REMEMBER THE TIME?

Sorry, I felt like I had to make a Michael Jackson reference somehow. This post isn't about that song, just a "remembrance" of a past project that I thought I'd post. (Rob and I have been putting up sketchbook posts lately, but I've only drawn poop in mine and he's out of town this week so it's to the "oldies" files this week!)

The above comic book pages are the entire 8 page story that was a back up story in a THUNDERCATS comic published at least 5 or 6 years ago by Wildstorm/DC comics. What made me think of it was a Facebook notice I got recently from an old friend, Tom Humber (see his blog here: http://tomhumber.blogspot.com/) He's a talented layout artist that works at Blue Sky in NY, but before that he was at Disney Feature animation in Florida, where we worked together. Okay, here's the story behind this job:

It was 2003, and I had left Disney after wrapping up Brother Bear animation (not all of it, just my part) and was doing freelance. I had made friends (from my comic book self publishing) with a great guy, Alex Sinclair. He's a great colorist and has worked with Jim Lee on all the big stuff. Well, DC had made him an editor also. He had a few titles and one of them was Thundercats. Long story short I called him (I think) and said I'd love to do some comic with him and he said great and that I should send in some sketches of the Thundercat characters in my style. I took a day or so and did that. (I don't love them so that's why those aren't here.) He said he liked them and that he'd find me a story. What got sent to me was not what I expected though. It was a story for a spin off one shot they were doing about the VILLAINS of Thundercats. (I think it was called something like "Thundercats: Villains Secret Files".) The story I got was extremely dark and adult. It was the orgin story of a female villain whose name I can't remember, but I don't think she was a big character. I was shocked they would send the "Disney guy" a serious, adult story like this. (I had small kids and I really didn't want to do a story with rape, violence, and idol worship in my fun cartoony style.) I turned it down, siting all my story reasons. He called back the next day and said the writer agreed to change the story if I'd still do it. I wasn't sure (I was still on my high horse), but was surprised they'd rewrite it just because I had a problem with it so I agreed. Well, the story came to me after that and it was still adult (in my opinion) things had just been put "off screen" so I wouldn't have to draw some of the worst stuff. But I had a agreed to it, so I jumped in. All that behind me, I thought about the "look" and came up with what I thought was a fun idea. I'd draw the comic in the same production model as an animated show! So, I did rough layouts of the pages (like storyboards) and I called my buddy Tom Humber (who was still at Disney) to see if he'd do the background drawings while I would do the characters. Having always wanted to do comics, he was thrilled and agreed right away. I did up character designs of the main characters and told Alex the plan on the "look" and how were were going to approach it and he was excited too. So, what you see above is Tom H. and I together. Though, I will say, he worked much harder on this. I thought he was just going to do tight, pencil clean up drawings of the backgrounds (like I did of the characters) but he ended up ALSO doing incredible "tonal studies" so the colorist would know how to light each panel. It's so finished and well done, I think the colorist used his files and colored them (I would have.). Tom H. also ended up giving page layout suggestions and the last three pages are mostly his concepts. (Which is great, since they needed more exciting pacing.) It really was a dream to work with Tom and Alex on this project and I think it turned out really nice! Because of the story, I really didn't show it around much but I was happy with the look. I'd love to do a whole comic using this "production" process! It really utilized both our strengths to their best, I think.

Clink on the images for a larger view.

Sketchbook Stuff- Plane sketches, etc.


Rob and I have been traveling a ton lately. On average, every other week back and forth from Nashville (home) to CA because we have a new long term client/job we are doing. It's been great but tiring and busy. One of the good things is that it gives us 4 hours (minus 2 hours for Rob's sleepy time) to sketch on the plane. Personally, I don't think I do my best work in that kind of situation, but I at least have a larger amount of stuff to choose from to feed the blog. Some of what you see above was done at home too. The American Idol and "That 70s Show" sketches were done while I was watching those awhile back. Note some of the early contestants from Idol. The Zebra girl was for a friend going to Africa, and this was the one I didn't give her. Odd pose, I know. Thanks for the folks that have chosen to follow this blog. Best, Tom

More Sketchy goodness and a balanced meal to boot!
These are a few sketchbook doodles and drawings that I did. Some were for specific jobs and others were just for fun.

GUILTY PLEASURE or DIRTY LITTLE SECRET?

I have to come clean with this blog post. I'm starting to like manga- a little. Not the stories, which I still can't see me ever reading and liking. Not the comic pacing really either- it's often times, too far out action for my likes or boring talking heads, with little in between the extremes. It's just SOME of the art that I like. In some cases, I even like it alot. I used to think it all looked alike but now I can see that, just like any other genre of art, there are those that are much better than others. Still, its a smaller amount that I like. It always falls on the cartoonier of the manga art style too. (I really don't like the more realistic comic-booky looking manga with the guys that look like women. You know what I mean.)

