Funnypages Productions, Inc.

A bird

2012-01-18T18:35:00.001-06:00

This is a proof of concept piece that we were asked to create for an upcoming book project. can't say more than that. Chuck Vollmer laied in the awesome color on my drawing!

WORD Music book cover

2011-12-21T15:13:00.001-06:00

This is a new cover we just completed for Word Music. I decided to include the roughs and the final cover (vectored and colored by Brian Gall)
These are fun covers to do, but we have to really turn and burn them to make it work, but they keep us busy and that's a good thing.

Little Miss Muffet

2011-12-05T20:45:00.001-06:00

This was one of a series of Nursery Rhyme images that I did. Chuck Vollmer did an amazing job of painting the final art!

Doodle dog

2011-11-29T10:34:00.000-06:00

Okay...it has been a long time since posting anything on the blog, but I'm back! Lot's of stuff to post as the days go by so keep checking back...in the meantime here are some scribbles i did in the car over Thanksgiving.

2011-06-07T14:26:00.002-05:00

More sketches, doodles and landscapes. The character stuff is just for fun, and I have no clue what some of them are, or if they'll be anything other than what you see here. I've been able to get out over the last couple of weekends draw in my ever so handy dandy mole skin sketchbook. Hope you like them!

2011-05-16T14:38:00.004-05:00

This was something I did for a friend who asked for a drawing of Bigfoot sitting on a rock, drinking a slurpy, wearing sunglasses and wearing a watch. Don't ask me why, but I just thought it was an crazy request and thought it would be fun to draw on the plane ride back from LA.

2011-03-31T10:56:00.002-05:00

DAY 30- LAST DAY: March Sketchbook Month

And we end this March Sketchbook Month with an actual sketch doodle page that I (Tom) did during a meeting we had yesterday. It says what the meeting's topic was and I won't make any comments past that because of legal ramifications. See? I WAS listening. I'm still a hugger though. And-no- that old guy who looks like a lawyer was not the speaker, but one of the other sketches is of the person that was.

2011-03-30T10:59:00.002-05:00

DAY 30- March Sketchbook Month

Wow, only one more day left for this "sketchbook challenge"! It's been amazingly hard to keep up with, kind of sad to say. I think I've only missed a couple days (mostly for travel reasons). This is a sketch I did last night for a girl here at work for her birthday. She wanted her as the Little Mermaid- with her new hair cut she just got. I hope she likes it. -Tom

2011-03-28T21:22:00.003-05:00

DAY 28- March Sketchbook Month

The only semi-interesting thing about this drawing is that I did it on my Ipad on the plane. I've been meaning to sit down and try and learn how to use the Sketchbook Pro app and use my stylus on the Ipad, and this is the result. Not great and even at that, it took awhile. Still hard to find my way around and work with the levels and such. Then you touch the side of the screen with the side of you hand and it makes a line! Dang. This was drawn on Day 27, but posted for Day 28 so I'm counting it for both! Sue me.

2011-03-25T10:49:00.003-05:00

DAY 25: March Sketchbook Month

I went to the NC zoo the other day with the family and these are some of the sketches I did while there. I was a bit overconfident bringing the brush marker as my tool of choice, it was hard. I've seen incredible Andreas Deja animal drawings where he used a brush marker and I was trying to channel that. Like I said, a bit overconfident on my part.

2011-03-24T08:56:00.002-05:00

Day 24: March Sketchbook Month

I just felt like drawing a Disney character. I just missed drawing Ariel in the fim Little Mermaid. I was an intern at CA Disney animation when they were working on LM (1988) and would have loved to have done even one drawing that would have been in the film. Years later, Rob and I (as part of a Funnypages Productions job) got the chance to animate (briefly) Ariel, Tritan, and Ursala for a toy commercial. That's as close as I have come, which counts a little in my book.

2011-03-23T08:02:00.002-05:00

DAY 23: March Sketchbook Month

I guess I was still thinking about that little bear from yesterday. I added the basket and the running girl, and boom, you got a back story! More tomorrow.

2011-03-22T08:34:00.004-05:00

DAY 22: March Sketchbook Month

Another bad upload from the cel phone since I'm on vacation this week. I hope you like it anyway.

2011-03-21T09:45:00.003-05:00

DAY 21: March Sketchbook Month

This is a bit late today and the picture is from a phone, so sorry about that. I'm (Tom) on vacation this week and trying my best to keep up with these sketches and uploads for March Sketchbook month- and I have to use a PC! Not fun. Enjoying the NC scene with my family, though.

2011-03-18T10:53:00.003-05:00

DAY 18: MARCH SKETCHBOOK MONTH

I (Tom) was drawing pre teen pirate characters for a client and did this one for me.

2011-03-17T09:33:00.002-05:00

Day 17: March Sketchbook Month

Another one where I'm (Tom) trying to be a comic book artist. My first Thor, though.

2011-03-16T09:57:00.003-05:00

DAY 16: March Sketchbook Month

One I (Tom) did this morning before work. Names have been changed to protect the innocent- and the sensitive.

2011-03-15T13:01:00.002-05:00

Day 15_ March Sketchbook Month

I know it looks like we missed a bunch of days (jumping from day 10 to day 15) but I just wanted to keep up with the numbering that others are using in the March Sketchbook Month event. It seems the official way to do this is to count weekends (which I have not) even though we don't post sketches on those days. So, here we are. This is a super quickie (maybe 15 minutes?) from me (Tom) today. Did it on the Cintiq, which is unusual for me. Drawing creatures is additionally unusual for me thus the success or lack there of of said sketch.

2011-03-14T13:01:00.001-05:00

Day 10: March Sketchbook Month

I (Tom) didn't have much time, but did these sketches of manga-inspired original characters during lunch. Not sure why, I just wanted to try a new style.

2011-03-11T10:53:00.003-06:00

Day 9_March Sketchbook month

Today's sketch by me (Tom) was a birthday drawing for a person here at work. I asked her what she wanted and she said (this sounds like a mad lib to me) "a hippo and a duckie dancing in a parade". I read that and THOUGHT elephant for some reason, so when my hand went a'sketchin' this is what came out. Hopefully, she'll still like it even thought its an elephant.

2011-03-10T11:06:00.003-06:00

DAY 8- March Sketchbook month

Here's one I (Tom) did in the hotel last night. I don't know why, but (one of) my goals is to one day draw a decent Captain America. Superhero guys are not my strong point (anatomy and such) so I keep practicing. This is, hopefully, one step closer. Here's hoping the movie is good too. More tomorrow!~

2011-03-09T11:07:00.002-06:00

Day 7: March Skecthbook Month

And we're back for Day 8 of Sketchbook month. Today, I (Tom) did the surfer (I'm in CA this week with some great weather, so I guess that's where this came from) and Rob did the sketch doodle page. Hope you like them and come back for more!

2011-03-08T10:54:00.004-06:00

Day 6- March Sketchbook Month

Sorry, we missed day 5 because we were traveling to CA for the week. Actually, above, is my sketch I did on the plane, so you could say its just a belated day 5 drawing and I just haven't done a day 6 one. Either way, Charlie Sheen would call us losers.

I don't love these sketches. I was watching "How to Train your Dragon" and "Waking Sleeping Beauty" so that's where the content inspiration comes from. Should have still framed the movie to do the Roy Disney, he looks terrible. There ya go.

2011-03-04T10:00:00.003-06:00

Day 4- March is Sketchbook Month

Back again for Day 4 of March Sketchbook month. Rob did the dead gunslinger and I (Tom) did "Randy the Awkward Stormtrooper." Who says cloning is an exact science?

2011-03-03T10:37:00.003-06:00

Day 3: March Sketchbook month

We're still here and doing it. The Ms. Marvel and Wolverine is by me (Tom) and the doodle sketchpage is by Rob. More to come.

2011-03-02T10:17:00.003-06:00

March Sketch Month: March 2

Day Two and we have TWO drawings. Rob did the Monkey smoking. I did the sketch doodle page packed with odd things like a disco dancing lion. THIS is what we doodle? I don't know what it means either. Thanks for looking.

2011-03-01T09:59:00.005-06:00

MARCH IS SKETCH A DAY MONTH!

Our artist friend, Cedric Hohnstadt sent out a email yesterday to all his artist pals to get us all on board to launch March as our collective and personal "Sketchbook month". A great idea and though hard to do regularly (especially for us working artists that can't post most of our client work), this blog- and we- need the extra push artistically. Between Rob and I, I'm hoping that we will make it through the month with at least ONE drawing up everyday. Hopefully two.

So, its not glamourous, but above is my sketch for the day. For me to accomplish a sketch a day, I'm going to make sure they are sketches (not Photoshop illustrations, color and all), a fairly simple subject matter, and are-generally- the first thing I think of. That's a true sketchbook sketch to me and one you can do in about 15 minutes. Well, we are doing a character design job in-house right now for a client that wants this graphic/manga/chibi style, so with that on my mind and the first character I thought of was Wonder Woman (as usual)- I combined the two for this sketch. Take if for what it is. Keep coming back here this month for more (and hopefully better) sketches from me and Rob!

Check out Cedric's blog for his sketches a day plus links to other artists that are taking the challenge: http://cedrichohnstadt.wordpress.com/

2011-02-25T10:53:00.003-06:00

Well....it's been far too long for posting anything new. You know how it is...life, work, sleep, potty breaks, etc. Anyway, these are just a small handful of misc. doodles that I've done over the last few weeks that I thought would be fun to look at. Nothing related to work stuff right now, we're still back and forth to LA and buried with a lot of art we can't show just yet. I hope you enjoy these and we'll try to be better about updating the blog for those who still stumble in every once in a while!

