CSFGraphics

Webcomics.com goes the subscription route...

2010-01-05T06:12:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER:
I'm putting this here because I don't think it's appropriate to add it to my Capes & Babes site - plus, this thing might get a little long. I am going to include a link to this blog post on the Capes & Babes home page though.

Okay, so www.webcomics.com (also known as Half Pixel) has decided to go the subscription route for their content. The fee is EXTREMELY affordable at $30 a YEAR - that's really only about $2.50 a month and I EASILY surpass that in my soda consumption EVERY WEEK so for me, it's really nothing about the price. In fact, I can easily afford the $30 payment but I'm not going to pull out my credit card and pay the fee (even though it may be tax deductible).

Over the last couple of days, I've been struggling with the pros and cons of this new direction Half Pixel has taken mainly because of Brad Guigar. As many of you know, Brad graciously wrote the forward of my book, "You Can't print Flick". And, if you've ever listened to any podcast that I've been on, I talk at length about how he and Danielle Corsetto were instrumental in FINALLY convincing me to get Capes & Babes off the ground. I consider Brad a much valued friend even though, in the webcomics field, I am no where near his level. In baseball terms, I'm just beginning to (hopefully) get out of Single A while Brad has been enjoying the fruits of the Majors for quite some time.

So, if that's the case, why do I have a personal difficulty with the subscription model with webcomics.com? The truth of the matter is Brad's advice is absolutely worth the $30 a year price tag. In fact, I might even argue that's a SUPER bargain. For most people.

And that's ultimately what this comes down to... a personal choice of value and price.

I should point out that I am a contributing partner at another website that is primarily subscription-based (www.communitymx.com) so I KNOW the subscription based model can and does work. Community MX has been running for over 5 years now. The thing is, Community MX isn't ENTIRELY subscription-based. We offer free articles and content which includes my weekly "CMX Suite" comic strip. We also have a bunch of different subscription plans as well. Added to that, we have, on staff, over 25 writers, authors and teachers who have a ton of published books on web design to their credit- all of which work extremely hard at providing content for the site while also maintaining their freelance or daytime jobs. And we're compensated for that hard work via the people who find the articles worthy enough to purchase subscriptions. Thanks to Community MX, that's mainly the reason how I've been able to finance Capes & Babes from the very beginning.

With Community MX, we offer articles on web design, writing CSS and a ton of other stuff that many working web designers need RIGHT NOW. Although I'm sure there are probably quite a few CMX subscribers that aren't "professional" and just want to learn more about web design or Flash animation, the primary core of our audience are pros who want or need to learn better ways to write their CSS code or learn new and interesting things they can do with Flash Video. It's not a site where we say "subscribe to us and learn how you too can become a professional web designer - like us". Instead, it's more along the lines of "subscribe to us and learn how to become a BETTER professional web designer than you already are".

So I know a little bit about how successful the subscription model can be.
Here’s the thing that seems to give me a sense of unease about this new webcomics.com model… reliability. Maybe one of the reasons a lot of people seem upset about being asked to subscribe to webcomics.com all of a sudden is the track record of reliability. With Community MX, as I mentioned before, we have over 25 authors writing or contributing content every month so there’s no question new content will be available to subscribers when we say it will. And just so I don’t seem to be ONLY pushing Community MX here, the same can be said for lots of similar web design subscription-based sites as well like Lynda.com and so on. There is a reliable track record to these sites that keep people coming back and purchasing subscriptions.

Brad is only one guy and as much as I am utterly amazed at the amount of content he cranks out each and every month, he is only human. The man has to sleep SOMETIME. I actually enjoyed going to webcomics.com and reading submitted articles from other web creators. Heck, I even submitted a couple of articles myself. But now that the site is subscription based, I would imagine that will end. So, this will require Brad to create even more content than before since that source of content has vanished. Why do I only mention Brad? Because he’s the only one that has a track record for creating consistent content for www.webcomics.com.

And as dangerous as it is to mention this, Scott Kurtz’s track record is well known and well established. Added to that, he has already stated that he’s not going to receive any amount of the site’s subscription fee until the site is profitable for Brad. Only thing is, since he wasn’t contributing any content when the site was free - and if he’s not going receive any payment for his contributions to the paid site in the immediate future - what really has changed? If he’s not going to be paid, how much content can subscribers actually expect from him?

Dave Kellet has already stated he’s not a part of webcomics.com and, really, has no interest in being a part of the site – and that’s sad because I would have loved reading multiple, in-depth articles on hand-lettering from Dave. I know he has videos on the subject but since we’re talking about an INFORMATION website, I’m talking about real, in-depth articles. Sadly, that won’t ever happen, it appears.

Kris is busy doing podcasts with David Malki and I have no clue what kind of content Robert Khoo will be providing. Those Khoo articles are actually something I would be VERY interested in reading – as I’m sure 99.9% of all the rest of the web comics community would be too. But here’s the red flag (for me)… It would seem that Mr. Khoo’s primary responsibility is still making sure the Penny Arcade machine runs smoothly and effortlessly. That’s a HUGE ship to steer and, I would imagine, requires quite a bit of time and effort. How in-depth are his contributions going to be? Can’t tell ‘cause we don’t know.

That’s why I’d rather just take a step back and see where this might be headed. It’s very much akin to why I also don’t like to buy software as soon as it is released. And, having been a beta tester in the past, I know a lot of kinks need to be worked out in any new endeavor before it hits its stride and really gets into a groove. So that’s what I’m going to do with webcomics.com – I’m going to take a step back and see if it can hit its groove without my $2.50 a month. If it vanishes within the year, then many of the questions I had will be answered. If it doesn’t vanish, than that tells me the site found its groove and might actually be worth the tax reduction next year.

But just because I decide to take a step back and see what happens doesn’t mean I’m not serious about my craft. I’ve been a working professional designer since 1992 and I have yet to join any of the many professional organizations out there like the Graphic Artists Guild or AIGA. Does that make me any less of a professional than I am now? Does that make me any less serious about the work I do every single day? Of course not. That would be absolutely silly to think otherwise. And it has absolutely nothing to do with how little or how much a subscription or membership costs. It has EVERYTHING to do with perceived valued to the individual.

Just because I don’t pick up the phone and order every single work out video that runs on television doesn’t mean I’m not serious about wanting to get in better shape. Just because I don’t purchase every “get rich” scheme that also flashes across the boob tube late at night doesn’t mean I’m not serious about learning how to make more money or being “rich”. And just because I choose not to purchase any “Girls Gone Wild” videos doesn’t mean I’m not interested in (or serious about) the opposite sex. My wife will attest to that.

It just means I don’t personally find any perceived value in purchasing any of those things.

But just like all those late night infomercials say in the fine print: individual results may apply.

Just my $2.50 cents...

Chris Flick

Capes 'N' Babes preview image (4/7/08)...

2008-04-07T11:51:00.000-07:00

A preview image from today's Capes 'N' babes (4/7/08):

If you've never read my Capes 'N' Babes webcomic before, you can do so by clicking the link below:

Check it out today!

Thanks!

-Chris

Hand-lettering vs. Computer fonts...

