Mighty Monocle Fan Art Process

This week's fan art exchange over at my award-nominated (never get tired of saying that) webcomic, Untold Tales of Bigfoot was with D.M. Rolfe, a cartoonist who resides in the U.K. Rolfe is the creator behind The Mighty Monocle, a comic about a humorous superhero who protects Great Britain. Rolfe did this awesome Bigfoot gag for me. In response, I created this fan art tribute to Rolfe's character, made to look like an old, worn comic magazine from the '70s. To see how I put it together, you can scroll through the steps below.  

The pencils. Rolfe's comic is done in the classic 3 panel format. But I wanted to take his heroes and re-envision them as caped crusaders of the silver age. So there they are, leaping before they look, in a classic superhero pose. 

Once the pencils are scanned into Photoshop, I ink them. Since I want this to look like the splash page from a comic book, I use some traditional comic book fonts to create a masthead and title blurb. Rolfe's comic is mostly a black-and-white affair, and I wanted to continue that tradition with my fan art. So, next step, toning.  

Here I used just a few greyscale values to give a sense of depth, and also drop in a few subtle textures to dress it up. One more thing I did was to run a halftone filter over the whole thing to make it look like it was run off on a traditional press. Beyond that, in order to age it, I ended up tinting the whole thing with a stale yellow and, finally, overlaying a photo texture of an old comic book binding (image up top). And that's that! It looks so vintage you can almost smell it!

After you're done smelling your computer screen, point your noses over to Rolfe's webcomic, The Mighty Monocle, and enjoy his classic cartooning and silly sense of humor. -v

My Fan Art for Pat Lewis' Muscles Diablo!

Hey, I realized I never posted my process steps for this piece! This is fan art for the thrilling, gangsters vs. monsters webcomic Muscles Diablo in : Where Terror Lurks by talented illustrator, Pat Lewis. He's just finished chapter 7 of the online comic, and you can read the whole thing so far if you click this link ri 'chere!  Down below are my steps.

Pencils. Self-explanatory, really. I took a pencil and drew this. I chose a scene from Muscles Diablo where he gets in a bar fight with a Bigfoot. You'll note Pat Lewis' Bigfoots are a lot scarier than my Bigfoot. On to the next step!

Inks. Digital inks, to be exact. Done, I believe, in Photoshop. Ok, move to the next step!

Flat colors. Basically just filling the shapes with flat color in Photoshop. Done. Go!

Final colors. Here I added in all the shadows, highlights and cooled down the bar a bit to give it a dark, grimy look. The piece is basically done here, but if you look at the image at the top of this post, you'll see I ran a halftone filter over it and yellowed it up a bit to make it look worn. That's all. Now if you haven't already done it, go check out Pat Lewis' awesome webcomic Muscles Diablo in: Where Terror Lurks! -v

Kolchak:The Night Stalker / Kermit the Frog / Muppet News Flash Mash-Up

If you've never seen the '70s supernatural/sci-fi series Kolchak:The Night Stalker (and you only know Darren McGavin as "the old man" in A Christmas Story) you're missing out on some classic stuff. In Kolchak, McGavin stars as an intrepid reporter who investigates so many strange cases of the paranormal that you'd have to assume he lives in a city full of monsters.

You know what other intrepid reporter lives in a city full of monsters? That's right. Muppet News Flash's own Kermit The Frog. Kolchak and Kermit have been linked in my head for a while, so I thought I'd sketch up the concept for fun.

Here's the rough I sketched out in pencil (with some quick, Photoshop lettering) and then the finished pencils.

 This is the piece after I inked Kermit over my pencils, then the finished inks.

Here are the flat colors done in Photoshop, then some modeling with shadows and highlights. At this point the illustration is done, but I decided to go with the text after all, mimicking the typeface from some old Kolchak images. I also aged the piece a bit with yellow overlays to give it that "been around since the '70s" look (image at top of post).