2010-12-06T16:53:00.002-06:00

Our good friend Mike Maihack asked us a long while back to contribute a story to his new publishing venture "Parable".
So Tom and I got busy with it and created a story that I wrote, Tom illustrated and Monika Brozda painted. The story is called "Mamaw and Bigfoot" So if your interested you can click on the links below and preview some of the stories and art that a handful of other talented writers and artists contributed to Parable! Please pass it along if you know anyone else that might be interested.

All orders placed before Jan 31st are 30% off and include a free digital download for instant reading. Orders taken by Dec 9th will get their books in time for Christmas. Parable will also be up on Amazon and a few other places in a couple of weeks as well, but the Lamp Post store is the only place people will be able to order the bundled package. The ebook is also available separately: http://lamppostinc.com/PARABLE-Volume-1-EBOOK-1-60039-173-7e.htm

There's also a 70 page preview up on the Parable site: http://parablecomic.com/parable-vol-1-preview/

2010-10-01T14:06:00.003-05:00

"SOAR" faux movie poster design

This one is kind of an oldie but a goodie (we think so anyway). It's a job we did for a couple of former Disney animation buddies that were directing a bunch of commercials and stuff. This was a job they directed for the "Silence is Golden" campaign that movie theaters were running at the time (AMC theaters, I think). The campaign used fake movie trailers (mostly live action) for action films, romance, thrillers, etc. that would be interrupted by a cel phone going off. They were very clever and the audience usually didn't know it was a fake till the cel phone went off. Well, they eventually did a fake animated film trailer. The goal was obviously to make it look like a Disney film and most of the animators, designers, etc involved were former Disney artists to boot. Rob and I were asked to create the movie poster that would be hanging in the theatre hallways for the fake animated film called "SOAR" (about a baby eagle coming of age). Here is the tight pencilled version that we created and the final color by the talented (former Disney movie poster illustrator) Corey Wolfe. I can't wait to see it, how about you?

2010-09-10T09:27:00.004-05:00

Some recent Illustrations

These are three illustrations I (Tom) did for different art contests recently. The first one is for a contest with a theme of "Family Dog", the second one is for a contest with a theme of "Nightmares", which is which should be obvious. Both of those didn't win but I had fun doing them. The third one if for a "Scott Pilgrim" film tie-in. It's goal was to design the "8th Evil Ex-Boyfriend" that Scott would have to fight. My entry of "Todd Thrash" is one of the 25 semi-finalists as of this writing. There will be three winners chosen (first to third) by "Scott Pilgrim" creator Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Family dog and Todd Thrash are inked with Pitt Brush pens and the Nightmare one is ball point pen. All three are colored in Photoshop with various levels of complexity.

2010-08-19T11:35:00.003-05:00

Well....it's been a while since we've posted anything new and so I got a few minutes to pull a few things together that I thought might be fun. These are just a handful of concepts that were created for a client that was looking to brand a product that involved birds. We did several different variations until we landed on a style that the client felt met the look they were going for. We then had the every talented, and oh so smooth Chuck Vollmer lay down some sweet color on the final approved line up.

2010-06-29T23:08:00.003-05:00

New Wonder Woman Costume

My family is out of town, I'm working late, and I just saw the new design (by Jim Lee) of Wonder Woman's new costume. Its the perfect storm for me to do a Wonder Woman sketch. It doesn't take much anyway. Anyway, we haven't posted anything in waaaay too long, so it seemed like the right thing to do.

2010-04-16T09:21:00.005-05:00

I'm doing a commission piece for a nice lady in Australia that requested some sketches of Wonder Woman. She didn't have to twist my are too much because WW is my favorite "default" character (a default character is the thing you draw when you can't think of what you want to draw; trademark pending). These are a bunch of sketches I've done recently to either warm up or as finals for the end piece. Its nice weather out these days and its a great time to live in Nashville. I hope all is well in your neck of the woods too.

2010-03-26T16:49:00.003-05:00

Wolf concept
This is just a design I was messing around with and decided to post. I did several versions, but liked this goofy looking one best.
I included the rough and the tight pencil with a couple of expressions as a way to show how I refined the rough, added more details and got it to a point where I felt like I was done. Our process usually consists of doing several rough designs similar to this and sending them to the client for approval. The client then can take those rough designs and more or less mix and match elements from the drawings to give us a finer target to shoot for. We then take that feedback and do a new version, and again go for an approval from the client. Once that happens, we do a tighter more refined image and again send it to the client for review. Once we get approval on that we typically do a model sheet with a character turn around along with a page of expressions and 4 to 6 character poses. Finally, after discussing color options with the client, we'll do a few quick examples of color on the character. Another round of approvals follow, and then we are off to the races and do a final color pass, prepare the files and get them off to the extremely happy client! Then we make phone calls, do more work and wait to get paid! Ahhhhh! Life is gooood!

2010-03-12T12:35:00.002-06:00

TOMO 7 and 8 COVER sketches/progression

As we've mentioned here before, we create a Christian Manga series called "TOMO" that is published via Zondervan publishing. Never seen it? That seems to be the case with most people. Really, you wouldn't unless you frequent Christian book stores. At any rate, it's a series that we have been working on for over 3 years now and we are finally up to the final chapter, book 8, which will wrap it all up! We've fallen behind on bloging recently, and especially on TOMO related blogs, so this is a two-fer. The cover art progression for book 7 (in stores now!) and the three roughs we submitted as suggestions for book 8's cover.

For Book 7, (the one with the collage image of 4 characters) I did the rough concept, Rob inked it (second image in the lineup), and the talented Josh Ray colored it for us.

For the BOOk 8 cover roughs, these are the three concepts I submitted in rough and we haven't gotten to the inks and colors yet. The publishers picked the image #1 out of the three. My favorite was #2, but (the editors thought this too) it really doesn't apply to the story as well as image #1. Thanks for checking out our blog!

2010-02-01T13:34:00.005-06:00

More BLAIR inspired Superheroes!

I've been really getting into these. It's fun to try and simplify a character like this but (hopefully) still retain it's "look" and keep it dynamic. Sometimes, though, its a bit too tough to break out of my "comic book mode" and go fully into the "Mary Blair" simplification mode. They are so polar opposite parts of the creative part of my brain. So, to me, some of these are more successful than others. I felt I was getting "off" so much that I put together the X-Men as one piece (the were all created separately) so that I could get an idea of how the look together. Like I said, some tweaking and messaging still needs to happen. IF I can get the time and energy to make those tweaks, that is. Yes, I know I forgot Nightcrawler's tail. Hope you like them.

2010-01-14T15:54:00.003-06:00

Superheroes ALA Blair

I've been illustrating some children's books recently and Mary Blair is the style inspiration. Which is great fun. Of course, me being me, it got me doodling superheroes in a similar style. I'd like to do a few more and put them together in Photoshop as one big image. Hope you all like them!

2009-12-15T11:02:00.000-06:00

Cat Scratch Fever!
I was almost afraid to add anything new to the blog for a while for fear that it would distract from the auction for the Hodge family. There have been some great donations and amazing support for the family and what they are going through right now, and what could potentially be an extended period of time, so our prayers are with the Hodges, and go out to all of those who are contributing to the auction during their tremendous time of need.
Okay.....so this is an image that I recently did for a friend as a secret santa gift. I drew their name and don't know the slightest thing about them, other than they are really nice. There is a $25.00 limit on the gift and I just didn't want to go out and just get something they wouldn't want, so I decided to pull out the old watercolors and do an original piece of art. I figured I would do something that would be funny, I would enjoy doing and hope it would be something they'd like. So here's what I was able to come up with over the weekend. I signed it and put it in a real nice wood frame and will be giving it to them at the Christmas party here in LA on Thursday. So I'll let you know how it goes.....I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!

2009-11-15T18:39:00.000-06:00

Hello everyone! We need your help with something. A group of us are putting together a huge Ebay art auction for the Hodge family and their son, Matt. Tim Hodge (the dad) is a long time friend (both Rob and my families have know theirs since our kids where babies!) and Tim is a former Disney storyboard artist and Big Ides Productions director. His son, Matt, a 17-year old senior in high school was in a terrible accident when his car was hit by a train a couple months ago. He is still in a coma because of the head trauma. Their family is in need of financial help. Thus, the art auction.

The plan is to have the auction hit Ebay in about a month (beginning of December). We have sent out notes to some of the biggest names in animation, comic books, comic strips, and illustration for donations. We are getting in great artwork every day! (I met with John Pomoroy yesterday, who contributed a signed animation drawing!)

We have teamed up with the National Cartoonist Society Foundation so that it can be a not-for-profit charity auction. This means that all purchases will be tax deductible!

Please go to our preview site at: helpthehodges.com to see what has come in so far and keep going back for more and more artwork as it comes in and updates about the auction. I'm counting on all of you to spread the news about this site and auction! Tell all your friends, these will make GREAT CHRISTMAS PRESENTS!

Some of the artists that have donated or have promised to are: J. Scott Campbell, Chris Sanders, John Pomeroy, Drew Struzen, Peter DeSeve, Stephen Silvers, Charles Schulz's family, Patrick McDonnell, and so many more! Above are just three of the pieces that will be in the auction: a gorilla illustration by Drew Struzan, a "Princess and the Frog" poster signed by the directors and key animators, and an original "MUTTS" comic strip by Patrick McDonnell!

2009-11-09T14:47:00.000-06:00

Back in Tennessee and loving it!