2008-03-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, for anyone following me on Twitter or reading my Capes 'N' Babes blog, here is the Blog post I promised. Below are the two versions of the Capes 'N' Babes strip I did for today (March 24, 2008). I have been playing around with trying to hand-letter some of the Capes strips but after a week, I still haven't gotten to a point where I'm comfortable with hand-lettering.

I know a week isn't much time but I also think the "graphic designer" in me just hates the results. I have been told I have fantastic writing skills when I do cartoons in birthday cards or other very large illustrations but I think that legibility gets a bit lost in the strip. It could be the pen I'm using or the way I'm scanning my fully completed art. I'm not sure.

In any case, below are the two versions of today's strip. First, the original:

And now the one with the replaced computer fonts:

I might some day go back to hand-lettering, but for now, I think I'm going to retun back to computer lettering...

What's wrong with this picture???

2008-02-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

The other day, we got a magazine in the mail that advertised a whole bunch knick-knacks and things you generally use around the house. I'm sure you all have gotten similar ads or magazine. This one was pretty thick though so it took me a little while to get to page 117 where I saw the ad above.

Of course, as soon as I saw the ad, the "dirty ol' man" in e immediately began to chuckle. My wife wanted to know what was so funny so I handed her the ad and said "Do you see anything wrong with this picture?". It took her a moment or two before SHE realized what she was looking at as well.

Congress really needs to stop focusing on Major League Baseball. If anyone is using Human Growth Hormones, it's the kid in the ad above!

Also, please check out my web comic strip, "Capes 'N' Babes". It updates every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

-Chris

Girls with Slingshots fan art

2007-09-13T22:15:00.001-07:00

Okay, this will probably be a quick post since it's so late. Just finished putting the final touches on this... some fan art of "Girls with Slingshots". I wanted to send Danielle a one of a kind "thank you" for the time she gave me on Sunday at the Baltimore Comic Con.
You probably won't get the joke unless you are familiar with Girls with Slingshots. And if you aren't, you really should add it to your list of web comic reads. I just discovered it a few weeks ago and if it isn't obvious by now, I'm loving the strip (maybe too much?).
Anyway, here is Hazel and Jamie at a comic book convention...

Currently listening to "Timespace" - Stevie Nick's Greatest Hits
-Chris

New Capes 'N' Babes concept sketches

2007-09-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

Hey gang,

After attending the Baltimore Comic Con this past weekend and talking with Brad Guigar (Evil Inc.) and Danielle Corsetto (Girls with Slingshots), I decided to revisit and re-vamp my original web comic strip idea, Capes 'N' Babes.

I have decided to add a couple of characters that will drastically change the look and feel of the strip. I thought you all might like to see some concept sketches I just created for the two big characters I'm adding to the strip.

The first one is Roy. Roy's a werewolf. I won't go into too much details about his origins here except to say he's not your typical "turns into a werewolf every full moon" kind of werewolf.

Here's some Roy concept sketches for you all:
Original Roy sketch I did last night:

ROY #1:

ROY #2:

ROY #3:

ROY #4:

ROY #5:

ROY #6:

ROY - FRONT AND BACK:

Next Character: B.C.
BC is LOOSELY based on my next door neighbor - at least in terms of looks.

Here's B.C.:

I haven't done a lot of background writing for B.C. yet... mostly just working on his visuals right now.

Hope you all enjoyed!

Currently listening to WOLF FM (an internet radio station on iTunes)

-Chris

The 2007 Baltimore CamicCon...

2007-09-10T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, the Baltimore ComicCon was this weekend (Sept. 8 & 9th). Thus far, this is been my eigth or ninth year attending the Con. Each year, it gets a bit bigger although it's still not qute as big as the Pittsburgh Comic Con, but it's getting close. How do I know? Costumes.

That's right. I said costumes!

For the last couple of years, There's been a sudden trend for people showing up in Baltimore dressed in costumes. This year had the biggest number of costumes showing up. Saw a Spider-man, Blade, one Jedi but LOTS AND LOTS of Star Wars Stormtroopers, Imperial Officers and at least three different Darth Vaders. So 2007 takes the prize for the most costumed attendees at Baltimore ComicCon then any previous year. If this trend grows, can a costume parade/contest be very far behind?

This year, I decided to go to the Con for the sole purpose of seeking out Brad Guigar - the writier and artist of Evil, Inc. A few months ago, Brad and I started up a bit of an e-mail exchange about my CMX Suite strip and he has been gracious enough to take some time out of his much busy Eisner-nominated life to give me some very welcomed tips about CMX Suite and ways that I could improve the strip. So one of my main goals this year was to personally seek him out and meet him face to face. We've had some great e-mail exchanges but there really isn't any substitute for meeting someone and talking with them face to face. It's even a bit more special when you've known the digital persona for a while but you finally get to meet the flesh and blood persona.

I had a great time talking with Brad (maybe too much as I was probably keeping him from selling more stuff - Sorry Brad!). In any case, I really enjoyed talking to him and I'm looking forward to seeing him again next month at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland. I also really appreciated "talking shop" with him as well... whether it was about web comics or the daily grind of the graphic design/web design world we both share. And as I told him before I left on Sunday, maybe by this time next year, I'll be in a booth beside him peddling my Capes 'N' Babes stuff. That has to happen as I'm really growing tired of being on the sidelines watching the game. It's time to start playing and maybe with a revamped Capes 'N' Babes, I can finally start doing that.

The other person I'd like to mention very specifically is Danielle Corsetto. Danielle not only shares the same name as my daughter but she also writes and draws Girls with Slingshots. I just recently discovered Danielle's work from an interview that was posted on Comic Book Resources. I don't know... maybe I'm weirdly attracted to people who are doing web comics AND are graphic designers or currently working in the design field. Danielle was a graphic designer who is now doing Girls with Slingshots full-time - just as Brad is a newspaper guy - so maybe I'm drawing inspration from them. If they can do their strip five days a week and still do the "real job gig" thing, maybe I can too.

Anyway, as with Brad, I specifically sought Danielle out. I made my introductions on Saturday and came back on Sunday and had a great conversation with her as I was asking for some real world advice. Danielle, thanks for taking the time out of your busy sketch log and sitting down and sharing with me some things that worked and didn't work for you. You didn't need to do that - especially from a guy you only just met the day before. I hope my questions didn't backlog you too much. But I want you to know all of your answers were greatly appreciated and will definately be put to good use.

This year was very unusual for me in the sense that I almost never seem to make it a habit of actually conversing with the people I very much admire. I don't know why. Maybe there's a bit of starstruck crap in my head... maybe there's some sort of "Wayne's World - we're not worthy" thing going on... I don't know, but what I do know is that one person I was really looking forward to seeing (again) was Mike Wieringo. He normally attends every Baltimore Comic Con since it's (almost) local for him but with his sudden death a few weeks ago, maybe there was something that finally clicked in my head that said "Dude! Time is wasting away. If not NOW, WHEN, stupid???". And so I tried to make it a point to force myself to introduce and talk to people I admire - not as "superstars" but just as regular folk who are genrally interested to meet people who admire their work. The strange thing is, online, I'm never hesitant to strike up a conversation or e-mail exchange with another artist that I like or admire. One of those people that I've had planty of online conversations with is Franchesco. Last year, I did a caricature of Franchesco and Joe Pekar and posted it online to a forum they both frequented. I met Joe Pekar last year and talked to him a bit and he remembered it. This year, I did the same with Franchesco and he too loved it as well. He even asked another fan to take our pics together (I have one too but need to get it developed) and we chatted for quite a bit.