It's funny because I started down this road of starting to "learn" this style a bit in my sketchbook here and there for the last year or so. In the back of my head, I think, it was partly because of my character design book. I'll admit there are many drawings in there I wish I had spent more time on and perfected a bit more. (Some I still like, but many more I don't.) One of the ones I look back at with a heavy sigh is the drawing of the girl in the "Style" section that is supposed to represent the "manga" style. It's horrible, and barely relates to the manga style at all. I have gotten letters that say that very thing (okay, just one, but they spoke for the masses).

So, above are some drawings I've done over the last few months, for fun. I guess you could say that I'm trying it "my way" which hopefully looks a bit like manga meets Disney. That's my goal anyway. I want it to look cartoony and a bit more 'rounded off' rather than the really sharp edges. Though I did throw some in here and there. I'd still like to color a few more of these, if ever I get the chance. The one in color was painted in the Art Rage program which is a very inexpensive Painter knock-off that I like lots. Thanks for looking.

SSHHHH! Stealing from Rob's sketchbook!


Okay, Rob is shy, we all know this. He's especially shy about sharing the "GOLD" (my word, not his) in his sketchbook. He thinks, "Awww, why would anyone want to see that." Really. I've heard it. So, every once in awhile, I have to resort to stealing. I grabbed his sketchbook and picked out a few pages that I liked. Forget asking, I'm just taking. Hopefully, you kind folks will like what you see and encourage the old man a bit.

There's a page above that is of Rob's son on a big wheel where he keeps crashing all the time. That's one of my favorites. Rob said he was doing in on purpose and then saying "Draw me lying here like this!" Funny stuff. Another interesting page is of the eye direction notes he made. Did you know the direction your eyes go when you are thinking about something actually relates to WHAT you are thinking about? Good notes for animators and actors. Anyway, enjoy the weird world of Rob.

HAPPY 5 th ANNIVERSARY FUNNYPAGES PRODUCTIONS!

Oh man, how did we miss this? Last month, in March, we celebrated what I think is an incredible milestone- 5 years in business!

They say that most small business' go under within the first 2 years and we've made it more than twice that long. What a blessing! To be honest, the last two years have been harder than the first two, or maybe it just feel that way? The next few look tough also (for everyone), but that's not what this posting is all about. This is about celebration and about thankfulness! Rob and I believe in a Savior and feel strongly that He has guided our company. It has been one amazing situation after another where He has shown us favor and guidance. I'm not saying it hasn't been hard at times. It has. We've doubted, we've been frustrated, we've been unmotivated. But there's been lots of great moments. I started looking though our files and I realized we've done ALOT of work in the last 5 years!

We both started in this career with the thought that all we wanted to be was Disney animators. I can honestly say that both of us has seen that as great as it was to reach that goal, we can do much more than that. Our Creator gave us vision and ability beyond that and then provided us with opportunity to learn and grow in new directions. So many different directions that through the years it's become hard to answer the question: "What does Funnypages Productions do?" The first few years in business we would just look at each other and say "What do you got?" It really hasn't changed much over the years but we can now answer that question with what we believe is our strong point: "Development of characters and stories for Family media". That defines pretty much everything we do. How has that played out over the last 5 years? I thought about it and came up with this (not totally aqurate) list:


32+- Children's books illustrated
7- Directed :22 minute animated TV shows
4- Feature Films (storyboards and/or character designs)
5- Storyboards for TV shows or DVDs
4- Publishing deals (chapter books, graphic novels, children's books, comic books)
3+- Video Game design jobs
3- Websites developed (design work/ character animation, etc)
6+- 150 page Manga Graphic Novels (TOMO)
1- Music video (wrote, directed, produced)
2 - Film Festival acceptances (for above music video)
1 - Amusement Park ride designs
1- Live action TV show set designs
6+- Logo designs
2- Commercials (designs or animation)
1- Unpublished comic we wrote and drew for one of the Big Two comic publishers

AND
15- Original TV, Film, Book or internet concepts that are ready to sell!

There are numerous illustrations, character designs, consumer products, cover art, comic books, and more that either don't fit above or I can't remember. LOTS. It's been a wild ride with rarely two days the same. We've been blessed to actually LIKE most of the jobs and people that we've worked with. We've been able to work with many extremely talented artists too. We profoundly thank you al for your help in keeping Funnypages alive and helping to make it what it is! (Whatever that is.) We hope to have many more years, Lord willing.

More new stuff!
These are a few designs we created for a Swiss company that was looking for new wrap-around artwork to cover their line of environmentally conscience/ earth friendly/ green / non-disposable water bottles. We targeted the children's market with our designs and hope to hear if they've accepted one or all of our concepts very soon. In the mean time we thought it would be fun to post our clean-ups of a handful of ideas we came up with for this campaign. They only allow 6 colors per design, so we tried to stay as simple and clean as possible. ENJOY!