Author: Cedric

09 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Art & Business
Recently I wrote a two-part post entitled "How To Bid Out A Project" (Part 1 and Part 2). One of the first things I mentioned was that, to cover expenses, a freelancer needs to charge much more per hour than he/she would normally make as a salaried employee. There has been some discussion of my article on another website, and someone apparently misunderstood my comments to mean that freelancing is a great way to get rich quick. I can assure you, it is not. That got me thinking, there are probably a lot of misconceptions about freelancing out there. So I've decided to list a few of the pro's and con's of freelancing, straight from the horses mouth. I've been freelancing for over ten years, so I know of what I speak. I don't want to start positive and then end on a negative note, so I'll cover the "con's" first. Tomorrow I'll touch on some of the "pro's". If this post is a bit of a downer to read, I don't mean it to be. I enjoy freelancing very much! In my view the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. But I want to paint a fair and honest picture for anyone who may be considering freelancing as a career.

08 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Illustration

For the most recent episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! (titled "Pratical Hoax" and directed by Tom Bancroft), the script called for photographs to appear in various scenes. Since the show is built and animated in 3D, and since each photo would only be seen on screen for a few seconds, and since television deadlines are so brutal, rather than to build...

07 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Character Design, Illustration

On Saturday morning NBC aired another episode of "3-2-1 Penguins!" which I was fortunate enough to work on. For much of the series my job was to design various aliens which the Penguins would encounter as they hopped from planet to planet. If the script called for a prop or gag that would change a character's appearance, it was also...

04 Jan

Posted at 00:55h in Illustration
After viewing my last post, artist Robert Miller wrote me and asked:
What do you use to ink your art? These are cool rabbit illos!
I thought his question would make a good blog post, so here goes. Earlier this year I bought a Cintiq and started inking everything digitally (more on that below), but for many years I experimented with various inking methods on paper. Pen and Ink. I first learned how to ink by using a dip pen with Hunt 102 nibs and a bottle of good-old India Ink, and inked my drawings on smooth bristol board. This was back in the late 80's, before computers, when cartoonists were still using rubber cement and x-acto knives to create layouts, and inkers used white-out to fix their goofs. I used the Hunt pen tips for many years, and with them I was able to get a clean, cartoony line.

03 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Illustration

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I recently illustrated the new book Chasing Skinny Rabbits by John Trent. Here's a few of the final illustrations for the book. Each illustration required a different rabbit character, but they let me use the original rabbit design to add some humor to a chapter on marriage: Chasing Skinny Rabbits can be purchased here....

02 Jan

Posted at 00:00h in Character Design, Illustration

A few months ago I was hired to do some spot illustrations for a new book for the Christian market entitled Chasing Skinny Rabbits, written by John Trent and published by Thomas Nelson. The concept is that, like a hunting dog chasing a scrawny rabbit, there are "skinny rabbits" in life that can lead Christians away from obeying God, until...