The Funnypages crew of Rob, Chuck Vollmer and myself are back in Nashville area for the week! The fall leaves are a'falling too. It looks great still, but just a little past peak. Great weather this last weekend too. At any rate, here are a few more "plane" drawings I've done in my sketchbook recently. One is just some experimenting with cartoony head construction/angles, another is an inked drawing (done with Pitt brush pens) that is inspired by the cover of Entertainment Weekly from a couple weeks ago (with the girl from GLEE on it), and lastly, a sketch of a guy on a plane. As strange as it sounds, this is my favorite sketch in my sketchbook so far. It was spontaneous and just flowed out as I sketched. That rarely happens as effortlessly as this one did. It was just fun, not that kind of sketchbook drawing where you don't know what to draw and you search around the page aimlessly. That's my usual experience, it seems. Hope your Fall is as nice as we are having!

2009-10-23T10:39:00.000-05:00

Drawergeeks and a sketch

Happy Halloween to everyone (a week early). We'll be out of town next week so I thought I'd mention it. Also, because of the art in this post. Two of the images above are for this week's Drawergeeks.com subject: Frankenstein. As usual, I wanted to find an "angle" for my Frankenstein rather than the usual version from the movies. I do these on the plane and in my couple free moments here and there, so if they aren't fun for me it won't happen. I colored the "manga" inspired, action hero version at lunch yesterday. I wish I could have colored the "Hello Kitty" inspired one, it really needs it to "sell" the cuteness factor. The other image is some sketches I did of my "bad guy" superhero, Captain Dynamo, from the way old "Opposite Forces" series I did. He's fun to draw. Thanks to everyone that has become a "fan" of this blog, we appreciate you coming by and seeing what's up.

2009-10-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

MISCELLANEOUS STUFF

Rob and I have been busy with a ton of day work and lots of night "extra" work. Some of it is paid stuff, some of it for a friend in need, some for a friend that just had a baby, some just for fun. So, lots of random stuff. The best part of this post: above is art from me AND ROB, together again! It's been awhile. Here's the run down:

A couple sketchbook images from Rob (used with permission this time). The alien warrior was a lunch doodle he did while we all watched a movie (part of one, too much work to watch the whole thing in one sitting). I liked this little guy and the thought that went into it, so I suggested he post it. This is what James Cameron's AVATAR should look like! The other two are two guys that go with the crazy hillbilly band that Rob is putting together one by one (see last post). I think these are childhood memories for him.

The other stuff is from me. The color Simba and the Mushu are both drawings for a co-worker's new baby. (Both are copyright Disney, of course.) Also, the sketch for Mushu is there. I didn't have a lightbox with me at home, so I just used it for reference, but missed the tilt in Mushu's head, so I'm less happy with the color version. Hopefully the baby won't mind. Rob's doing a couple too, maybe he'll post his stuff next. She bribed us with food, it always works. Lastly, is my submission for this weeks "Drawergeeks" drawing (www.drawergeeks.com) for "Where the Wild Things Are". Unfortunately, my friend that heads up that site didn't get my submission this week so it didn't make the posting today. Hopefully he'll add it down the road for posterity. Enjoy and let us know what you think!

2009-10-02T10:51:00.000-05:00

"Sangin' for my supper!"
I wanted to post something completely random and utterly ridiculous!
I haven't put anything up in awhile and wanted to throw a quick doodle I did and get away from all the superhero stuff.
I need to get back to getting stuff scanned and up on the blog and will be doing just that over the next week or so. The comments and traffic are way down on most blogs now days, but it's great to see members joining up and following our mission to conquer the world of art and animation!!! I'd like to thank each of you personally, but since I'm only one person, please think of a sweet song and pretend hillbilly boy is sangin' it just for you!!!!

2009-09-23T09:07:00.000-05:00

More DRAWERGEEKS AND SKETCHBOOK STUFF

I missed a Drawergeeks (drawing club) a week or so ago and the topic was "The Incredibles", which hurt. I wanted to do that one. Ah well, this weeks is PUNISHER. Not my kind of character at all (though I loved the John Romita Jr. run, but that was because of him, not the character.). I did one "straight" and one where I played with the idea of reimagining the character. In this case, I thought of "what if the Punisher was the teen aged daughter of the original Punisher". What would she "punish"? See above for the result. The cartoony version of the original Frank Castle Punisher is (in my mind only, I did both of these on the plane so had no reference for different art styles) inspired by Wally Wood's "Superdooperman" style he did for the early Mad comic. Anyway, that's that.

The drawing of the big nosed kid is just for fun too. I like to experiment with expressions and it's a good challenge to stay withing a character design and draw it from different angles and expressions. It also makes it more about the expressions than the design since you aren't making up new characters for each expression.

Lastly, the Wonder Woman is my old standby. Easy costume, so I don't have to try and remember too many details. And it speaks to my constant need to draw superheroes- girls especially. Why do I do draw them all the time? Mostly because it's not my day job. It's fun to push yourself into different areas. That's the goal anyway.

2009-09-09T16:51:00.000-05:00

Boggity Blog Blog Stuff

As usual, we are busy with stuff we can't show. Why do we have a company blog when we can't show what we do at said company? A good question. I guess that's why we show stuff from two years ago, much of the time. Or sketchbook fodder. This is from the latter category. I stole Rob's when he wasn't looking and scanned some of the stuff I liked. His are the cute little kids. I also scanned some of my older sketchbook stuff. So, this is a mix up of characters, styles and cartoony-ness. Hopefully there is something here that you likes and gets you to want to pick up your sketchbook too. Hey, that's why we go to blogs and I know you're no different from us. Can I hear an "amen"?

2009-08-25T17:15:00.000-05:00

POISON IVY by Tom B.

Rob and I are a part of an online art group called Drawergeeks. Its a group started some 7 years ago with the artists at Big Idea at the time. The founder of the group sends out an email with a subject or character (like "witch, Spiderman, elf, etc) and we all do our version of it. By "we" I mean "they" because I rarely submit, just lurk. With the traveling we are doing now I've given myself a challenge to try and use the time in the hotel and on the plane as "wisely" as I can. In this case, it meant finally doing a Drawergeeks character. I thought it was do last Friday, but I think its due this Friday, so I actually got it done early. Above are my sketches of a few ideas. The pencil one is the first one I did but the arm is awkward and the silhouette is too. I like the closeness I got between her and the plant (kind of like she's feeding her child, but in a grisly way) but not much else. Rob threw out the idea of her being more upright and having a steak in her hands. That worked much better, so I added a few more of he little guys jumping for their dinner. Above are the inks (all done on the plane with Rob and Chuck Vollmer on both sides of me snoring or bumping my arm!) and the Photoshop color version final. I had done another sketch of a bit more "racy" idea of how she gets dressed. I like the idea of the leaves and vines coming to her as she gets dressed but there are a bit too many anatomy problems with this one for me to love it.

See some of the past submissions at www.drawergeeks.com.

Btw, Drawergeeks is a "invitation only" club, sorry. There are many people that have been invited in from all over the industry but they have to know someone involved and the founder has to allow them in.

2009-08-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

Comic Con, Travel, and Shane Glines....

The post images above are from a new sketchbook I started. As most of you know, Rob and I are traveling A LOT right now. Pretty much every other week, we go to CA to work a very compact week as art directors for a new kids website that will launch later this year. (More on that when we can talk about it.) These drawings are all elements of timing: I needed a new sketchbook, had a birthday which got some b-day money in my pocket to buy said new sketchbook, for that birthday my brother got me the new Shane Glines art book, and we traveled last week and I brought both. A "perfect storm" for me to draw Glines inspired girls. (It doesn't take all that anyway, but I did feel inspired to try some different things. The rough one is more Glines than the girl in the baggy sweater, so hopefully you can see a little bit of variety. Most of the stuff in his art book are inked and colored, so that's the other reason I went so tight. I like his inks and wanted to try that a bit too. I hope you enjoy these, let me know what you think. Rob needs to post next, huh? You should let him know.

Also, we had a blast at Comic con a couple weeks ago. It was only for the day but saw a bunch of amazing work and products. It's both inspiring and humbling to see everyone's great work there! Makes me want to do more!

2009-07-20T12:36:00.000-05:00

Just in time for SD COMIC CON....

Rob and I will be walking the floor of San Diego comic con on Thursday and (though it will be short) we're really looking forward to it. It's been about 4 years since we went to SD con and that's waaay too long for me.

So, to celebrate the occasion, we decided to show NEVER BEFORE SEEN artwork from a secret project we were doing for DC comics about a year and a half ago. Why show it now? Because we couldn't show it since it was going to be published. Since it never was (and it's been so long) it feels "safe" enough to show some of it. We wrote, designed, and drew a 22 page comic called DCU: Elementary. The concept was pitched to us as all the heroes and villains of the DC Universe crossed with "The Little Rascals". So, they are all around 6-8 years old, go to the same school, and live in the same neighborhood. We loved the idea and really had a ball doing this. If it sounds familiar to "Tiny Titans", it is. We were working on our project at the same time as those guys, but we didn't know what they were doing and they didn't know what we were doing. Only the editor knew. There's came out first and we think that's why ours was killed- too similar. So, totally finished comic book, completely paid for by DC, and never printed. Dream project killed! Depression followed.

Above (going bottom to top) is the back up story (5 pages) called "No Boys allowed" where the boy heroes discover the girl heroes have a secret hideout and they are going crazy trying to find out what they are up to in there! (Yes, it's lead-lined so Supes can't see into it.) I wrote and illustrated that story. Rob wrote and illustrated the other one and two page gags above that are supposed to be simple set ups with a visual gag for the last panel. Kinda like a Mad mag gag. Again, it was a blast writing and drawing this stuff! We had another 11 page front story that introduces some of the schools faculty, the school, and even the neighborhood briefly. Maybe we'll show that another time. Let us know what you think (and tell DC what they missed out on)!!

All these pages were inked by the talented Howard Shum and colored by the equally talented Joey Mason (both of whom have worked together before on the indy "Gun Fu"). Hit it waaaay out of the park guys!

