College Days: A return to cartoons

Thanks to everyone for your responses to the 100 Figures Assignment post, and a special shout-out to Chris Houghton for tackling the challenge head-on (see the results). I've heard from a couple more people who've said they're giving it a shot, so best of luck.

Digging through my college portfolio, I unearthed a lot of artwork and memories—some of which I thought I'd share here. When I arrived at college in 1998, I was a kid excited about drawing cartoons and comic strips. But art school had slowly beaten into my brain that cartooning was a lesser art form (I'm sure others can relate). Throughout school I kept up with my comic strip, Blake (see related post), but it rarely crossed over into my college work.


I sensed an opportunity to burst out when I enrolled in the Illustration major junior year, but it wasn't until the end of Spring semester that a plan began to form. This was mid 2001—SpongeBob was on my radar, so I was watching a lot of cartoons again. I checked an illustration annual out of the library and found the work of Gary Baseman. Here was a professional illustrator who was appropriating a vintage cartoon aesthetic. I was working in St. Louis that summer and decided it would be fun to paint a cartoony carnival lunchbox for my then girlfriend (now wife), Loren.




(one of the first posts on Drip! featured this lunchbox)

The Baseman influence is pretty thick (I know). But something had clicked. I enjoyed drawing the exaggerated/distorted forms—especially the large eyes. I recognized that Baseman was tapping into something different than your generic everyday cartoons. And I studied it. More than anything else, I was now armed with a new justification for cartoonyness—if Baseman could get away with it as an artist/illustrator, why couldn't I?


Here's one of my first assignments from senior year, though I can't remember what it was for. Fortunately my professors got a kick out of it. And it felt good to be doing something fresh, while at the same time familiar. I was drawing cartoons again!


Above is an assignment shortly thereafter. This was for an article about internet pornography ruining marriages. The images are part pencil on paper, part digital. I drew with a soft lead, scanned it, and added flat colors in Photoshop. I was going for something that looked acrylic—a very different approach from the gouache paintings I was doing the semester before.

Below is an example of pencil artwork I first scanned...


...and then treated in Photoshop.


I looked everywhere for people who were doing vintage cartoons, discovering that underground comics were a good source for the weird and distressed look as well. I had a few issues of BLAB! handy, a shared copy of a RAW comix anthology in the studio, and I printed out everything I could find on the internet. I went direct to the source, too— consuming cartoons from the 20s and 30s when I hit gold with the Fleischer studio.

At the same time, I was drawing editorial cartoons for the college paper, Student Life, which whipped me into shape. I was assigned about 2 a week, turning around each illustration in a 24-hour period. It quickly became a testing ground. They were all accompanied by text, so the context will be somewhat lost.







There was also the alphabet book assignment, where I had to figure out how to arrange a lot of characters in a scene. I decided on a bug theme:

Ladybugs at the Laundromat


Bugs at the Bus Stop


A Tick Directing Traffic


My "Jinx the Monkey" cartoon would be the culmination of everything. The best way to investigate old-fashioned cartoons would be to make one. I've embedded it below for viewing purposes (for the first time on this blog, actually!)



(apologies for not having playback controls, it's about 3 minutes)

It's hard to believe that bugger is almost 8 years old now. Working in Flash lead to drawing in Flash...blah blah blah...I'm still drawing cartoons today...pretty much for the same reason. They free me up; I don't have to make excuses for drawing weird expressive characters. And it's what comes naturally.

That should be enough rambling to last you the long weekend. I hope this was in some way interesting. The advice I give to every artist is do what you know and love—don't just copy or follow a trend because it strikes you at the moment or seems marketable. Your work (and mind) will be better for it.

100 Figures Assignment (college days)

I checked in over at Graphic Tales late last week and was immediately transported back to my junior year of college—back to the beginning of 2001. My former professor, DB Dowd (though we knew him as Douglas or "Doobie"), has just unleashed on his Seniors the 100 Figures Assignment---> read about it here.

The gist:

You are to produce exactly 100 figure drawings/pictures of humans between 1:00 today, Friday, and Monday morning at 9:00 am, when your new week begins. These drawings should be at least 11” x 14”. The figure must dominate the picture–no “scenes” with teeny figures. And 100 drawings means 100 drawings.

This is the exact assignment as I remember it. Drop the bomb on your students on a Friday afternoon; due first thing Monday morning.

Cue panic.

DB spells out the objective in his post, but essentially, you start drawing (on 11 x 14 sheets of paper mind you...not small) only to realize around #20 that you've used up your bag of tricks. It's designed to bring you to the brink of insanity. I drew a cluster of faces a year ago in one sitting (an hour?)—and heck, I was ready to put the pen down at a dozen.



100 unique figure drawings in less than 3 days. Go!

After reading his post, I went straight to the studio and began digging through my college portfolios. I finally came across the mass of 100 drawings. Here are some of them spread out haphazardly:



It turns out I only counted around 85, so I'm either missing some or they've been misplaced. As unfair as it is to pick out favorites, here are the dozen or so images that I deem "interesting" today. But that's kind of the point. You create a lot in a short amount of time, hoping to make some discoveries.






I look at these, and while I can see the cartoon themes poking through, it strikes me how far in the direction of cartoony imagery I've gone today. This was definitely before I dipped into Fleischer and classic animation. Probably before I discovered Gary Baseman...maybe even before I started watching SpongeBob.






Not to mention that a lot of these are either gouache or watercolor paintings (nothing is digital). I remember distinctly during the critique people mentioning that I draw big heads (I still do). But I now notice how small most of the eyes are—eyes have now all but taken over my characters' faces.






A did a dozen or so like this—brush and ink...flicking the brush at the page to inspire fun ideas. That was key throughout this—keeping yourself in good spirits. I remember having fun with this set.

Here are a few more of varying styles and media.





I doubt I'll ever create so much work in such a short period of time. And it's hard to imagine a more practical exercise. We could all benefit from doing this at least once a year to work out the kinks in our style and explore new approaches of drawing. I like to think that's what a sketchbook is for, but this was much more intense by comparison.

I may do another college-related post, but until then, back to 2009.

Morning Routine

I was just looking at some of my work from college and stumbled upon this "morning routine" I created for an assignment on infographics. Even though it's over 6 years old at this point, much of it remains true, except that I usually where glasses now. And I'd be marching to the 501 Express Bus on route to FableVision, instead of the Lewis Center at WashU.

Previous college post: Satanic Currency

I'd sell my soul...

I just rediscovered a college assignment to design a form of currency. I figured that with all the buying and selling of souls in the afterlife, Hell must have its own monetary system. It's my understanding that demons trade in hades (perhaps halos in Heaven?) I wonder what the exchange rate of the dollar would be...