And if this got any of you interested in Kolchak, good. Halloween's around the corner and there's nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned scare. Here are some links you might find useful -v

Kolchak: The Night Stalker Wikipedia page

Kolchak: The Night Stalker IMDb page

Kolchak: The Night Stalker opening intro (YouTube)

Kolchak: The Night Stalker box set at Amazon

Darren McGavin IMDb page

Hot Dogging It for The Pittsburgh City Paper

For the second time in the past year, I was asked to do a cover for the Pittsburgh City Paper. A big thanks to Lisa (Art Director) for trusting me to handle the serious subject of a high-speed hot dog chase with the gravity it deserves. You can see the actual cover on the City Paper website, but if you stick around here I'll show you some of my steps in putting it together.

So the illustration is for a story on food trucks and how hard it is for them to exist and operate within the law in Pittsburgh. Lisa's idea was to have a "generic food truck being chased by a cop car." We banged around a couple of fun ideas and came up with this image, inspired by '70s cop show car chases (mostly because I didn't feel like drawing boring modern police cars what with their aerodynamic curves and such). Here's the pencil sketch and the comic-book-style inks, done in Photoshop. If you look at the image while playing the theme to Starsky and Hutch, you'll get the full effect.

The next step is flat colors (in Photoshop) followed by some highlights and shadows to add depth. I love doing goofy retro cartoony stuff, so this piece was right up my alley. As Lisa pointed out, the cop looks like he's shouting "Why I oughta'…." which, if you know me, is one of my favorite expressions. Can't wait to do another cover for these guys. Which reminds me…

Will my next cover also include a scarf-wearing bandit like these last two? Seems to be a recurring theme for me. If so, great. Maybe it'll earn me some much-needed street cred. -v  

Creeping out my neighbors, one greeting card at a time.

There's a nice couple that live down the street from me who, for the past few springs, have tilled an enormous hunk of their land to plant a vegetable garden. It's always impressive and yields delicious looking vegetables. But I'm not the only one who's noticed. Apparently, the deer and rabbits have earmarked this cornucopia for their own. 

So this year my neighbors are trying an Alcatraz-level fencing system to keep out the critters. They've set up numerous anti-crow devices as well; pinwheels, reflectors, a plastic owl "scarecrow." Will it work? Hard to say. The fauna in this neighborhood are particularly determined. Just ask my poor zucchini plant from last summer. Oh, you can't...because he's was devoured by a pack of hungry deer!

Anyway, I sent out a little encouragement to the neighbors in the form of this card, "signed" by the deer and rabbits. I thought they'd get a chuckle out of it. But then I remembered that I didn't really sign the card or provide a return address and that the message inside is somewhat alarming. 

Right now, they're either smiling at my friendly ribbing, or phoning the police. Or maybe they actually think the deer and rabbits have advanced as far as digital printing and postage manipulation. And if they think that, they must realize their garden doesn't stand a chance. 

Down below I've posted some process shots: The doodle on the back of an envelope, then the Photoshop inks and flats. -v 

R.I.P. (Rocket Into Paradise) Ray Bradbury

Seventh Grade, Language Arts class. The teacher told us to pick a book at random off the classroom shelves to read for our next assignment. I browsed idly for a bit, and then I saw the words, "The Halloween Tree" and grabbed it before anyone else could. I was a huge Halloween fan and though I'd heard of Ray Bradbury, I'd never (knowingly) read any of his stuff at that point. So I started reading the book that night. Turns out Bradbury was a huge Halloween fan too. I was only a few sentences into the book before I was hooked. And I've been hooked on Bradbury's writing ever since.

Cut to 2003. I was just starting to fiddle around with digital illustration. One of the first things I experimented with was an interpretation of Bradbury's Halloween Tree. Still trying to figure out what all of the tools in Photoshop did, working on an uncalibrated monitor with no idea how to use the opacity option, I took an unforgivable amount of time to cobble together this barely passable illustration of Moundshroud and Tom Skelton, standing beneath the Halloween Tree. 