2009-06-29T20:48:00.001-05:00

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.

2009-06-04T11:07:00.000-05:00

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

2009-05-22T10:23:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-05-06T09:29:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-04-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-04-06T19:35:00.000-05:00

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.

2009-03-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

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!

2009-03-11T17:49:00.000-05:00

RANDOMNESS

In an effort to "feed the blog", which we haven't done so well at recently, I am offering up a bunch of random stuff. The thing that ties these images all together, other than being produced by Funnypages, is that they are all illustration jobs we've done within the last few months. Illustration work usually fits in nicely in between the bigger, more time consuming, animation development work we do. Often times, it's a nice "breather" that affords Rob and I a chance to sit down and just draw. That's always fun. The "Anti-Smoking" posters are a few more from a health poster job that we did months back. We did about 13-18 different posters, all with different messages for that job. It was fun. The three kids character designs were for an online comic job we were writing and drawing that didn't make it. The economy pulled the plug on that one. These designs were based off of the clients preliminary designs and is based on a major online video game property. Nuff' said. Lastly, there is a "Cinderella" image that was for a client we do a lot of work for designing music book covers for their plays. See, randomness.

We're working on stuff we can't show right now, but hopefully will have sketchbook stuff or something next.

2009-02-24T10:20:00.000-06:00

TOMO #7 COVER PROGRESSION

Anyone who follows this blog or our company knows that, among our other client work, we put out a 150 page graphic novel for Zondervan publishing every 6 months or so. It's called "TOMO" and it's a project that we are proud of. It's an 8 book epic series with the first 5 books "on the shelves", book 6 about to come out, book 7 in production (script complete, being drawn), and book 8 in outline form about to be written. It's hard to believe we are THAT close (fingers close together) to getting this story completed! It's been over two years already since we started this journey. Since all the pages for the first 6 books are done, that comes to a total of 900 pages illustrated already! Only 300 more to go!

As we've mentioned before, if Rob and I were drawing all 1200 of those pages, we wouldn't have time for anything else and we'd be working out of a box because it would take us forever. Because of that fact and that we don't draw in a "manga" style, we hired the talented Ariel Padilla and his team in the Philippines to illustrate the series and we art direct. Writing is by the talented Jim Krueger with us providing the outlines and direction.

But, one thing we do get to draw are the covers. So, above is the cover we created for the upcoming Book 7. The first two sketches are two of the initial concepts we presented. They liked the "montage" version so we inked that up and had the our TOMO cover colorist, Josh Ray, color it up.

2009-02-10T13:27:00.000-06:00

FUNNYPAGES IN THE NEWS!

Our local paper, The Tennessean, did a front page article in the county section about our company, Funnypages Productions. It focused on Rob and I and some of the work we do but also had a side focus on some of the art collection we have on the walls. We've been meaning to meet Cedric Hohnstadt's blog comment request that we need to show pics of the art on the walls, so some of the photos above (from the article) can serve as phase one of that blog post that is still coming. Sorry Cedric, we'll do it one day soon. The Pinocchio drawing is an original rough from the film by Milt Kahl, the Peter Pan is by Disney animator Hal Ambro (who worked in Milt's unit back then), and the much scribbled upon "Pumbaa" is from Lion King and was animated by Tony Bancroft (my brother). He and the voice of Pumbaa, Ernie Saballa, signed all over it in big black marker. What's up with that?

If you want to read the article in full go here:
http://tennessean.com/article/20090210/COUNTY090101/902100311/1164/COUNTY09
And, yes, Rob likes to draw in a very dark room. I'm scared every time I go in his office!
Thanks, more soon!

2009-01-21T17:28:00.000-06:00

"KARITO KIDS" - BOOK illustrations

Sorry we haven't posted recently. This one is kinda an oldy, but one that keeps coming back. We have illustrated the artwork/character designs for a doll company in California, "KidsGive" makers of the "KARITO KIDS" dolls. They are a line similar in size and quality to "American Girl" dolls but they are a little taller and each doll comes from a different country. Like AG dolls, each doll also comes with an exciting adventure that that girl/doll goes on. In this case, it's also very informative about the culture of that particular country. Illustrating them, I can say we've learned a thing or two. Lots of research goes into these, and because fashion is a big part of the doll line, lots of costume changes too! We've been working on these books for a few years now, off and on. We've illustrated 6 books, with one more almost completed. Above are sample illustrations from 5 of the books. We came up with a fairly simple style so we could keep the price down for the start up company and also meet the deadlines. It's been a fun style to work in too. It's loosely based on the "Spiderwick" book style, with a loose, sketchy line and grey tones added. In our case, we pencil them in blue pencil, "ink" them with ball tip pens, scan, and add between 4-6 grey tones in Photoshop to separate things a bit or add drama to the scene. They reproduce pretty well. Let us know what you think!

2008-12-29T17:31:00.001-06:00

A Couple of New Things:
Ok, anybody that knows me knows I don't like to just sit around, so I wanted to show a couple of things I recently completed.
The first few images are a few of the pages and inserts from a "Grail Diary" that I actually made for one of my best friends. The "Grail Diary" made it's appearance in "The Last Crusade", the third movie in the Indiana Jones series and starred Sean Connery as Indi's father. In that movie he carried a diary he kept as he searched for the cup that was used by Christ during the last supper. The legendary "Holy Grail"! Anyway....this friend of mine would drop not so subtle hints from time to time that if he could have anything, it would be a copy of the the Grail Diary, so after a few years I began to seriously look into the idea of creating one myself and did a lot of research on line. There was a lot of information out there and I was able to find out how to make not only the pages, the inserts and illustrations, but how to physically make the book itself. Everything from how to cut and stitch the pages, how to stain and tea dye them, to cutting the board and stretching and binding the diary with leather. I mean I went crazy and worked for a few months on this thing and hand drew each page and wrote every line of text from the reference I found, plus added a few extra pages of text taken from the Raider's computer game to help fill out the pages a bit more. While not completely screen accurate, I was pretty happy with the result. In order to ship it to my friend, I was able to find a wooden box that looked like a small version of the crate they used to store the "Arc of the Covenant" in the first Indiana Jones movie and the diary I created fit perfectly into it. I even put small nails and aged that to look old and well worn. I never told him anything about what I was doing and just boxed everything up and sent it to him and waited. I was a little scared that it would get lost in the mail, but it arrived safely and he was a little more than surprised when he opened it. In my excitement to get it over to him I didn't make any copies or pictures of the book or box, but he was able to send over copies of the pages and would be getting pictures done and send them over to me......hear that John??? Pictures of the book and box???? Hmmmm???? Anyway, I'll post those when I get them...."Right, John????"

The other image is a sculpture that I just completed over the holiday weekend. I have always loved to sculpt and so I had a little time to sit down and make this creepy fish. monster, thing. Several years back when I was still at Disney, a friend of mine gave me a container with a little alien floating around in it and I always thought it would be cool to have a bunch of stuff like that on a shelf in my studio.....gross, I know, but weird in a cool way too. So I went out and bought a jar with the idea that I'd make something to shove into it. I didn't have a real plan for what it would be, I just figured i would be something that would look creepy in a jar full of yellow water. Well....as I began to get all fancy and creative, I wound up making the thing too dang big to fit in my jar, so I painted it and made a base for it instead. I used "Super Sculpey", 2 small clear marbles for the eyes and since I'm a pack rat....I was able to use a few real prehistoric sharks teeth that I found on Vero Beach near Sarasota Florida during my days at Ringling. Once I finally figured out what color to paint it, I sprayed it with several layers of a good clear coat to give it that slick, slimy out of water look. Enjoy!

2008-12-16T14:00:00.000-06:00

TOM B. Sketchbook scribbles

Just trying to keep something up on the blog here. I mentioned awhile back that I've made it my goal to finally keep a sketchbook. It's pretty much the first time in my life I've done it. It goes in spurts, but I've really enjoyed the experience and it has kept me into drawing "just for the fun of it". Because it's just for fun, I tend to draw the same things I always like to draw- girls and superheroes- or a combo of the two. The last 5 pages of my sketchbook, all posted above just as they are in the sketchbook, I've strived to draw other things. In thinking about what else I'd like to draw, it dawned on me that I never draw Disney characters (from my past) "just for fun". Usually it's because someone requested one. So, the first few pages I did just that drawing Roger Rabbit and Mickey. My Mickey is especially off-model since I've never officially drawn him for a production, just out of my own practicing. So, this is kinda my version of him. The other stuff is just weird characters for the most part, but I did want to point out the scribble versions of the superheroes (I know, I broke my rule a bit there. Oh, and the Superman sketches did too.). The "scribble" sketch is a fun way to doodle that makes you concentrate on the gesture more than the details. John Buscuema (sp?) from "How to Draw the Marvel Way" fame talks about it in his book. Fun to do, though some of those poses are pretty un-Marvel dynamic. I guess that's why I draw cartoons.

The people drawings are all just random moving the pencil around designs, but the thin, bald guy with the glasses is based on Jim Calafore from the Weather Channel- my wife loves that station!

UPDATE: Rob showed me a good Freddy Moore fan blog site with tons of his sketches. I got inspired to try his style and did these sketches trying to analyze it. I wasn't looking at his stuff when I drew these, just from memory.

2008-11-24T12:57:00.000-06:00

Time for more drawings from the old moleskin sketchbook, well at least the one of the Great Wall is. The others are small watercolor paintings I did from photographs I took while in Beijing last December. It's getting cold here in Tennessee and I won't be out and about much to sketch so I have stock piled a lot of pictures I took to draw and paint from when I have time. So if all goes well I can post newer stuff very soon. Hope you all enjoy these!