On the last day, I made it a point to stop by the Image booth and talk to Kris Straub and Scott Kurtz. Every year, I say the same thing... I'm going to talk to Scott and introduce myself but for a variety of various reasons, it never seemed to work out but this year, Sunday afternoon seemed to be an ideal time to talk with them. Sometime last year, when Kris and Scott were having fun with their Aviators, I had posted a stupid little thing on this blog where I thought Kris - in Aviators - sort of resembled on of the characters form Reno 911. It was just a silly thing to amuse myself since, as a caricaturist, I really did think Kris' facial structure resembled the character from Reno 911. Kris doesn't look anything like the actor from Reno except when he's wearing those Aviators. Anyway, he was a good sport about it and even posted a comment on my blog about it. He was even more of a sport as I talked to him about it on Sunday - which is always tricky because, as a caricaturist, you never know how someone is going to react to your humorous take on them.

My big bragging moment with Scott came when I introduced myself and he commented that he was, indeed, familiar with my work. That was a pretty big shocker for me as CMX Suite is a tiny little web strip that not many people seem to know about. I've sent him a few e-mails here and there but I know how popular he is so I never expected any reply or anything. Besides that, CMX Suite was always designed for a very specific target audience. I think I always understood it was going to be very limited in what I did - or could do - with it. It's still fun to do but if I take anything away from my brief moment of talking with Scott (as well as everyone else this year), it's that I really DO need to do my own stuff. And maybe... just maybe if I get off my lazy butt and really apply myself to Capes N Babes, the next time I meet and talk with Scott, he'll be more then just familiar with my work.

Curently listening to How Far We've Come, by Matchbox Twenty

-Chris

Content-Aware Image Sizing [EN]

2007-08-23T08:47:00.001-07:00

Now THIS is pretty cool! Of course, I can't help but wonder... when is the MAC version coming out??? :-)

Steve Jobs and the paper keyboard

2007-08-15T15:10:00.000-07:00

Whoa! Sorry for the long break folks (or who ever is coming to read and look at my little drawings). My mother-inlaw sadly passed away a few weeks ago. My father-in-law honored me by asking me to be one of her pall barer's. As as typically goes, life's been crazy ever since.

Anyway, here's a larger version of the Steve Jobs cartoon as he appears in "CMX Suite" this week: "Drinking the Kool-Aid...".

This is one of those weird combinations of "cartoon" and "caricature". In the above illustration, Steve's nose is a bit too large to really be considered a true caricature. I purposely was trying to make his nose look like a hawk's beak in order to give the subtle impression that he will soon consume us all. Just like a hawk hunting for mice.

Hope you enjoy. I'm currently working on a new Capes 'n' Babes cartoon - this one dealing with the re-imagination of "Superman: year One". I hope to have that finished soon.

Word to the wise to all you would-be web cartoonists out there: If you're going to try and draw a second web comic strip, it's probably a really good idea to have a whole bunch of them done before you create a web comic web site for yourself. That's the trouble I'm finding with Capes 'n' Babes... CMX Suite is taking up so much of my time, I'm not finding ENOUGH time to finish all the cartoon ideas I have for my other strip.

On a sad note, I also want to mention the passing of Mike Wieringo this past Sunday. Mike was a fantastic comic book artist who did work for DC, Marvel and had a creator owened series called "Tellos". I never knew Mike personally but I was very fortunate to meet and talk to him every year he came to the Baltimore Comicon. If you want to see what a lot of his friends are saying about him, you can read some of their rememberances at his web site.

There's been lots of comic book artists I've been fans of - John Byrne is one that immediately comes to mind - but there are only two comic book artists that really affected me so much that they managed to influence how I drew. One was Matt Wagner and his original series "Mage" and the other was 'Ringo and the way he drew all of his characters.

I'm not saying I ended up drawing like either guy - my cartoons will prove that I don't - but they influenced me such a great deal that I was conscious of thinking about their work whenever I started drawing something new. to this day, I still think about the way Mike drew his cartoon eyes - so you could say he STILL has a large influence on me and my art.

I'm very sad to realize I won't be seeing any more new art from him - and baltimore Comicon won't be the same without him this year.

-Chris
Not really listening to anything at the moment...

Illustration Friday - July 13th, 2007

2007-07-13T15:49:00.001-07:00

Ms. Bromback discovers Baby Batman teasing kids on the playground...

As the text in the illustration says, this was really my funny interpretation of reimagining "Batman: Year One" - but instead of looking at the subject matter as the first year Bruce Wayne becomes Batman, I thought it would be funnier to reimagine Batman in the First Grade (or Kindergarten... depending on what you consider to be the first year of school).

:-)

-Chris

Illustration Friday - "Geeky"

2007-07-06T07:43:00.001-07:00

Today's "Illustration Friday" theme is: Geeky.
For me, that means "Comic Book Geek". For all the comic book geeks out there, you will know that Blackbolt is a Marvel Comics superhero. His super power is the sound his voice makes. It is said that the vibrations from any sound he makes is so powerful, even a whisper from him can shatter mountains.

So I thought it might be fitting that he becomes a librarian in his superhero retirement age...

-Chris

Have a Happy (and safe) Fourth of July!!!

2007-07-03T15:22:00.000-07:00

I did this one for last year's CMX Suite July 4th strip.

Have a safe one everyone!

Listening to Laura Branigan's "Gloria" in iTunes...

-Chris

My Celbrity Cellmate (The Todcon 2007 strips - part 2 of 3)

2007-06-27T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is yesterday's CMX Suite strip from Community MX. It's the second of three strips based on TODCON: Las Vegas 2007 - the web developer's conference that took place June 11-13 in Las Vegas.

This strip details the results of going to Las Vegas after a disasterous instant "spray-on-tan" in which I "painted" Tom Green blue. There really isn't a Las Vegas law that forbids anyone from looking like a member of the Blue man Group but what the hay... I needed SOME way to get Tom in jail with a certain P. Hilton (who just happened to be relased from jail yesterday so it was a bit of simpatico in terms of the timing).

Again, a new CMX Suite strip appears on the home page of Community MX every Tuesday.

-Chris

This week's CMX Suite strip

2007-06-21T15:56:00.000-07:00

This one's a few days late folks but here is this Tuesday's CMX Suite strip. It's the first of three strips based on TODCon - The Other Dreamweaver Convention... at least, that's what TODCON used to stand for. Now, it's sooo much more then JUST Dreamweaver.

I wasn't able to go this year but that hasn't stopped me from making strips about it. This week's strip, Tom Green has decided to get one of those instant spray on tans with (as usual) disasterous results.

Listening to the office computers around me go HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

-Chris

Scott Fegette discovers fatherhood

2007-06-13T14:11:00.000-07:00

Today's strip is a celebration of Scott Fegette's new found "Daddyhood".
But here's the problem with doing a weekly strip sometimes...

When I was first coming up with the idea for this strip, Scott and his wife were still EXPECTING. But as you can see from Scott's Flickr account, him and his wife already had the baby:

Scott's Flickr account!