I was just callow enough to think it was half-decent, and just arrogant enough to send a copy to Ray Bradbury himself. Nothing came of it and I forgot all about it, diving back into my digital experiments. But then, one night, I was checking my email and saw one from Ray Bradbury. No artifice or internet code name. Just Ray Bradbury, writing to me, thanking me for the card, telling me how wonderful it was and -- here's the part that still astounds me -- asking for 25 copies of the card to send to his friends and family. Yes. Ray Bradbury, one of the foremost experts on Halloween and author behind some of the greatest Halloween stories ever, wanted to use my illustration as his personal Halloween card.  As I said, this still astounds me.

For a few years after that, there was an email in my inbox from Ray, every fall, requesting more cards. Sometimes I'd get an email from his daughter, Alexandra, and I think that was because Ray's health wasn't what it used to be. Once he sent me my own card back with a delightfully illustrated envelope (Ray was a first-class doodler) and an encouraging messages inside. 

After a while, I got busy with assignments and Ray was busy with whatever he was doing, and the back-and-forth emails stopped. My plan was to surprise him with a new, much better Halloween Tree illustration now that my skills had improved. I'd started a few, trashed them as "not good enough" and moved on to my other assignments. Every once in a while I'd sketch out an idea or two for the Halloween piece, but time and circumstance just never allowed me to finish it. Then, today, I got the news that Ray had passed. There's a lesson in that somewhere. You can piece it together. 

I'm hoping that his daughter, Alexandra, is doing alright and imagine she's basking in all of the praise and kind remembrances of Ray that I see all over the web today. And I hope she knows how many people her father influenced -- writers, artists, musicians, filmmakers and more. And I hope that Alexandra knows that her father's work will continue to inspire whole new generations of creators for a long time to come. I'm confident that Ray knows all of this already, as he rockets around us in space, smiling the way a kid smiles on Halloween night. Thanks again, Ray. -v 

My Final Post (Probably) About My Illustration Ale Label

East End Brewing Company and local illustrator Wayno (who curated this collection of labels) gave six local artists free reign to design whatever kind of label we wanted (within government guidelines). I wanted to cover the genres I work in most often -- cute and creepy. And because of the nature of the project, I also wanted to emphasize the concepts of "illustration" and "beer drinking." Ever been to one of those parties where one drunk passes out and his close friends draw all over his face with magic marker? Me either. But that's the inspiration for this design. Now that my concept was covered, I waited about a week for government approval and then started the final illustration.

The idea really started with a couple of napkin sketches, trying to work out the composition. I abandon the idea of floor-to-ceiling hieroglyphics as way too busy.

Then it's just a matter of adding color and texture to each element in Photoshop until I get the look I'm after. I wanted a soft, watercolor look so I laid down the colors in soft, transparent washes. Sometimes I use a smooth brush to emphasize individual brushstrokes, sometimes I'll create a texture brush for surfaces like the walls of the tomb.

And, finally, here are the six labels created by this year's batch of talented illustrators. From left, designs created by: Nathan Mazur, Dave Wachter, Vince Dorse, Jasen Lex, Mark Bender and Ed Piskor. The bottles are all still available through East End Brewing Company and portions of the profits go to support Pittsburgh's Toonseum. Cheers! -v

My Illustration Ale Bottle

Here's my limited edition, Illustration Ale bottle, sitting in its place of honor on the shelf above my drawing desk.

I had a great time meeting the other Illustration Ale artists at the Toonseum Saturday night. All the labels looked fantastic, and it turns out Scott at East End Brewing is running a very green, very earth-conscious operation down there. Awesome.

As you know, proceeds from the sales of these bottles go toward helping the Toonseum. So if you missed the release party, feel free to stop in at East End Brewing and pick up a few bottles for yourself. And for those of you who did make it, thanks for doing your part to advance the cartoon arts in Pittsburgh.

Also, to the lovely young lady who had me autograph her bottle, thanks again. You truly made my night. -v

Illustration Ale Release Tonight!

What...a little snow gonna stop you from heading downtown tonight to check out the new East End Brewing Company Illustration Ale release at the Toonseum? Hope not. I'll be there. And I'm told many of the other past and present Illustration Ale artists will be there to hobnob, autograph bottles and decimate the hors doeuvres table.

This year I was asked to do a label and decided to stick to my comfort zone -- cute and creepy. My label has a tipsy mummy drawing goofy things on his sleeping buddy's face. If you've ever passed out at a party you may sympathize. I'll have a process breakdown of my label in an upcoming post.