2008-11-12T14:09:00.000-06:00

Funnypages Productions would like to officially announce the premiere of a music video we were hired by Gotee records to create for the band "Relient K"
It's the bands take on the classic Christmas song "Sleigh Ride" from their album "Let it Snow, Let it Reindeer".
Tom and I worked with a handful of talented artists and Flash animators to pull this one off and we would have been completely lost without the support of our friend and Flash guru Enoc Castaneda. Tom and I handled the story concept, boards, character designs, model sheets, layouts and editing on our end and we were able to find 7 Flash artists from Atlanta, Canada, California and Australia to animate the video. One of the great things about working on this video is that the label gave us a lot of room to just create something fun that we wanted to animate to go along with the song they selected. Tom actually came in with a pretty solid idea for a short and we brainstormed out the idea and sent an outline and a few designs over to the band and their manager. They immediately got it and said Great!...go make it!
We were able to pull a great team together and knock this out in about 8 weeks. The video will be played during the Winter Wonder Slam tour starting on Nov. 13 through Dec 14. and is posted online at absolutepunk.net and Vimeo.com.
We're really proud of how everything turned out, so check it out and let us know what you think!!

Relient K - Sleigh Ride from gotee on Vimeo.

2008-11-06T17:14:00.000-06:00

Tom Bancroft Girl Sketches

We just finished a fully animated music video (more on that soon) and it's been a bit slow for the last couple days. What do I do? Doodle girls (mostly, some other stuff too). So, I thought I'd put up a few from the last couple days as well as a couple from my sketchbook. Mostly super heroines, my favorite. The two fully colored DC and Marvel girl images are on Ebay right now in case you want one of them. Just do a search under my name and you should find them. I have bigger scans if you need to see them too. Enjoy.

2008-11-03T13:36:00.000-06:00

PEANUTS online animation!- The one that got away....

To follow up on the theme of "the ones that got away" from the last blog post, here's some artwork we did for a pitch to create original PEANUTS animated shorts for the web. Warner Brothers no has the rights to create new animation with the PEANUTS characters and we were contacted (via a friend) to be one of the many animation studios to "try out" for the honor of creating webisodes based on the classic Schultz strips. It really would have been a "dream job" for me as the PEANUTS was the strip that got me into drawing. I used to copy Snoopy drawings all the time. At any rate, all the studios were asked to create three "moments" from the PEANUTS strip, in color, to show what the animation art direction would look like. Above are the three "moments" we created. The characters were created in FLASH by our buddy, Enoc Castaneda off of drawings we gave him. The background paintings were masterfully painted by a former Disney BG painter and friend (name withheld because he is employed elsewhere). We were happy with the results and were looking forward to the next phase: animation. It wasn't to happen though, as we were cut from the "race". We heard they were going with a bigger, more established FLASH studio (probably in LA). At any rate, I read in the paper that the new shorts were launching today via Itunes, so it seems safe enough to talk about now! Let us know what you think!

2008-10-13T11:29:00.000-05:00

HALLOWEEN's A'COMIN'!

Recently, Rob and I had to get together some "classic" Monster designs for a character design job for a possible new big client. The client being 'big' was not the "possible" part, the part that they could be our 'new client' was. We had a free afternoon so we pulled together some existing designs we thought might work, then went the "extra mile" and did up some new ones also.

Well, we just heard last week we didn't get the gig. The directors "went another direction". It's too bad, but it was a long shot with all the talents at said "big clients" disposal. Worth a try.

AND we got a new blog out of it! Just in time for Halloween too, so now crying over spilt milk over here at Funnypages, no sir. We hope you enjoy the many different styles and designs, they were fun to do! Let us know what you think! Oh, and....boo!

2008-10-02T18:11:00.000-05:00

OLDer DESIGNS

We were getting some character design samples together for a new client and dug up a couple things that we haven't shown before. Two very different styles for two different projects. Both projects didn't go anywhere, unfortuntely. One was to design a school principal and above are the three different designs we produced. They should all say "uncool" guy, but with a little different attitude to each. Sloppy, anal, and outdated are the three things that come to mind with these guys. The other was for a kids Preschool "action" education show. It could have been fun. Not sure if it will ever see the light of day though. Let us know what you think.

We're working up a Halloween themed post soon also.

2008-09-22T14:54:00.000-05:00

Funnypages Interview!
Well, the live interview we did for "Mainly Franklin" was a hoot! David Webb runs the site and and has a full green screen set up he uses for other shows he's creating for the web. Tom and I were unsure what it would be like to be on "live" but it turned out to be a lot of fun and we got a kick out of being able to read the questions and comments as they came in over the web. You can see me trying to read them as they come in. Other than Tom's mom , brother, sister-in-law, nieces and relatives from Holland, we got some great comments and questions from viewers that night.
I was able to grab the code for the interview and post it here if you missed it or want to relive the moment! Thanks for everyone that caught the show and for the great feedback...we're working on doing it again sometime....hehehehe, but we won't tell Tom's family next time!!!
A big shout out to the host Todd Mitchem, who did a great job and was a genuinely funny guy!

Live video by Ustream

2008-09-17T12:02:00.000-05:00

FUNNYPAGES ONLINE TOMORROW NIGHT!!!

Sorry this is late notice, but we wanted you all to know about an online interview Rob and I are conducting tomorrow night. If you can, 'chat' us some questions or tune in. Here's the info:

We will be a interviewed ONLINE via a live broadcast TOMORROW EVENING! The information below is for the Central time zone, so please consider your time zone when going online tomorrow evening. There will be a host that will be interviewing us as a “local Franklin” business but we will also speak about some of our upcoming plans (an online art school!) as well as show some of our work. Who knows? Maybe Rob will draw something too! If you’ve worked with us but never met us is your chance to see us LIVE and uncut! Also, you can “chat” and ask questions/give comments while we broadcast! Exciting! We’ll see you then! Spread the word to anyone you think would be interested! Best, Tom and Rob

Here’s everything you need to know:

The live broadcast starts at 8PM CST tomorrow, Thursday the 18th. The website is www.FranklinTVnetwork.com

2008-09-12T18:17:00.000-05:00

HEALTH POSTER DESIGNS

Sorry, it's been awhile since we 'fed' the blog. Here's a quick one. We have a couple jobs ongoing right now, both fun in different ways. The OTHER one, we can't talk about yet, but it is an animation project that we will be able to show a bit from next month. THIS one is a series of 18 "health and safety" posters for a health centered client. These will ultimately go to different schools across the US, for grades K -12. For most subjects, we just get the blurb "Poster for high school concerning Drinking and Driving" with some statistics and such to go along with the point they want to put across. It's a tough and creative job to come up with 'solutions' to how do you show that in a way that fits this age group. We are well into this project, but I've just selected two subjects and two age groups to show you for now. Above are two sketches and one final for two different subjects. (Oh, scratch that, Blogger only will let me put up 5 images, so one of the sketches were left out.) You will be able to see which one wasn't used by the final color image. We usually do 2-3 different designs per poster concept/age group. For some posters, we do slightly different styles, so we can show more of that next post. That is if you all like these. Otherwise, onto something else, right? We love hearing from you all, so let us know what you think!

PS. THe color on these is done by incredible color artist and good buddy, Jon Conkling! All Hail the King of Color!

Talk soon, The Funnypages guys

2008-08-14T10:53:00.000-05:00

MAKING OF A COVER

A couple posts ago (see below) we mentioned this "secret" project that will more than likely not come out from a major comics publisher. It's completely finished, and has been for about a year now, but isn't slated for release for whatever reason. Still, we are proud of it and wanted to show the little bits of it that shouldn't still any thunder should it every come out one day. So, above is the "making of the cover". This is primarily all of Rob's work as I was doing other stuff (inside pages at the time, most likely). I think I jumped in to do the tight pencils over his blueline so we could get that off to the inker. Rob was out that day, I think. Anyway, only a couple roughs were done (and there may have been more, I just found these) and the clear winner played up two of the main characters with a good idea of some of the supporting characters, pro and antagonist alike. After the tight pencil phase, it was shipped (along with the other 22 interior pages) to the inker, Howard Shum. He did a great job on this. He then sent it onto our designated colorist, Joey Mason, whom also did a terrific job giving the school and characters a fun feel. I really think we all made a great team, hopefully we'll do something again one day. The "Blue" version of the Bat character was our first version and then it was decided that he should be more in the grey color scheme in the second version. (All the inside pages had to change too!) Also, you'll notice an overall desaturation of all the colors on the final. Apparently, our original colors were off the map as far as what they could print. I'm not clear enough on my Bat history to know what changes he's gone through color-wise, but we stayed pretty "old school" on most of the characters costumes and colors, so I kinda miss the blueish one. Let us know what you think, we kinda like this one. The little red guy is one of my favorites!

Artwork by Funnypages Productions. Characters are Copyright the respective copyright holders.

2008-07-30T15:03:00.001-05:00

NEED YOUR COMMENTS!

We, here at Funnypages Productions (that's Tom and Rob, primarily), try to be careful about "letting the cat out of the bag" about what we are working on or planning for our company. Usually, that's because we can't. NDA's and all. In other cases, it's because we really want to announce something when it's fully baked. That seems to be a good plan most days.

Not this time.

After a few years of thinking about it and going back and forth on the best way to do it: Rob and I have decided we are going to start an ONLINE ART SCHOOL. That's not the name of it of course, but you get the idea. The idea is that we will start it semi-small at first. A kind of Phase one, with other phases to go into effect if all goes well. Maybe between 3-5 different classes with up to 10-20 people in each. (Maybe that sounds like alot, maybe it is, but there IS two of us.) This would be a "mentorship" style program where we would produce streaming video lectures per lesson and then issue a homework assignment that goes with that lesson. We would go over each homework assignment ourselves and provide instruction and drawings to specifically address your drawing assignment. All sent back to you via the 'net. Each class could be 6 weeks long, more or less.