Now... Because you all are long time readers of the strip (and I know ALL of you are, right?), consider this post a DVD extra you won't get any where else. Here's some "secret behind the scene tidbits" about this strip:

1) Scott's Wife:
I had never met or seen any pictures of Scott's wife before - including any pictures of her he may have posted on his Flickr account. My cartoon of her is completely made up but after seeing her photos, I thought I came pretty darn close.

2) Fiction mirroring reality:
When I first told Scott what I was planning to do (and sent him a rough sketch of the cartoon), not only did he and his wife love it, it also turned out to be pretty darn true as well. Scott and his wife didn't want anyone to know the name or sex of their newborn so even though it wasn't QUITE a N.D.A. (Non Disclosure Agreement), it was pretty darn close!

3) Scott's T-shirt:
I'm letting out a little secret here but Scott actually used to be a TRUE Guitar Hero God! If you're lucky, you still might be able to find proof of Scott's musical career by doing a Google Image search for him (but you didn't hear that from me! LOL!).

And there you go...
Three little secret tidbits about today's cartoon.

Who says you don't get something for your money every Tuesday morning at CommunityMX?

:-)

Listening to The Rocky Horror Soundtrack... ahhh! The memories!!!

-Chris

Tom Green's singing debut!

2007-06-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

I meant to post this last week...
My gooooood friend (and book co-author) Tom Green (the OTHER one) recently decided to get into music. well, being his friend and all, how could I NOT do everything I could to help promote his musical tour?

Here's a snippet of the next American Idol (okay, so Tom's Canadian - does that REALLY matter these days???):

Go here to see Tom's "video".

:-)

Currently listening to The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack. Tim Curry STILL rules!!!

-Chris

Illustration Friday - June 7, 2007

2007-06-08T06:37:00.000-07:00

I posted this before in a earlier Blog but this is specifically for "Illustration Friday". The them being "Suits". I figured "Bob the Elvis impersonator" would be perfect since you can't get any better then the good ol' leisure suit of the 70's!
This was for a t-shirt design for a web developer's conference. The full color design is below:

-Chris

The Dog Days of Summer Blockbusters...

2007-06-06T06:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's CMX Suite strip. Being re-posted from Community MX.I hadn't drawn Stephanie "Stef" Sullivan in the strip in quite some time. My cartoon model of her is one of the more complicated characters to draw in the strip. She came out pretty good in this one.

My kindom, my kingdom for a table...

2007-05-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

I decided, in an effort to help promote Community MX and the little web comic strip (CMX Suite) of mine that runs on the home page every Tuesday, I'm going to re-post the strip here a day or two after it runs on Community MX's home page and talk about the strip a bit more.

That being said, here is yesterday's CMX Suite:

Yesterday's strip was just a humorous take on the whole web designing debate concerning "Tables vs. CSS". I just thought it would be funny to take the whole "no tables" viewpoint to such an extreme that a web company would, literally, throw out ALL of its REAL tables... even if that meant a lot of inconvenience for them.

Would this really happen? Of course not. But it's sort of my comic strip version of the old "Airplane" joke "...and don't call me Shirley" gag. No one in the web design community thinks tables are so evil that they would be willing to actually destroy ACTUAL tables. But it's still funny to watch cartoon characters willing to go to such extreme measures... no matter what the cost.

Currently listening to Internet Radio (Club 977)

-Chris

TODCON 2007 T-shirt design

2007-05-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

Okay folks... here is the fully completed, low-rez version of this year's TODCON T-shirt:

For those of you that don't know what TODCON is, TODCON is a web developer's conference focussing on all things Macromedia (at least it used to be). Now the conference focusses on all things Adobe - specifically Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop and anything and everything inbetween that you might use (or need to learn about) for web design, development or programming.

So, if you are a web designer or developer and want to learn more or see demononstrations featuring all the latest programs from Adobe, I highly encourage you to go to the TODCON web site and check it out. I've not known a signle person who has gone to TODCON and NOT had a great experience!

And for all of you TODCON veterans who like to keep track of such things, this is my forth year of creating a custom t-shirt design for the conference. My only regret is that I won't be able to go to the conference this year...

But the t-shirt looks great, doesn't it???

Currently still listening to various songs on my iPod...

-Chris

A very demented Gwen Stacy cartoon...

2007-05-22T08:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a little cartoon I did of Spider-man's first love, Gwen Stacy, done as part of the Third Rail Design Forum illustration jam for last week (I'm a bit behind):

Currently listening to various tunes on my iPod...

- Chris

Very displeased with Casio customer service

2007-05-21T08:09:00.000-07:00

If you know me, you'd know that I don't normally like to complain about crappy or questionable customer service but my situation with Casio watches has really gotten me steamed. Here's how the story goes...
About two years or so ago, I bought a Casio Pathfinder watch. Here's a close up picture of the watch:

Now, for the most part, this is a fine, reliable watch and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The only thing I never really liked about it though was the band. Little did I know the band would end up being the source of my frustration this week.

See the little red circles on the band? That's where the pins go - only they aren't like your typical watch band pins. This particular watch actually has four pin parts that attach to the watch. There are two normal pins that attach to the watch and the band but then there are two other pin parts that attach underneath the band and hold the pins, the band and the watch in place. One of these secure pins is what broke off on my watch. And, stupidly, I thought it would be easy to fix by going out and just buying a replacement band (with pins) at the local Target or Wal-mart stores.

WRONG!

As it turns out, if anything happens to your Pathfinder band (or its pins), you need to order a replacement band directly from Casio itself. But here's where my frustration lies... Casio won't tell you specifically that the leather band and the pins that attach to the watch are TWO SEPERATE ITEMS!!!

Last week, I spoke to several people at Casio as I was trying to order my replacement band. I specifically went into details that it was the replacement PINS that I needed and that the band itself was fine. I just needed some way to attach the band to the watch itself. REPEATEDLY, I was told I needed to order a new band. At $14 PLUS the cost of shipping ($17.00 and some odd change in all).

Well, the replacement band finally got to my house on Saturday but to my chagrin, it was ONLY the leather band. No pins. No extra parts to actually attach the band to the watch.

So, this morning, after numerous calls to various Casio departments, thats when I was told that the pins and the band itself were two individual items and someone last week should have explained that to me.

Okay... someone messed up and that makes me mad because I didn't need to spend $17 for a band I already had. But what really steams me is the logic of having the pins and the watchband as TWO SEPARATE ITEMS!!! How in the world does THAT make sense at all??? At $14 (plus $3 for shipping and handling), you would think the pins would come WITH the band. I mean, honestly, when you go to Target or Wal-mart and purchase a replacement watch band, the PINS COME WITH THE BAND!!! So how does it make any sense that when you order replacement parts directly from Casio itself, they decide the two things are completely separate???

I think that, more then anything else, frustrates me the most. And even though they wanted me to purchase the pins again, after this experience, I've decided to just go out and buy a new watch (probably a TIMEX this time) because, for all I know, they might end up sending me only one of the four pins I need and I might end up having to purchase EACH of the replacement pins separately.

So my advice to all of you... whether you are purchasing a Casio, a TIMEX or some other watch, make sure you ask about how easy it is to replace the bands should something happen to the pins. I know that's what I'll be doing later on this week when I'm looking at new watches to buy... as much as I hate to say that because I really DO like my Casio Pathfinder watch (but the band... the band has got to go!).

