show “Entourage”, written by Arnie Kogen. The opening splash called for one of the show’s famous party scenes where you could always count on a couple of gratuitous celebrity cameos. Here is the art progression from (very) rough sketch, final pencil, and inks leading up to the finished art above (clicky any to embiggen…): The rough sketch… The final pencil… Finished inks… READ MORE
November 8th, 2015 | Posted in Mailbag
Welcome to my every-year-or-so answer to the perpetual question “What kind of ______ do you use?”… Updated to November 2015 accuracy. In the Studio For doing my publication work I use a lot of different tools and materials. While most of what I do these days is digital I do occasionally, when the job calls for it, pull out the old paints and such. Here are the tools I like to use in the studio: Pencils– Honestly I usually use whatever I end up grabbing from my eight or so coffee cup/jars full of drawing utensils near my board. For years I used a clutch-type… READ MORE
November 3rd, 2015 | Posted in General
The last few weeks have been usurped by sudden family obligations, which has put me horribly behind on several jobs. Posting will be pretty sporadic here for the next week or so… READ MORE
November 2nd, 2015 | Posted in Monday MADness
In last week’s Monday MADness I shared a piece from MAD #471, November 2006 called “When Video Games Become Religious”. I actually had two pieces in that issue… the second being the above rare comic-strip format piece in the Fundalini Pages called “One Afternoon on Pacific Coast Highway”, commenting on Mel Gibson‘s then-recent drunken anti-Semitic rant after a traffic stop. Original pencil rough below. READ MORE