All the classes (in Phase one) would revolve around drawing principles.

Our initial thought is that we need to have a "drawing fundamentals" class (that could be used as a prerequisite for some of the Level 2 classes) designed for more beginning artists and, perhaps, talented kids. From there, our thought is to have a "character design class", a " Illustration storytelling" class that would revolve around character-centered illustration involving layout and composition challenges (like children's books, comics, etc.), and " Poses and expressions", taking new and established characters and bringing them to life!

So, here's where you come in. What do you think? Would you or someone you know be interested in having 2 experienced animator, illustrator, director types mentor them (uh...for a price)? What do you think of those classes outlined above? Any others that sound good? Anyone take another online class like this and want to throw out pros and cons for us to think about? We would love the input as we prepare to launch the site. Thanks!

2008-07-14T15:41:00.000-05:00

WHAT THE--Big secret!!!

Okay, this is crazy, but we're putting these up to see what you all think. Imagine you're a little art studio that makes kid-friendly products and one day, you get a call from a major comic book publisher. You might even say they are one of the top two comic book publishers. The editor says we'd like you to create the "elementary aged version of all of our heroes and villians for a new comic book one-shot- or series- we'll see". "You know, like The Little Rascals meets our universe- and they all go to the same school together." Sold. For a guy like me (this is Tom), that's the call you were waiting for but thought would never come! Sooooo, loooong story short, that was well over a year ago. We designed many characters for said comic, drew up 6 different "moments" to show off the style and "feel" of the comic, and illustrated the ENTIRE comic- the cover and all 22 pages! We wrote the comic too, so that was fun. (Disclaimer: said company DID pay us and other artists we employed in FULL, no beefs there.). I won't say what comic company this is for, just in case it ends up coming out, okay? (Please help us keep this secret, okay? Shhhh.) So, above are 4 of those "moments" that we illustrated along with some of the character designs for the heroes and villians one might see in the first issue if one ever saw it published. Sigh. Anyone loving Tiny Titans? Yeah? That's nice.

Art and story development by Tom Bancroft and Rob Corley, inks by Howard Shum, colors by Joey Mason. Let us know what you think! (This might be all the input we ever hear!)

BTW, for those that have seen this blog in the last year, this (undisclosed) project IS the one we hinted about almost a year ago! Yeah, it's been that long.

Oh yeah and.....
All characters in this blog posting are copyright their respective copyright holder.

2008-06-30T13:32:00.000-05:00

Ok.....I just got back from a great week long trip to Louisiana with the family and was able to do some more Moleskin sketchbook drawings. Some are places that I spent a lot of time at as a kid....like the creek behind my parents house. The others are areas around Pollock and one is a good friends house. Yep, that's his shed and dog house I said he needed to bulldoze or set on fire. Stuart Lake is on Kisatche National Forest land and has always been a popular Pollock swimming hole. Anyway...here they are and hope you enjoy em'!

2008-06-18T12:49:00.000-05:00

MUG SHOTS: Ok, so I've always been interested in drawing crazy, slightly twisted and zany stuff anyway and when I started finding mug shot pictures online it was like......well, like a gold mine of the slightly twisted! Now, don't get me wrong. I take no joy in the misfortune of others, but I'm fascinated by the non-glamourous expressions and irregular structure of the faces. Since I like to work on my skills these are just too dang funny not to draw. Anyway.....I wanted to post a few that I did recently and get some feedback, tips and constructive criticism from my non-glamourous, slightly twisted and zany artist friends!

2008-06-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

And now for something completely different.....some sketches. I just got another Moleskin sketchbook and man those things ain't cheap and the dad-gum price went up on them again! They're not the kind of thing I want to just doodle in, so I try real hard to treat every page like it's my last....sad, huh? I really like the size of these, but if anyone knows of another brand similar, but cheaper? I'd appreciate it. I plan on going back and do some simple color washes over a couple of these when I have time and repost them. I'm glad it's gotten warmer, and I can now go out and do more drawing now and I hope to fill this one up soon..so get me any reference you can before I go and buy another one of these things!!!! Oh....and leave me some feedback (good or bad) on the stuff I posted!

2008-05-30T13:39:00.000-05:00

DUCK DODGERS and Celebrity

Some say it's a glamorous life we lead as cartoonists. I hate to break it to you, but-usually- it's not. It's mostly just drawing at your desk hour after hour trying to hit a deadline for a client. Every once in awhile you get to see the effect a film you worked on had on someone, see a piece of your art used in a nationwide ad, or maybe even see your name on a TV or theatre screen with your kids. Those are good times and a little pay back for all the hours of hard work and the names you might have been called in school. Then there are days like today. Where things go even further than meer accolades into the realm of...well....celebrity.

These stills are from an episode of "Duck Dodgers in the 25th and a half Century" that I storyboarded back in 2005. Rob and I both did boards for two episodes. Episodes were made up of two 11 minute shorts, so for this episode I did the opening short, "The Kids Are All Wrong" and Rob boarded the other one, "Win, Lose, or Duck" (which has a game show host voiced by the then not so well known Dane Cook, btw). These stills are from scenes where Dodgers and the Cadet are back in high school. The script called for lots of high school students in tons of shots so I got a little bored and threw in a few extra designs here and there. The teen listening to Cadet intensely is me (with a bit more hair maybe) and the teen yelling something is Rob (they almost got his colors just right too). Good times. Does anyone still remember this Cartoon Network show? No? Well, will they remember Tom and Rob? Maybe. Ahhhh...celebrity, we drink from you this day.

We never saw these episodes completed, until we looked on YouTube today. Good times.

Also, here's a link to this episode on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRVYl51HDwY
and here's a link to Rob's episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbM3QrFWa8c&feature=related

2008-05-29T12:03:00.000-05:00

Black, White and Tan

These are a few pages from a children's book we created for a Christian music artist recently. It's done in kind of a sketchy style with simple color which made it fun to do. These were three pages that I put together so you can see the whole lineup of characters. The book is called Black, White and Tan and is about ethnicity, obviously. It was fun and a bit of a challenge to produce all of these different ages, sizes, races, costumes and genders all on three different drawings. Hopefully you can tell what countries they are supposed to represent by their "looks". Look closely, you might see a little "Harry Potter" influence in the English kid.

Sorry it's been awhile since the last post. We just finished a big storyboarding job for a feature film out of California. That kind of work doesn't lend itself to being able to blog anything. More stuff to come.

2008-05-05T15:38:00.000-05:00

TOM B. Sketchbook drawings

It's always hard for me to admit this: I don't like drawing in sketchbooks. I think it's because I'm a "large drawer". I draw things on the big side. When I was animating at Disney I would always need to go to the layout department and see if they could tweak a camera fielding larger because I had animated past it too much. Big movements, big drawings- I needed room! Same with sketchbooks. I have a medium sized one now and it's just a little too small for me. I keep going into the gutter with my drawings or my hand is falling off the right side (I'm right handed). I've seen a couple things online that have inspired me to try again. One was a blog by Jeremy VanHooser where he posted some fun sketchbook drawings. In his post, he mentioned that he keeps his sketchbook by his scanner so that while he's waiting on a scan he does some sketching. That's a good idea, but it can turn into not getting any work-or scans- done really easy. The other thing I'm doing is something I learned from by buddy/biz partner Rob- he does sketches "outside his sketchbook" on scraps of paper and if he likes them, he pastes them into his sketchbook. That helps fight the dreaded, " I have to do everything great in this sketchbook" syndrome. Also, I need my own encouragement to see a couple of those other sketches (done outside the sketchbook) that I CAN draw sometimes. I've also read blogs by some of those crazy talented Canadians (Bobby Chiu and others) where they say their whole studio takes an hour or so and does "warm up" drawings (which they post on their blog). That's another kick in the bottom. I don't know how Jeremy and Bobby get much work done though, I never feel like I have that kind of time I can take away from the deadline work. Okay, I'm just complaining now. Above are drawings from my sketchbook. I hope you like them.

EDIT: When Rob saw this post, he slide over this drawing illustrating his version of me drawing too big. It also has the added "comment" on what I like to draw in my sketchbook. Love it.

EDIT 2: I did up a quicky color version of the Superhero above. I tried some new charcoal 'brushes' in Photoshop that Cedric Hohnstadt (sp?) suggested. Kinda fun and quick.

2008-04-15T09:57:00.000-05:00

Goodbye OLLIE JOHNSTON

As I'm sure you've heard all over the webisphere, Ollie Johnston, the last of Disney's "Nine Old Men" of animation, has died. A lot of good memorials have already been written, but I just wanted to add a thought and at least acknowledge his passing on this blog. A good retrospective is on Cedric Honstadt's blog (look to the links on the left). Here's a personal anecdote:

When I was at CalArts, a small group of us wanted to create an art show, just before Christmas, where you could buy donated art from students and industry vets with the money going to a charity. We called it the "Winter" show, which was the theme for any new art that was created. (This is a long story that I'm trimming down, it really was a cool show we put on in a very short time with some incredible art and support from the industry.) At any rate, we were bold animation students that had fire in our hearts to create a special show for a good cause. And we had connections via our instructors. A dangerous combination. So, we were able to get Frank and Ollie's phone number and ask them if they would donate some artwork for our show. As I've heard so many times before from others, they did not turn down our request. We were putting this together in, like, a week or something and had never done it before so we didn't have the proper forms or paperwork to even prove we had a show planned. They excepted on good faith. The cool part (for us) was that they said they were working on their next book (which was "Too Funny For Words", this was around 1988, btw) so could we meet them at the Disney Research Library on Disney's main lot. Could we? I can't remember who all went on that trip to the Disney studio, but I know we crammed as many fanboy art students as would fit in the car! We got there and were escorted back to the research library where Frank and Ollie were combing through ORIGINAL DISNEY ART to find stuff to include in their book. (This was before the Animation Library was set up, so this was the little Dave Thomas run Library that is more of a "museum" now.) They knew we were gonna geek out just meeting them and they took the time to show some of the art they were looking at too- just to watch our faces! They were cool and very used to Disney and all that wonderful art obviously, but you could tell they still had a love and appreciation for it. It was personal to them. This is a Ken Anderson. This one's by Hamm. Marc did this one. To them, they saw the artists that did the drawings and fondly remembered those good times and struggles making those films. I hadn't thought of that before that day. I know this story is about both Frank and Ollie, but they were so inseparable, how do you tell a story without both of them? I will say, both of them gave so much and kept on giving to the end! I don't "know" Ollie, I've just met him a few times, but I sure am glad I did. I will always appreciate the fact that he let me and Rob and our other animation buddies stand on his shoulders to create some of the films we did. None of it would have happened without him.