Sorry Casio. You made a great watch but a lousy band. And please... make sure you tell people that the replacement band and pins are TWO SEPERATE items next time someone calls about their Pathfinder watch. Even though this doesn't make any sense, it still might prevent a lot of customer frustration in the future.

Just something to think about from a very dishearted and jaded Casio customer.

-Currently, just steaming (not listening to anything)

Chris

2 new sketches: Bob as Elvis & Musicaldruid!

2007-05-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, the high school baseball caoching duties for 2007 ended yesterday as the JEB Stuart Raiders were eliminated by the Yorktown Patriots last night. So now that I no longer have any more baseball coaching duties for the rest of this year, maybe I can start getting back to posting art regularly on this blog.

My thanks to all those who regularly visit here and keep hoping for new stuff. As such, I have two new sketches I have been working on. The first is the beginning of a t-shirt design I'm currently working on for TODCON 2007. TODCON will be in Las vegas this year so I have created a character named "Bob" who goes to Vegas for the conference and comes back totally immersed in Vegas culture.

Here is my sketch of "Bob":

The second sketch is one I have been promising an online friend of mine for a very long time now. Musicaldruid (that's my online friend's internet handle) originally e-mailed me a request to draw or create an avatar for her based on a favorite character of her's - a female elf.

This is what I came up with (finally):

And that's it for today.

Currently, I'm not listening to anyone at the moment. Just the mesmerizing sounds of the office A/C as it buzzes over my head...

-Chris

Illustration Friday

2007-04-27T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is my first post for Illustration Friday. Today's theme is "Remember". I had already done an illustration of the Virginia Tech Hokie for my CMX Suite web comic strip but for this, I decided to color the Hokie and add the "I will never forget" tattoo to the bird.

Currently listening to "Essential Heart" in iTunes.

-Chris

Does this make me famous???

2007-04-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

The Canadian government has started an environmental awareness campaign in which they are trying to get people to use less electricity by turning out their lights when they aren't in use. The campaign is called "FLICK OFF" (hence my quasi-claim to would-be fame).

The designers of the campain have decided that it would be funny if the camapign was desined in all caps. As I can attest from a certain experience I had in seventh grade, that's NEVER a good idea!

Back in seventh grade, I had a habit or writing my name in all caps as so: CHRIS FLICK. Well, one day in my math class, a teacher I didn't particularly get along with, actually accussed me of "writing vulgarities" on one of my test papers and proceeded to send me to detention. It was the last class of the day so I had no way of calling or informing my parents that I was going to be late getting home that day.

When I eventually got home that late afternoon and explained what had happened, they were steamed (to say the least). The next day, my dad came to the school wearing one of his old football jerseys that had his last name on the back of it. As he talked to the Principle about the situation, he turned his back and walked down the hallway and, at the end of it, asked the Principle what it looked like on the back of his jersey. Once the Principle saw that, he realized my only crime was in putting the capital "L" too close to the capital "I".

I still prefer to write my name out in all caps. Only, now when I do so, I use a lower case "i" instead of an uppercase - so my name looks more like so: CHRIS FLiCK.

If you still haven't figured things out yet, here is a picture of the press conference for the Canadian campaign and a news link that follows it:

And here is the news link:
The CityNews story.
Currently listening to Mika's debut album, "Life in cartoon Motion" in iTunes...

-Chris

My web design workshop

2007-03-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

Today I went out to Loudoun County for my web shop presentation and had a wonderful time showing Shanna all of my wonderful web design tips and tricks.

No one else came.

But we had a great time nonetheless.

-Chris

My Valentine's gift to my wife (my first ever iTunes iMix)...

2007-02-14T14:53:00.000-08:00

When I was in college and was dating my wife, she would make a 4.5 hour trip one or two times a month to see me. At the time, I was heavy into making mixed tapes so before she would visit me, I'd take the time out and make a mixed TAPE for her... that was way before the advent of CD burners and one of my prized possessions at the time was a double tape boom box that easily allowed me to play tapes from one head and record on another. So I'd make a 60 or 90 minute tape of all sorts of music so she'd have something to listen to (and remember our weekends together) while she was driving home.
So for this Valentine's Day (today), I thought I'd do something similar - although it's a heck of a lot easier making a mix CD then it is a 60 - 90 minute tape, let me tell ya!
Anyway, if you like the songs on this list, click the title and rate my humble little iMix list.

-Currently listening to the CD list in iTunes right now...

-Chris

Those ol' familiar Oz characters...

2007-02-12T05:03:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on a project for CommunityMX where I came up with this (you might recognize a few of the characters). I just finished these on Saturday...

Currently listening to a 4 CD set of 1970s rock music I recently purchased at Wal-Mart for $9.95!

-Chris

Drawing someone else's creation...

2007-02-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine on another forum posted some character sketches of his super hero team. I took great interest in the two characters that were (I believe) fused with watermelon DNA to give them rock hard skin... I have to confess, I really didn't pay too much attention the the origin of the characters. They just looked like it would be fun to add a humorous slant to them.

So I posted a black and white image to the forum and said if anyone wanted to color them, they were free to do so. Another member, Musicaldruid, decided to take me up on my offer. Her color variations are below. She has a DeviantArt gallery and I will post the link to that gallery once I find it in the assortment of e-mails I have backed up.

Anyway, here is the original line art:

And here are the two colored versions MusicalDruid came up with.

First Version:

Second Version:

Currently listening to a 4 CD collection of 70's rock I got at Wal-mart for $9.95!

-Chris

Poking a little fun at Oprah...

2007-01-31T13:46:00.000-08:00

This week, I poked a little fun at Oprah on my weekly web comic strip over at CommunityMX. The strip above is the version that I originally created mainly because my office has a subscription to Oprah's magazine and it looks to me like the airbrush artist on her covers goes just a little bit more overboard each and every month the new issue arrives in our offices.

But after MUCH discussion, it was decided that it might be best if we took off the picture of Oprah in the last panel so I came up with this instead:

I think the original one is still the strongest of the two and it's very seldom I get this biting or viscious with a celebrity but in the end, the second one still seems funny - just not AS funny - at least in my ol' humble (and totally biased)opinion anyway.

:-)

Currently not listening to anything at the moment.

-Chris

PvP logo as a Web 2.0 logo

2007-01-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

Scott Kurtz (of PvP) recently was talking about the proliferation of "Web 2.0" logos that seem to be all the craze these days on the web. So he asked his readers to re-design his PvP - Players vs. Players logo he has on his web site.
I came up with two variation of the same design.

Here they are:

Design #1:

I didn't really like the starkness of all that black so I changed the design.

Design #2:

How'd I do?

Currently listening to Steve Miller's "Goodbye Love" from the Abracadabra album.

-Chris

If super heroes had bad PR or marketing departments...

2007-01-11T12:44:00.000-08:00

Just something I came up with the other day. I inked and colored it last night (Wednesday, 1/11/07).

For those that have been asking, my dad seems to be improving a little more each day. For those of you that don't know, my dad took a spill off of a ladder the first week of December and shattered his lower right leg. He's had to undergo a series of operations and is currently staying at Georgetown University Hospital.

So here's hoping he'll get better and return home soon.

Currently not listening to any tunes at the moment.

-Chris

The Littlest Christmas Tree, by Red Skelton...

