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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: Martytoons, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 7 of 7
1. Photoshop Work / Experiment in Progress

I alway enjoy looking at favorite artist's work process. It's been a while since I posted one. Since I'm in the middle of experimenting with my Photoshop skills, I thought this would be a good time to do so again.
Below is a recent sketch of mine, that I'm currently in the middle of coloring...



I've long admired picture book illustrators whose style has a soft almost painterly look. Being primarily a vector artist, which I also love, I haven't really developed that soft look that I really admire. This is the year that I decided to really develop that look more. I doubt that I'll switch over to that look permanently, especially since it will take a while for me to develop it to the point that I'm happy with it.


Here's step two... I'm not even sure if I'm staying with these colors. I'm just trying to fill in blocks of color and try to see what I like and what I don't. Two big key changes to the way I'm working with this are, 1) use textures when I paint, and 2) painting on a "multiply" layer. The concepts aren't new to me, I've just never used them before. I like the effect and technique, I just don't know if I'm happy with the result yet.

You know what just occured to me ? This is supposed to be a polar bear.. white dummy... arghh..

My next post will sure the next, maybe next few, evolutions of this pc.

Thanks.. as always, thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Marty

2 Comments on Photoshop Work / Experiment in Progress, last added: 2/2/2012
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2. FrankenMutt & Copyright


I was doing a little "free thought" sketching, and maybe because Halloween was coming up, this guy just popped into my head. I liked the way he came out, and posted it on a graphics "sketch" collaborative page on Facebook. 

One of the members said that it reminded them of another character whom I had never heard of. When the member posted a link, I actually recognized the character after all. Long story short, it was a cartoon from the 80's (which I only saw a few times, and wasn't really a fan of.) I pride myself on my being original and NOT stealing work from other artists, but I started to wonder... do we store images in our heads for years, even decades, and not even know it ? Do little instances or experiences trigger the release of these images and then have an effect on what we're sketching ? AND... can that lead to trouble regarding copyright infringement ? Don't know, hope not... coincidence ? Definitely hope so.

There's quote, something to the effect of "Nothing is Original". And most Beatle fans can recall the lawsuit George Harrison was involved in regarding his song My Sweet Lord and the 50's tune He's So Fine. As talented as George Harrison was, would he need to copy a song and call it his ? I highly doubt it, but the resemblance between the two melodies is pretty uncanny. Was this some sort of mental storage recall as well ?

Just something to think about. :)

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3. Miami Steve and The Underground Garage


I was at a total loss of what to sketch for the latest blog post, so I just figured I'd sketch the first thing that came to mind. Looking for some good tunes to inspire my creativity, I decided to listen to a radio show that I really love but don't listen to as often as I'd like, Miami Steve's Underground Garage. If you ever need a good musical education and want to be turned on to some classic garage rock and even check out some great indie bands, this is the show to listen to, (non endorsed plug) http://undergroundgarage.com/splash.htm Anyway.. it didn't take long for inspiration to kick my brain in gear... just do a toon of the man himself.... long time Springsteen partner and sidekick, the very underrated but much appreciated Miami Steve Van Zandt. If you love Bruce's music, do yourself a favor, listen to the show, and try and dig up some of Miami Steve's solo stuff... good good stuff... Cheers..

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4. Gloop's Revenge



"Somewhere out in space live The Herculoids...Zok the laser-ray dragon! Igoo the giant rock ape! Tundro the tremendous! Gloop and Gleep, the formless fearless wonders! With Zandor their leader, and his wife, Tarra, and son, Dorno, they team up to protect their planet from sinister invaders! All-strong! All-brave! All-heroes!! They're The Herculoids!!!"

The Herculoids along with Jonny Quest and Space Ghost, represent the epitome of Saturday morning SuperHero cartoons. Jonny Quest and Space Ghost traveled to some new exotic locale, and encountered some new mystery which lead to life threatening danger, here on Earth in Jonny's case, and out in space in Space Ghost's case.

The Herculoids were different.... trouble came to them. I loved these cartoons as a kid, but as a I grew older... the "animals" on The Herculoids all had powers and the humans didn't. The "animals" weren't stupid, they communicated and worked together every Saturday morning to defeat aliens from far off planets who came to THEIR planet to wreck havoc upon the leader (note: Human) of the Herculoids. Don't you think after awhile, the "animals" would get a little tired of this ? It's their planet... along comes this meat sack bag of bones with his family, and BAM, they get invaded on a weekly basis... what the hell is that about ? What if the "animals" had enough ?

And so.... I give you GLOOP'S REVENGE.



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5.


Several projects have kept me from posting in awhile, but this idea has been kicking around for awhile. Sometimes I hear a phrase or certain words and they just conjure a picture in my head. One Saturday afternoon, not too long ago, I had the pleasure of watching the original Scarface on TV, starring Paul Muni. I was actually surprised at how similar it was to Pacino's version. It seems when remakes are made, they take alot of liberties with plotlines, but this seemed almost identical. But I digress... while watching the Muni original, I started to picture the same scenes in my head as played by Pacino... and then I got to the scene where Muni kills his boss Frank... and played back Pacino's Tony Montana calling Frank a COCK A ROACH in my head and it stuck. After an initial sketch that I was very unhappy with, I came up with this, which I'm pretty happy with.

I sketched this in pencil and went over it with my trusted Sharpie, then imported it into Photoshop and colored it. Lately I've been into stippling, so I decided to give the character a little texture on his skin. I also experiemented with the lettering a bit. I was trying to capture that spooky monster slime effect that was popular in the 60's. Those are two techniques I want to play around with and master alittle bit more.

Hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Thanks - Marty



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6. Bulldozing The Mental Roadblocks

There are times when the creative juices just aren't flowing. Usually that's because "we" are distracted by outside influences, such as money, lack of time, stress or just having to do too many things in too little amount of time. "We" can cave into this and become totally useless in out attempts at productivity, or we can get ourselves on track somehow.

When I was a little kid, I loved monster movies... the classics, like Frankenstein, Dracula.. all the old black and whites... like I said, The Classics. The problem with this, was that when I went to sleep, my imagination was in overdrive to the point of getting nightmares featuring said monsters. To save my parents from running into my room in the middle of the night, I developed this little trick of forcing myself to think of the monsters on purpose, and then mentally creating a huge bulldozer that would push them out of my head. Sounds a little wacky, but it worked for me.

It worked so well, that I used now as a cartoonist to force myself to focus... no lie. If I'm distracted by the Money Monster, the Too Many Projects Monster, or the I really need to kill this particular person Monster, I use the bulldozer trick. I envision a "force" in my head to just shove aside all the non creative things cluttering it up... put on some rock n roll (again, the classics), grab some green tea and get down to business.

So the next time you can't focus... get on your mental bulldozer, crank up the tunes, get your caffienated beverage of choice, and do what ya gotta do. Just sayin !

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7. Illustraton Friday : Journey


For a split second I thought of doing something related to the band Journey, but since it wouldn't be very positive, I resisted the urge. I guess you could call this the ultimate journey, depending on your behavior... Enjoy. Process was hand drawn sketch, scanned into Illustrator, redrawn with brush tool. Copied and pasted into Photoshop and then colored in assorted layers.

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