Sadly, I don't remember what Frank and Ollie donated to the auction. I think it was animation roughs (probably throwaways they liked) from one of the films. The experience of meeting them for the first time-in that circumstance-was the memory for me.

The Lord be with your family, Ollie.

(Thanks to Cedric, I stole this photo of Ollie off his blog post.)

2008-04-04T09:52:00.000-05:00

TOMO INTERVIEW with Tom, Rob, and Jim Krueger

Hey all. I wanted to (belatedly) inform you that over at the comics news site, "The Pulse", there is an interview about Funnypages Productions/ Zondervan "TOMO" manga graphic novels we are producing. The interview came out well and is very informative.

Go here: http://www.comicon.com/pulse/

You will have to scroll down quite a bit, it came out a week or two ago and we forgot to post about it! I can't seem to get a direct link to it either. There's a bunch of artwork with it also. A couple of the rough sketches are shown above. One is the original designs by Rob and I of the main characters: Hana, Tomo, and Grandfather Jou. The other is a sketch of the villain characters (based on designs by us) by interior art penciler Ariel Padilla. He put all the designs through his "manga style machine" and they came out looking really cool on the other end!

Lastly, is the cover for TOMO #4 which should be coming out this summer or so. Thanks!

2008-04-02T11:42:00.000-05:00

RECENT SKETCHES

I rarely sketch in a sketchbook. I wish I did, but I just don't. Part of it is that I usually draw too big, so I don't like being 'hedged in' by binding and pages that end. When I was animating at Disney, more times than not, I would animate the character too big and then I'd have to reduce a stack of drawings on the photocopy machine and repeg it all. There are easier ways to do that in this digital world, but not then. When I get into big, long running projects like we are doing now (storyboards for a feature film), that's when I get the itch to doodle. These are sketches done late at night to "whine down" after doing storyboards all day (and night). Chunky leg girl in the middle was to try a little different body type. These are the things I doodle, like it or not. Superheroes, cartoon animals, and girls.....

2008-03-19T11:58:00.000-05:00

Alright....Enough of the sappy,sweet, sugary goodness of puffy clouds and dancing cows!!! We're busy with a few other projects right now and wanted to get something new up on the blog. These are just misc. drawings that I pulled together that were done over the last few weeks or so. A couple are preliminary concepts for client work, but the rest are just doodles. I hope you enjoy them!

2008-03-11T13:43:00.000-05:00

NEWish STUFF!

Sorry, we dropped out for a bit there. We got all excited about the website being up and then neglected this blog. We've been finishing up a bunch of larger and smaller projects of late, so nothing too fascinating to show at the second. I thought I'd throw up a couple smaller jobs we've done over the last few months that we don't always show. These are two "music book covers" we created for a local music publishing company. They are covers for music books for musicals small groups can put on for youth groups at a church. One I did, one Rob did. What we like about doing these is the fact that they give us a ton of freedom. We can usually do any kind of style, so we like to play on these a bit. Some, a bit more comic booky, some more simple, some more Disneyish, some something else. Anyway, more stuff soon. Hey, let us know what you think or want to see on this little blog that could.

2008-02-15T17:15:00.000-06:00

WOW, We're a REAL COMPANY!

After 4 long years of talking about it, we are proud to announce that we have a NEW WEBSITE!! This is big news since we have never updated our old site in the last 3 or 4 years. Everything on it before wasfrom the first 6 months of our company plus some other odds and ends. EVERYTHING on this new site is NEW. (Okay, maybe a couple favorites are still on there.) There are TWO reels too: one is a general "portfolio" reel on the HOMEPAGE (good luck finding it, we have to fix that) as well as an ANIMATION REEL for the first time ever! Even the most loyal of you to our blog will see projects and artwork that you have never seen before! (Some we shouldn't even show....shhhh!) OKay, go for it! And tell your friends and favorite websites! It's at: www.funnypageprod.com and I think the link on the left should work too!

A BIG thanks to our buddy, Jon Conkling, for designing and creating this great website! You're the best employee we have, Jon!

PS> This is super FRESH, so we are still tweaking and fixing typos (like this blog). Keep coming back to it, it will change this time around!

EDIT: If you haven't looked at the new site since we first posted this; go back now! We fixed a few things on the homepage and ADDED A BUNCH OF NEW ART TO MOST OF THE CATEGORIES! WAHOO! Okay, now it's done. For now.

2008-02-08T10:23:00.000-06:00

SHEEPS AND WOLVES

The other day, we were putting together some character design images of more recent work to send to clients and to update our very ooooollld website. (That's coming soon, maybe even next week!!) It's always fun to look back at the last year or two in our "projects" folders and see what we did. Some things you still like, some things you go: "ouch, did I do that and got paid?" (Clients: that's a little artist joke, and has nothing to do with what we can/will do for your project. Email us, you won't regret it.)

Okay, I'm back. In going through the work, it's also fun to see the different styles we have worked in from project to project. Rob and my background is primarily Disney "house" style as you probably already know, but we are big fans of a ton of other artists and styles. Many times a client will come to us wanting a "Disney" style (because they know our background, it's the first thing they think of) and we try to steer them in slightly different, sometimes 'fresher' directions of style. It just makes it more fun for us and if an artist is excited about a project, then you are going to get stronger work.

All of that to say, we strive to be flexible in our approach toward different styles. The above wolf and sheep character "pose and expression" model sheets were created for a CG feature film for a major studio. The film, which I won't mention the name of, was nixed recently (that I know of, or at least renamed, rewritten) so we are posting these "throw away model sheets". The challenge on these was a little different than we usually have to deal with. They already had a style. These characters were already designed (by the likes of Stephen Silver) but hadn't been "lived in" by showing them with different poses and expressions. The directors of the film felt it was important to do that so they could show some range of motion/emotion to the modelers. They were on a quick production schedule so creating drawings to show how they would want it to work/look in 2D was quicker and more efficient. We have to agree with that. You can discover problems in a design (relating to movement or expressions) fast with drawings. You can also show ways to solve those problems in the line world that can help the CG guys. At any rate, we like these drawings still and it was a fun project to just take a good design (like we used to in the Disney days) and 'move it around'. These are all done by Rob with a few prelims or 'suggestions' here and there from me. He did a great job with them and I can't wait to get them on the new site. I think the way it went down was that I was on another project while he got the "good" one. (Another joke clients; all projects are equally enjoyable to us!) Dang you Rob!

2008-01-31T10:53:00.000-06:00

It's way past time for a change out, so I am posting a few rough concepts and designs we did for Big Idea while working on their feature "The Pirates who don't do Anything"...it's in theaters!!! Go see it NOW!!!!
We were very glad to be able to work with our friends at Big Idea again and had a great time doing a lot of character designs and boarding on the film. We're still very busy trying to wrap up animation notes and approvals for the project we've been directing in China and moving onto several other things that we'll be able to hopefully post very soon.
Thanks for stopping by!!!

2008-01-22T15:00:00.000-06:00

"TOMO" Cover art

We wanted to celebrate the new release of BOOK THREE of our original Christian Manga series, "TOMO" with some roughs and the cover final for TOMO book 6. Confused? Book three is coming out now and we are showing art for book six. To sum up in another way: go buy TOMO book three here: http://www.amazon.com/Child-Destiny-Graphic-Novels-Tomo/dp/0310713021/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201035859&sr=8-2

THEN look at the art above for an upcoming TOMO (#6). Simple,huh?

We usually do a few different cover versions, the publisher picks one, then we ink up the final and A.D. the colors. The colors on this issue (#6, remember?) are by Josh Ray. I had done the rough and forgotten that we had made a story change so that the alligator character I had drawn became two Gecko Warriors, so that change happened in the final inked version that Rob ended up doing (shown above). I've also included the cool Gecko Warrior design that Rob did up for the comic artist to use as a guide and for this cover (of Tomo #6, of course). What are you still doing here? Go buy TOMO #3! Did we mention Jim Krueger wrote it? (That's book #3 and book #6. Confused again? Let me explain......)

Thanks!