2006-12-24T10:07:00.000-08:00

As a partner of Community MX, we're asked to occasionally write blogs about all sorts of things that might be of interest to us. Last year, I re-called a very special Christmas Album and story my brother and I used to listen to every year. Here is my original blog. The story was by Red Skelton and it was called "The Littlest Christmas Tree".

Since that post last year, I have received so many personal e-mails and responses to my blog from people telling me how they too had listened to that story on that same album and how they thought they'd never be able to find it ever again.

Needless to say, when I did my very thorough internet search last year for this Red Skelton story, I never thought I'd get the response that I have. Last year, I was just trying to find out if I could still purchase the story some where or if that old holiday album even existed any more. Apparently, the album has been re-recorded but the story has been left off. I found a lot of Red Skelton stuff - CDs and DVds but nothing that gave definitive proof whether this story was included on any of his collections. But I did find a web site that had a WAV file of the story. It was here: www.albertarose.org.

If you go to my original blog, you can get the direct link from there. But what I thought I'd do this year is save it to my own web site in a .MOV file... just in case there have been some web visitors out there that have been unable to listen to the Albertarose WAV file.

Here is the .MOV version of the Littlest Christmas Tree, by Red Skelton:

The Littlest Christmas Tree (.MOV)

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday Season this year!

Sincerely,

-Chris Flick

Noel in the modern day...

2006-12-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

I hope I don't get in trouble for this (in a "struck down by lightning kind of way")...
I was just thinking of humorous things that might have happened if Jesus was born in this day and age and some of the crazy things Joseph and Mary might've had to overcome.

This was one of them.

I won't mention the others since that probably WOULD get me struck down by lightning.

:-)

- Currently listening to Wierd Al's "Chrismas at Ground Zero"...

Please everyone, have a merry, merry Christmas. And, if you can, please help those who might need it. Like Marry and Joseph.

Happy Holidays.

-Chris

Poor, poor, pitiful me...

2006-12-13T09:17:00.000-08:00

Scott Johnson had a little contest where he asked people to draw a picture of him and send it to him. Guess I didn't make the deadline or he never got my e-mail (hence the title of this blog). I did this during my lunch hour based off of his photo here. Not really meant to be a caricature. Just a funny little cartoon of him.

The inspiration for his outfit (and the dialogue) was taken from the live television movie version of "The Year without Santa Claus" that aired on NBC this past Monday (December 11th).

Currently listening to various Christmas music...

-Chris

Speed and Racer X

2006-11-17T11:28:00.000-08:00

Just finished this today. Kudos for those long time Speed Racer fans that can remember the episode this cartoon draws from (as well as the comedic movie classic it draws from as well)...

My Wife's Birthday card

2006-11-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

One of the nice things about being an artist is you can occassionally do little things that seem to go an awfully long way in making someone's day.

When my wife and I were first dating, after each date, I'd leave a little cartoon illustration in her windshield wiper so it would be one of the first things she'd see before going to work each morning.

So, for my wife's most recent birthday, I decided to draw her a little birthday card. here is what I came up with:

THE COVER:

THE LEFT INSIDE FLAP:

THE RIGHT SIDE FLAP:

Listening to Journey's Don't stop believing - the LIVE concert version...

-Chris

Hellboy & Nimrod

2006-11-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

I teamed up to do thjis illustration with a Scotish friend of mine that goes by the online name of "Roadkill". Here is a link to his blog:
Roadkill's Blog.

This was done as a "team up jam" for Thrid Rail's artist forum. The instructions were to take two randomly selected characters and team up with a fellow Third Rail member and create an illustration using those characters. Roadkill contacted me and wanted to ink my illustration so this is what we ended up cranking out. Pencils by me. Inks by Roadkill. Colors by yours truly.

Currently listening to various Jackson Browne tunes in iTunes...

-Chris

CMX Suite You Tube video!!!

2006-10-25T15:51:00.000-07:00

Thought you all might like to see a video of how I go about creating my CMX Suite strip over at Community MX. This took quite a while to get right. It's still not "perfect" but considering this was my first attempt using a combination of SnapzPro X (for the screen capture movie) and QuickTime Pro for the actually editing purposes, it's not too bad. I had to cut it off abruptly at the end due to the time constraints of YouTube.

If anyone knows of an easier, Mac-way to edit a QuickTime movie, please let me know. I tried importing my SnapzPro X movie into iMovie but couldn't edit it at all once I did.

Anyway, the music you're hearing was from my college (Radford University) roommate's band, The Mosiacs. My roommamte wrote the piano intro you hear when you first start watching the video.

And the strip will be on Communiyt MX's Home page next Tuesday (October 31st) if you care to see what it looks like full-size and uncompressed by video.

-Chris

Melaka Frey & Tina Fey!

2006-09-28T16:56:00.000-07:00

I'm not familiar with this character but it was a request from a Third Rail member, so without furth ado, I give you Melaka Frey (with a guest appearance by Tina Fey):

Currently listening to Wolf FM on iTunes...

-Chris

UDON's Taskmaster new costume design...

2006-09-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

Just making a little bit of fun of UDON's design of Taskmaster that he created for Taskmaster's mini-series and while he was a guest-star of Agent X:

Listening to WOLF FM in iTunes...

-Chris

Laurel and hardy visit the Marvel Universe...

2006-09-28T14:23:00.000-07:00

Another Third Rail sketch request...

Laurel and Hardy:

Still listening to WOLF FM (internet radio) on iTunes...

-Chris

The Thing "Virtual convention sketch"...

2006-09-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

This is another "virtual convention sketch" done for the Third rail forum. This time, the Fantastic four's THE THING is the subject matter.

Listening to Wolf FM - internet radio via iTunes...

-Chris

AMBUSH BUG!!!

2006-09-22T14:39:00.000-07:00

Over at Third Rail, I got a request to draw an old time favorite of mine, Ambush Bug, from "Go Dorito". So I wanted to do something that played off of Go Dorito's screen name and this is what I came up with:

-Chris

Still not listening to any music at the moment...

I hope Kristofer Straub doesn't get mad at me...

2006-09-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

Just having a little fun with the YouTube video Kris and Scott Kurtz made.

:-)

-Chris (no relation)

City of Lost Children

2006-09-19T13:42:00.000-07:00

I don't really know anything about City of Lost Children but here's a spoof taken from a screenshot of one of the characters in the movie - again, this was done for another Thirdrail "This week" character jam:

[Not listening to anything at the moment]

-Chris

Two caricatures and a Rodan sighting...

2006-09-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, here's two new caricatures I just did for the caricaturing section over at The Drawing Board.

First up is "China Green Elvis":

Second up is "Joe Bluhm". I thought Joe looked very similar to "Napoleon Dynamite" - hence the Napoleon references. :-)

And lastly is my Third Rail "This week" character jam entry... Sauron (with a guest appearance from Rodan:

And there you have it. My entries for today.

-Chris

The Baltimore Comic Con 2006...

2006-09-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, no new artwork at this time. I have just finished a couple of projects I haven't had time to post yet so I will do that soon - I promise.

In the mean time, I want to do some "Dad bragging", if I may...

Something pretty cool happened to me and my daughter at the Baltimore Comic Book convention on Saturday that I wanted to share with you all.