Here's the Post-Gazette's article on the project.

And here's the Toonseum's official YouTube promotional video for the event.

See you there. -v

Happy Groundhog Day!

I think Phil Connors summed it up best: Winter, slumbering in the open air, wears on its smiling face a dream of spring.

What would you do if you had one day to live over and over and over, repeating ceaselessly, no end in sight? I think I'd really work on being a much better illustrator, drawing illustration after illustration, studying the masters, trying to learn from my mistakes, perhaps realizing, along the way, that I'd never be quite as good as I want to be.

Oh god. That is my life.

Ciao! -v

Come Celebrate My First Beer Label for Illustration Ale

A few months ago I was asked to take part in a fund-raiser for the Toonseum, Pittsburgh's only cartoon museum. Every year East End Brewing brews its very own Illustration Ale and asks local artists to design the labels. This year, I was one of those artists along with Mark Bender, Jasen Lex, Nathan Mazur, Ed Piskor and Dave Wachter who all cranked out some really fun labels (as you can see from this teaser image). There's a nice write-up about East End Brewery's involvement with local cartoonists in this post on BrewsReporter.

Now the Toonseum is holding a big, opening bash to celebrate this year's batch of Illustration Ale and you're invited. Tickets aren't cheap, but then again, how often do you get a chance to rub elbows with some of Pittsburgh's most talented recluses? Not to mention the food, drink and your complementary bottle of this limited edition ale. Read all the details in the Toonseum's official press release below:

The ToonSeum, Pittsburgh¹s museum of to the cartoon arts, is proud to announce the 2012 edition of Illustration Ale, a robust Belgian style beer brewed exclusively for the ToonSeum by Pittsburgh's own East End Brewing Company.

Illustration Ale is a 700-bottle limited-edition Belgian specialty ale created as a fund-raiser for the ToonSeum. Two dollars from the sale of each one-liter, swing-top bottle will directly benefit the ToonSeum. The beer is a bottle-conditioned ale, brewed with a spicy farmhouse ale yeast which adds nuance to the rich dark malt character.

As with the May 2010 release of the first batch of Illustration Ale, each bottle bears a label created by one of six Pittsburgh cartoonists and graphic artists, making for a unique six-pack collection. This year's labels were designed by Mark Bender, Vince Dorse, Jasen Lex, Nathan Mazur, Ed Piskor, and Dave Wachter.

"Once again, a group of Pittsburgh artists created spectacular work for Illustration Ale. The labels provide fantastic images for people to ponder while they enjoy their beer," says East End owner and brewmaster Scott Smith. Specially illustrated labels on beer bottles has become a brewing tradition, and Smith, who enjoys his cartoons almost as much as his beer, has worked closely with many local artists (among them Wayno, Jim Rugg, and Mark Zingarelli) to design labels for his beers.

East End Brewing and the ToonSeum will unveil the 2012 Illustration Ale with a special tasting session at the ToonSeum on February 4th at 6:00pm. Guests will not only get the first sips of the special brew, but will also be able to meet past and present label artists, have their bottles autographed, and enjoy the current exhibit, Funky Turns 40. A bottle of Illustration Ale will be included with the purchase of a ticket.

Food presented by: Nine on Nine, Taste of Dahntahn

Tickets for the event are $30 (members pay only $20) and can be purchased online at www.illustrationale.eventbrite.com or at the ToonSeum reception desk, 945 Liberty Avenue Downtown during regular business hours.

So, if you want to spend a nice evening looking at fantastic cartoon art and sampling (what I'm told is) a fantastic local brew, stop out next Saturday and say hi. I will be there with my usual glass of diet ginger ale, pretending to be cool and sophisticated. -v

My Tribune-Review Review and The Interview That Never Was

Thanks to my inclusion in Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators' Drawing Under The Influence : An Illustrator's Guide to Mixed Drinks (a mouthful, to say the least) I was contacted by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. They wanted to feature my Shirley Temple piece in a review of the book and ask me a few questions about the piece.