2008-01-14T10:10:00.000-06:00

THE PIRATES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING- Character designs, pt.2

This is the second post about the new Veggietales "Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" movie that just opened this weekend. As I mentioned in the last post, Funnypages Productions played a key role in the development of the film. This post is about some of the characters we designed. There were many new characters in this film (beyond the existing ones already in the
Veggie Universe) and we were called in to work with the talented art director at Big Idea, Chuck Vollmer, to help create them. We just realized we don't have scans of most all of that work (they were very protective of the work "getting out there" and it was a quick schedule) so this post has stills from the film to show off the designs. At least until we can get some sketches up. We created the designs for main characters like the evil Pirate Robert (with the mechanical arms and legs), Elloise and Alexander (the two children of the king that are in peril), the good King, the Cheese Curl creatures (who still remind me of Rob, who designed them), many, many pirates on the ship and in the "bar" scene (their drinking root beer), as well as the scene stealing Rock Monster family. The latter, I have to say, are the ones I am personally most proud of. The animation studio that Big Idea hired to create the modeling (which is all really strong) and the animation (equally strong, though a bit over animated here and there) really pulled the rock monsters off well! I'd say all the characters only improved on down the production pipeline with Chuck V. along with Director Mike N (I'll spell it wrong, you know who I mean) leading it all. When you look at the film, knowing it had a budget (probably) under 10 mill and the visual development was all created in about a 6 week period, it's truly amazing it looks so strong and cohesive! Everyone really put forth their experience and effort on this one. As artists it's not always easy to look back and say this, but this time: we are proud of the result.

2008-01-10T14:59:00.000-06:00

THE PIRATES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING Credit card designs PT.1

Tomorrow is a big day for one of our biggest clients and good friends: Big Idea Productions. It's the day that their second feature film, "THE PIRATES WHO DON'T DO ANYTHING" comes out. Funnypages was asked to come on at the very beginning of the production to act as part of the development team for the feature. Our primary jobs were to create the new character designs needed and provide storyboards. That job grew from that into creating most of the prop designs, layout design (for the cave sequence), some color models, and designing the opening credit artwork. It was all fun to do and we will be posting just a FEW of the images we created for alot of those jobs over the next few posts. This one is about the Opening credit art we created.

The idea was that these were place mats on the tables of the pirate themed dinner show at the beginning of the movie. Some of that changed from intial concept to what is on the screen but MOST of our credit art survived. I say "most" because we actually created 12 different image (only 5 shown here) but probably only half that were actually used. One that is above that wasn't used was the one with the seagull, maybe a couple of these, I'll have to check next time I see the film. These were colored by talented artist, Monika Brozda, all the way in Poland! Great job Monika! See the other posts coming soon for more of our PIRATES development art!

GO SEE THE MOVIE THIS WEEKEND< they need a big opening! Thanks!

2008-01-08T10:34:00.000-06:00

VIDEO GAME DEVELOPMENT

These designs were created for a client that is/was creating a new video game that had a fantasy theme. Not sure if it has come out, but these rough(ish) designs were created a couple years ago. Sorry if you have seen some of them before, but I think most of them have not been posted, so why not? This is work we are striving to get more involved in for 2008: the wonderful world of video game concept art. Especially the ones that are aimed at kids. We aren't interested in the adult gaming world and, besides, it has enough artists feeding it, doesn't it? Long live Mario!

These were rough sketches that we took into Photoshop and created sepia tones with highlights. It's the Photoshop version of Canson paper and colored pencils! I like the effect.

Thanks for coming to our blog!

2007-12-20T15:53:00.000-06:00

Well....to keep things moving along on the blog and to add some variety, I decided to scan and post a few images of some things I've done outside of work related content. These are more like study pieces that I do without having to do specific character design or illustration work. It becomes a relaxing exercise/therapy without having to think so much about composition, story or really anything at all, except drawing. These were some of my favorite pieces because they were done of things that I like....like bugs, Michelangelo, and of course Charlie Chaplin!

2007-12-17T16:08:00.000-06:00

The STORY OF "SOAR"

I was digging through some of our art files from the last couple years because we are (finally!) preparing to totally redo our company website. It's close and we'll let you know when it goes up. In my search I came across a bunch of stuff that I actually still like. Most will end up on the website and a few you might see on this blog in the next few days/weeks. But this is one that I can't believe we never showed:

The movie poster we designed for the animated film: "SOAR"!

What? Never heard of it? It was everywhere in late 2005/ early 2006! Let me back up....we were contacted by two of our former Disney alum friends that had been hired to direct a commercial for the AMC theatre chains. If you remember, they had a cool series of commercials (I'm calling them commercials, but the "aired" at the theatres) for their "SILENCE IS GOLDEN" campaign. The series that year were all spoofs of movie trailers (all made up movies) that "felt" like an upcoming movie. They were all live action- like the one that looked like a submarine thriller. Remember? Well, "Soar" was the animation spoof trailer obviously spoofing a Disney film (without saying it). The characters had all been designed but they wanted to go the extra mile and do a faux movie poster that would be posted throughout the AMC theatres for the fake movie. (I never did see them, but I didn't go to the movies much during that 'season').

Now for the cooler part. After we completed the roughs and the final line art for the poster, we heard they were going to do two different versions: one by the guy who normally paints alot of the Disney movie posters and one BY DREW STRUZAN! How's that for a dream come true. Obviously, Rob and I are big fans of his work from the Star Wars and Indy posters and on and on. The image above from what he did (and, yes, he made some changes to the image- he's Drew!) looks like it's probably a digital photo of the artwork rather than a clean scan, so give it a little grace. At any rate, we do have a full size poster from this job that we can frame and put up in the studio. It's the Disney version though, but still cool. Enjoy!

2007-12-11T15:05:00.000-06:00

CHRISTMAS themed COVER ART

This is a kinda quicky, fun job that we do every couple of months or so for a couple of local music publishers. (One of the perks of being in Nashvegas.) This is the cover rough, inks (along with the logo we had designed for it), and final color for a kids musical music book cover. You'll notice that a few things changed (as usual) from the rough to the inks, including changing the main character in the middle and adding a hay bail (for text to go in). Again, nothing hugely special about it, but it was fun and I liked how the color and the simple cartoony style came out. And, hey, Christmas is coming!

Trying to keep putting stuff every week! Let's see how long we can do it!

2007-12-05T19:41:00.000-06:00

LARRYBOY CHILDREN'S BOOK

Gotta get something up, gotta get something up....(this is what I hear in my head). We're trying to make a push to be a little less sparatic in our posting habits here and we're off to a bumpy start. Again, lots of stuff that can't be shown from what's on the desk at the moment, but here's a recent job (within a few months at least). This is a bit of progression (I like seeing it on other artists blogs, so hopefully you do too.) from a children's book we illustrated for Scholastic. It's with those vegtable friends of ours. This is from two of the spreads. One you will see the full progression from rough layout, clean (tight) pencils, to final color. The other is just the rough to final color. I wanted to show one that had the darker colors and one from an outside shot- for variety.

On another note, Rob C. leaves for China again on Friday for about two weeks. Pray for safe travels and a lightish workload for the lonely Funnypager left behind! Seriously, the show we are directing in China is looking really strong and we hope to show some more stuff from it soon. Actually, that might be the next post......hmm....

2007-11-21T14:04:00.000-06:00

SKETCHBOOK STUFF

Wow, it's been awhile! Sorry about that, you all. We have a bunch of projects we can't show and little time to "just doodle". Well, untill now. I (this is Tom Bancroft) just came back from a 2 day trip to San Francisco where I was asked to be a guest speaker at the Art Academy. It was a fun trip and it's always fun to see eager, young artists that are passionate about animation! What a great shot in the arm that is! The bad news is that I got food poisoning from the airline food on the way back. I type this with shaky hands and I'm about to go home. BUT I did get a chance to draw in my sketch book on the plane before the stomach cramping hit. That's the good news. So, enjoy some sketches and have a great Thanksgiving! We are going to try to put more stuff up in the next few weeks. (I just saw some juicy Rob sketches in his Sketchbook that he's been hiding. More to come there.)

2007-11-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

NEW PROJECT_ Popcorn Guy!!

This was a smaller, side project that (we hope) we can post some of the work on. The client wanted a "mascot" character that would have a movie theme. The idea was to create a popcorn character that is fun and excited about the subject they are speaking to kids to. They wanted a fairly simple style so as you can see above, we did a little bit experimenting but not a ton. The client picked #2, with the tennis shoes of one of the others, and off we went! We produced some finals in fun poses (three of them are above) and they will use them in all forms of print media. They say they will even create a lifesize "walk around" costumed character of him too! I want to see that!

More stuff soon, sorry we haven't been blogging regularly. Lots we can't show.

2007-10-11T09:13:00.000-05:00

Alrighty then!...enough baby dolls!.......we have been slow on the updates and so, while I had a little break I thought I'd throw a few misc. doodles into the mix. You know, for some variety. Some of these are client work concepts and the rest are just things I did for fun or when I was just sittin'....and thinkin'.... waitin'....and lookin'. I noticed something the other day that I've been saving cardboard from the backs of notepads, you know the brown card stock kind of cardboard with the mild, yet pleasing look and texture? Everytime I found a piece I just couldn't make myself throw it away....you ever have that sort of feeling? It's like , wait! This is important! I could make something out of this or draw on it even! Well, if you're an artist you'll know what I'm talking about. If you aren't....just wait, you will.
One reason I think I have been hoarding my special little cardboard scraps is because I always go over to the very talented and versatile artist Dan Panosian's blog at: http://urbnbarbarian.blogspot.com/ and look at the cool drawings he does on the very cardboard that has been giving me anxiety attacks!!!! It's Dan's fault! Curse the barbarian and his cardboard!!!!

2007-09-28T09:18:00.000-05:00

We have posted several images from this property in the past, but wanted to follow up with some picture we just received showing the Karito Kids doll on display in the FAO Schwartz toy store in downtown New York City!
It has it's very first window on 5th Avenue! They have been up the month of September and will remain up for the next week or so. What you will see are large images that are on 5th Avenue and 59th Avenue and then the permanent boutique upstairs next to Barbie Boutique and Raggedy Ann.T
Be sure to tune into Regis and Kelly on October 8th to watch Family Fun award the #1 Toy in the U.S. to Karito Kids!