This past weekend was my 6th Baltimore Comic Con in a row. It was my daughter's third. This all started because my daughter got me turned onto the Teen Titans Go! animated TV show and, in return, I wanted to introduce her to the Teen Titans (Marv Wolman & George Perez) comics I grew up with.

So anyway, we attended the Comic Con on Saturday and sat in on Joe Quesada's (Marvel's Editor in Chied) Q & A session. Newsarama wrote an article detailing the highlights of the session. Here's the link:

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=83522

About halfway down, you will read the following:

"Will we see Taskmaster after his appearance in Moon Knight, perhaps in a miniseries?

Quesada: “No miniseries, but you’ll see him…around.”

Asked by a young girl if there will be a second season of Stan Lee’s Who Wants to be a Superhero series on SciFi, Quesada said that the program was something that Lee did through his POW Entertainment brand, and suggested that she write Lee a latter and tell him that she liked it, and he’ll bet back to her.

The girl followed up with, “What do you think, would happen if Spider-Man found out that you were the guys destroying his life?” Which was met by thunderous applause form the room, and stumped Quesada.

“He’d probably write Stan a letter too,” Quesada said."

The Taskmaster question was obviously mine.
The girl who asked about "Who wants to be a superhero" and the Spidey question?
That was my daughter. All 11 years old of her!

And yes, her second question DID bring down the house!

-Chris

Welcome to September!

2006-09-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

I have a couple of things on my plate that I will be posting soon but for now, here is the latest Third Rail "This Week" entry: Captain Universe (with a twist, of course)...

(Listening to Pat Benetar's "All fired up")

-Chris

Spritle and Jayce (from The Wheeled Warriors)...

2006-08-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here's my post for my R3 "This week" entry for this week. It was supposed to be just Jayce from "Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors" but who am I to stick to rules? Thought I'd do a spoof of what child hood cartoon characters might have to go through as an "adult" so I chose Spritle as I figured he'd be a hard luck case if he was "real".

:-)

Listening to REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Lovin' you"...

-Chris

My Big Fat Image Dump...

2006-08-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

These were all supposed to be posted last week - August 22nd as a matter of fact. But I suddenly found myself in a mortal fight with my router. The router - in it's infinite wisdom - decided to get the last laugh by performing a ritualistic suicide.

So once I got a new router, the new router and my Air Port Express decided THEY didn't like each other either. I've been struggl;ing to get online consistently at home ever since.

But I think I got things sorted out now with the help of my good friend and co-worker, Tony!

Okay, so here you go:

I decided to put a body on Franchesco (left) and Joe Pekar (right). Posted this on various boards they frequent. Both loved it. I'll finish it someday...

More caricatures from over at the Drawing Board:

Another Crooked Eye:

Another Hermosa:

That's it for now.

Listening to Toni Basil's "Mickey"...

-Chris

Going away for the weekend...

2006-08-17T07:22:00.000-07:00

This is the weekend that I'm going camping with my daughter's Girl Scout troop so I wanted to throw some more art up here before I leave for the weekend.

This series of sketches continues the "Caricaturist's caricatures" thread that's been going on over at The Drawing Board forum. Today's... um... "victim" is "Tooninator". You can see more of his stuff over at his own blog. Remember, we hate him not just because he's Canadian (and probably drinks milk from a bag) but because he's also so good at such a young age too.

:-)

First up, his photos:

Now, for my more traditional type caricature (but still in very loose sketch form):

So many of the caricaturists over at The Drawing Board are so great at cross-hatching or shading in order to get depth in a piece. Normally, that's a step I save when I color the final piece (it's also one of the reasons that my stuff looks so flat in black and white too).

With Tooninator's last photo, I saw a "theme" and tried to capture that here:

And then, finally, a lot of the caricaturists on that thread have commented how much they seem to dig my "animator" style. Basically, that's the best way I could describe it. I just imagine the person I'm drawing as a cartoon character in, say, "Scooby Doo" or some other TV animation and try to simplify them down to the lowest common denominator. So, here's "Tooninator" as a TV animated character (with and without his "shades"):

Until next week, folks!

-Chris

More random stuff for Friday...

2006-08-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

Done for a Dr. Doom character jam over at Third Rail:

Ironmaus...
Done for a couple of different forums - Third Rail, Drawing Board and Digital Webbing.

And, finally, Mike Paglia. Another fellow caricaturist whose been sharing his work over at Drawing Bord.org.

There you go.

:-)

-Chris

My baseball season finally ends...

2006-08-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

Many of you might know I play in a couple of men's amatuer baseball leagues. Well, right now is playoff season and because of that, I've had 5 games in the last 8 days so that's a big reason for no new artwork here.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy though!

I have a few projects on my art table right now - including my weekly web comic strip over at Community MX. I've also been spending a large amount of time over at my new favorite hangout place, The Drawing Board - especially in the "Caricatures" section. Over there, there's a post dedicated to caricature artists doing caricatures of OTHER caricature artists. It's a lot of fun. As such, here are some of my most recent posts:

Chris Wahl:

Some other caricaturists:

Craig73:

Feral (Don):

Thor:

And here is the start of a caricature of two really fantastic artists - neither of which are caricature artists themselves - but they are two of the many artists I am a fan of. On the left is Fresco (She-Dragon) and on the right, Joe Pekar, a fantastic pin-up artist. I plan to add their bodies and color it:

And there you go. A lot of stuff since the 3rd of August!
:-)

-Chris

Laurie Casolino - Office Warrior...

2006-07-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

The above illustration is a character in my weekly web comic strip, "CMX Suite", that appears every Tuesday on the home page of Community MX. The character is based LOOSELY on Laurie Casolino - one of the many web development experts who write and help maintain the Community MX web site. Laurie makes sure everyone maintains their deadlines so we kid her that she is like a Xena - The Princess Warrior, so I put her in a very stylized Xena-like costume.

My apologies for an 11 day delay in posting new art work. I play in two men's adult baseball leagues here in Northern Virginia and have ended up playing 12 games in 26 days. That, coupled with the 90+ degree weather we've been having here in July, seemed to finally have taken its toll on me last week as I was pretty ill for a couple of days last week - hence the delay in getting any artwork completed.

In any case, I'm feeling much better now. Enjoy the artwork!

-Chris

Blackbolt and Muffin...

2006-07-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

This was done for a character jam for Blackbolt being held over at The Drawing Board.org web site.
For those that are unfamiliar with the character, Blackbolt is an Inhuman (Marvel Comics) whose vocal cords can shatter mountains so he never speaks.

And now, introducing Muffin...
"Muffin" is a fellow caricaturist over at The Drawing Board.org web site. She was brave enough to submit her photograph and have other caricaturists take a crack at drawing her.
Here's her photo:

And here's my caricature of "Muffin":

Currently listening to: I don't like Mondays, by the Boomtown Rats

-Chris

Why Wonder Woman rarely flies her plane any more...

2006-07-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

Today's illustration was done as another submission toThirdrail's "This Week" forum again. This week's subject matter was Wonder Woman. So, I thought I'd poke fun at the whole "invisible plane" thing. For those of you that love the 80's, you might get who the two"flyboys" are. If not, that's Maverick and Goose from "Top Gun".

-Chris

Leopards, Tigers & so much more... OH MY!