Well, the review went to print today and you can read it by clicking this link. As it turns out, they ended up NOT using the Shirley Temple image I created for the article. I suppose, in the end, an illustration of what could be interpreted by some as a drunken nine-year old girl might have been a little too edgy for a conservative newspaper. That's fine by me. I live on the edge. That's why they call me The Loose Cannon.

But I also noticed that my short, bite-sized answers to the Trib's questions -- an unselfish attempt by me to give plenty of column space to my fellow illustrators -- just cleared the way for those illustrators to go on and on endlessly about their art (I'm lookin' at you, Rhonda Blabbermouth Libbey) No, Rhonda's a good friend and an excellent illustrator. You should check out her work here.

Besides, if you're reading this blog post you know I'm a blabbermouth too. And if I had to do it all over again, I guess I'd answer those questions with a bit more depth…and breadth. So here it is, the long version of my answers to the Trib's questions -- the interview that never was:

Trib: Why did you choose this drink?

Vince: The Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators isn't just a group of professional illustrators. They're also a group of professional drinkers. I, however, am a real lightweight. The strongest thing I ever order is iced tea, so my knowledge of alcoholic recipes is just about nil. And since my illustrations are geared toward the children's market anyway, I figured I'd better steer clear of the hard stuff…though, I guess if you look at the illustration, it might seem like I'm endorsing underage drinking. Which I'm totally not. But I do encourage old-timey, underage mock-stupefaction. Can't get enough of that stuff.

Trib: What inspired you to create your piece?

Vince: Same thing that inspires me to create almost every piece I do -- the need for money. More to the point, my desperate addiction to food and shelter. Keep in mind, this drink recipe book is also PSI's artist directory. It's going out to hundreds of art directors and publishers in the hopes that they'll choose some of us for future assignments. So being in the directory is part of a marketing strategy.

As for artistic inspiration, you can't illustrate a Shirley Temple without drawing a depression-era curly-haired schoolgirl. And in the absence of any alcohol whatsoever, I see nothing wrong with the notion of said schoolgirl getting completely blotto on a sugary non-drink like the Shirley Temple. I seem to recall getting just that gonzo every Halloween during my pre-school years. I mostly blame Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I'll also admit, though, that part of me really gets a kick knowing how many people will look at this piece, not think too deeply about it at all, and become instantly enraged due to a misunderstanding. I don't mind enraging people who refuse to think. And maybe, somehow, the wise editors at the Trib knew that as well. -v

It's Just No Fun Without You

Here's a cute little heartbreaker of an illustration that rarely fails to elicit a sympathetic "awwww" from the people I show it to. Mostly the women. A guy "awwwed" once and three other guys standing nearby beat him up. It was crazy.

Tell you what...that monkey party does look like fun. But that one little monkey is just too sad to enjoy it. I guess he misses his monkey girlfriend. Maybe it's his monkey ex-girlfriend. It's been such a long, lonely time since he had anyone special to throw poop at. Sigh. Wonder why they broke up?

Anyway, this was a gentler take on an earlier gag of mine where two guys were staring down into a barrel, one of them saying, "I guess it's a lot more fun if the monkeys are still alive." I was probably in a bad mood that day. Regardless, the whole thing got me thinking, once again, about the origin of the phrase. Luckily for me, the internet lives in the same machine where I do all my art. So I typed in the question and the answer was about what you'd expect. Read all about it here.

And when you're done engaging in illicit etymology, you can take a look at my work-in-progress steps below. Have fun. In fact, have a whole barrel of it. -v

Hang Up And Drive - A Friendly Reminder

I haven't posted in a while (tight deadlines!) so I'm posting this old gag to quell the rumours of my demise.

Has this gag been done before? I have no doubt.

Has it been done better? Possibly.

But has it been done specifically about the woman who lives in my neighborhood, drives a VW convertible and can't keep her eyes on the road because of the scintillating conversations she's always involved in while driving? Probably not. So here's a friendly little reminder to everyone out there who just has to take that call right now this second -- it can wait.

Life's short. Slow down and enjoy it. And drive safely. -v

Esoteric Houdini Gag Thrills Dozens!