2006-07-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's amazing the "treasures" you re-discover after doing nothing more then cleaning off your desk after many, many weeks of desperately (and lazily) ignoring the dreaded paper demon win the war on your desk.

So yesterday, as I was trying to force the paper demon into retreat, I found two sketches I did back in the spring when my daughter and I visited the Smithsonian Naturalist Center in Leesburg, Virginia.

My daughter actually got a special invitation from her art teacher to attend a draw-in there one Saturday afternoon. That was before we learned the draw-ins occur every Saturday afternoon - and they are open to anyone who wants to visit. You just need to sign in at the front desk first (but it was still a great honor for my daughter to be recognized by her teacher).

Anyway, normally I refrain from drawing animals - especially in a realistic style but since we were there for a few hours, I decided to have some fun by drawing cartoon versions of some of the wild animals they had on display.

I don't remember which one of these guys I drew first - the leopard or the tiger but here they are:

The leopard idea was a take-off from a VERY OLD 1987 Esquire photo (I believe) I saw of Steve Martin where he is wearing a white spotted shirt and holding an ink pen with a "why me?" look. Of course, I can't find a copy of the photo but if I had this kind of memory when it came to important facts like geometry theorems, I would have kicked butt in high school. Instead, I'm left with humorous images from 1987 photo shoots burned into my brain.

My daughter is a huge Teen Titans Go! fan. As such, she has gotten me addicted to the Cartoon Network's show. I was a huge George Prez and Marv Wolfman fan when they were doing their version of Teen Titans for DC Comics back in the early and mid-80's. That's probably where I grew to like Slade Wilson (aka, Deathstroke/Terminator) - probably because he reminded me so much of another character George Perez helped design over in the Marvel Universe. That guy, obviously, is Taskmaster.

So I thought I'd draw Slade in the Teen Titans Go! animated style. I ended up liking it so much, I decided to try and duplicate that same style for Taskmaster. Here's the unfinished sketch of Taskmaster:

And here is a sample of the finished Slade sketch side-by-side the unfinished Task sketch:

How did I do imitating the Teen Titans Go! animated style?

And lastly, all Goodman things must come to an end...
Or, here is my caricature of John Goodman I'm posting in the John Goodman caricature jam over at The Drawing Board art forum:

Currently listening to:
Internet Radio & Peter Wolf's "Lights Out" on WOLF FM in iTunes...

Until next time...

-Chris

The Junior League does it again (siiiiigh)...

2006-07-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Well, what can you say? Another heartbreaking loss for the senior league in last night's All-star game. Brought back memories of two years or so ago when the National League had their best closer on the mound at the time - Eric Gagne - and he ended up blowing a save opportunity. I know a lot of people probably enjoy a higher scoring all-star game but last night was an enjoyable game to watch - despite the final results, of course. LOL!

At the same time though, it also proved to be exactly why I tend to dislike the American League so much. Last night proved exactly how meaningless the DH is - or, at least, how meaningless it SHOULD be. Big Pappi DH's because, apparently, he can't play defense yet he made a couple of outstanding fielding plays last night and, obviously, he played first base when the Red Sox beat the Cardinals in the World Series two years ago so why does he HAVE to be a DH? That's the thing I hate about the American League - and, with the American league winning the All-star game last night, the DH is going to again play a major advantage in the World Series this year since the American League will have, potentially, more games at home then the visiting National League team.

The nice thing is that the National League certainly has some exciting young players that made the game enjoyable to watch. Just sorry to see Nomar didn't get a chance to play... but that's the negative aspect about "making the game count". Garner had to make sure he had to have some reserves on the bench in case the National League tied the game in the ninth. I'm almost positive Nomar would have played in the 10 inning had the national League scored in their last at bat. I still say, in baseball, if 9 men play the field, those same 9 should bat. Ah well... maybe next year.

Okay... on to the art. I have three new postings today. Two caricatures and a submission to thirdrail's "This Week" art jam. First the caricatures.

This is "Neo Noaide" from the Drawing Board web site (caricature section). Many of the caricaturists there are posting pictures of themselves and letting other caricaturists draw them. I still have to post my photos and see what everyone does of me. Hopefully, I'll get to that this weekend.

From the Drawing Board again... this is for a Caricaturing jam session featuring Uma Thurman as the subject model. Uma's a hard celebrity to draw. As I posted on the forum, I like individual parts of her caricature but put altogether... I'm not sure I "captured her" as well as I have other celebrities. Hopefully, people will "get" the "Hawke" reference. :-)

This is the submission for Thirdrail's art jam for this week. The subject matter is "Tigra" - a Marvel character that is, essentially, a humanoid cat. I don't know if Wonderman (pictured above) and Tigra were ever an "item" in comic book land, but I've never drawn Wonderman before and thought this might be humorous (for a variety of reasons). }:-)

-Chris

Bored already?

2006-07-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yeah. It's only been a couple of days and I've already decided to change the look of my blog. Mainly that was because I had some free time on my hands so I could get my hands a little dirty with the CSS coding. Figured out how to modify one of the templates so I could add my own banner duplicated from my web site.

A long time ago, with my first Blogger Blog, I obsessed with trying to match the look of my web site by creating my own template but royally screwed things up and gave up having a blog for a long time. But since this is primarily going to be an image dump of various sketches of mine, I'm not going to worry too much about matching my web site's look. That doesn't seem to be so important nowadays anyway, so I'll leave it like this way.

For a while, at least.

Later on tonight, my wife, daughter and I are going to go see Pirates. In honor of that, I thought I'd post a cartoon pirate. This was originally for my strip - but it didn't quite work out the way I had hoped so I'll try to re-use him in a later one.

-Chris

Alien vs. Marvel's "Alias"

2006-07-06T06:02:00.000-07:00

For about a year and a half now, I'm been a regular contributor to Thirdrail Design Lab's forum. Each week, Thirdrail has a "This Week" art jam where members can draw and submit their versions of a particular character from comics, animation, manga and just about anything else. The choices are all random and we never know what character might pop up every Sunday. One week, it may be Spider-man. The next week, it may be Betty and Veronica from Archie comics.

In any case, I've been doing my little ode to Fred Hembeck with my "This Week" submissions. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Fred Hembeck's work, Fred has a Garfield-like style and is famous for making cartoons of the comic book industry.

Recently, I've taken a look at my files and was amazed at exactly how many "This Week" submissions I have contributed. So much so that I've debated whether creating a new web site completed devoted to just my cartoons might be in order. My CSFGraphics site might be a bit too largeor far too inclusive of EVERYTHING I do. I'm thinking that I should break down the two sites so that my CSFGraphics site won't have so much artwork in it. I think CSFGraphics is so big, my cartoons and illustrations sometimes get lost in it.

But I digress. Back to "This Week"...

Below is my cartoon representation of the Marvel comic book, "Alias".

You might recognize a certain sci-fi creature in this submission. I always try to come up with some odd or weird twist to these "This Week" submissions. I thought this one was pretty successful.

-Chris

Chris as South Park character

2006-07-05T13:51:00.000-07:00

I can't remember where I got this URL from but there's a site out there that let's you create South Park characters via a Flash interface. This is what I came up with for my own character:

Here's a Howard Stern cartoon/caricature I made:

Howard was done a while back but here's a more recent illustration. If you're a fan of the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies, you might recognize this guy:

Chris