The gag was a risky proposition from the start. It presupposes the reader has active knowledge of a decades-old food mascot and the forensic details surrounding a celebrity death that occurred in 1926. I figured they were both pretty popular in their day so I had a shot at funny. Misfire? I don't know. I like it. And if only one per cent of the people who see this get a giggle, that's fine by me.

In a further attempt to suck even more humour out of the gag, I've deconstructed the illustration process in some work-in-progress steps below. -v

This tree is having none of my nonsense.

Every once in a while I peel my carcass out of my desk chair and go for an evening stroll. Lately I've noticed this tree eyeing me up suspiciously.

He's got this distrustful look on his face every time I walk by. "Keep walking," he says. "Nobody's buying your health-conscious walking-guy routine, so finish up your act and get back to your drawing."

He's a tough customer. I may have to find another route so I can avoid him. Happy Memorial Day. -v

Mother's Day Gags, Part Two

Here's my other, kinder, gentler Mother's Day card design for this year. It's intended for people who might not enjoy (or understand) sarcasm (grandma) and, thus, the perfect card to come home to after church or brunch or a walk in the flower garden or whatever it is grandmas like to do on Mother's Day.

The work-in-progress steps are below if you care to see how I put it together. Nothing fancy, really. I wanted something that was sweet -- something akin to an old Disney cartoon -- but also wanted it to have an aged, retro feel -- like you tore it out of an old Mad Magazine (or Esquire or Playboy) you found in a dusty attic somewhere. Pretty sure my grandma never read Mad or Playboy but I think she'll like this anyway.

The toughest part was coming up with the gag. I knew I wanted the classic "baby animal mistakes something for its mom" gag --you know, like the old porcupine/pin cushion schtick -- but nothing I doodled was cute enough. A friend finally suggested the funny hat punchline, inspired, no doubt, by all the wacky hats at the royal wedding -- so thank goodness somebody pays attention to that stuff. -v

Mother's Day Gags: Part One

In between paying jobs, I like to draw personalized greeting cards for my friends and family (which I simultaneously submit to art directors in the hopes of scoring paychecks in the process). And this time of year is bursting with opportunities for that diversion (Easter, Mother's Day, graduations, etc.). It's good practice and it gives people the impression that I'm a sweet, sentimental guy. The whole thing is win-win for me.

Anyway, since I judiciously avoided the irony of mailing out either Earth Day or Arbor Day cards, I'm now posting the first of two (yes, two) Mother's Day cards -- thereby making up for all the natural resources I conserved in the past month.

This first one is a simple, desert island gag. It's a little passive aggressive and possibly only funny if you know my mother, but it's way too edgy to send to grandma. I'll post her much sweeter card next week. In the meantime, enjoy this gag and the work-in-progress steps below. And when you're done reading this, go buy something nice for your mother. -v

Using Comics As Business Correspondence

For some reason I always have a difficult time getting in touch with Don, the guy who keeps my website up and running. I had some trouble with the site recently and couldn't get ahold of him. Mix in my natural paranoia and tendency to overreact, and you get this comic strip. I sent him a copy, but as of yet I haven't heard back. My finger's hovering shakily over the panic button. Work-in-progress steps below.

1) Rough pencil layout.

2) Inked in Photoshop

3) Colored in Photoshop

4) "Aged" a bit

Don, if you're reading this, none of us can afford to pay the ransom. Sorry. -v

Gag For A Birthday Card

I have a friend whose birthday shows up right after the holidays and I almost always run out of time to get her a card. You'd think, after all these years, I'd just make it a part of my Christmas shopping and buy a birthday card along with the wrapping paper. But I blow it every time.

So I cranked out this little gag cartoon the night before I had to get the card in the mail. No, it's not hilarious. It's more of an inside joke. And now that I see it, even being on the inside I don't find the gag all that funny. Ah well, better than nothing. Below are the work-in-progress steps.

1) The pencil sketch

2) The inking (done in Photoshop)

3) Rough colors and blending (Photoshop)

4) I drop in a textured background I painted to look like watercolor.

5) Voila. Done. Happy birthday. -v