New Art Blogs Added

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(Artwork copyright © Joe Bluhm. All rights reserved.)

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(Artwork copyright © Jason Seiler. All rights reserved.)

I love a good caricature. Some artists have an innate ability to really sqaush and stretch a person’s features while still retaining a dead-on likeness. Personally my brain doesn’t work that way. My attempts at caricature are mediocre at best. I’m truly in awe of those who can do caricature well.

I recently stumbled upon blogs from two terrific caricature artists, Joe Bluhm and Jason Seiler. These guys are not just amazing caricaturists, but they also know what they are doing with a paintbrush. Well, I think they both paint digitally. But they each have a terrific sense of color and shading which gives their caricatures a rich, classy feel. I would lump each of them up there with some of the best caricature artists in the country.

Give their blogs a looksee! Both have been added to my list of Art Blogs over to the left. You can also click on the images above.

Watch Your Step

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I found this using Stumble. It’s a fun (though bizarre) animated short by Pascal Campion about a man trying to open a very unique cartoon door. It appears to have been done in Flash. The timing is sharp, the animation is fluid, and the concept is delightfully simple. There is no sound or dialogue, just pantomime done very effectively. It runs a bit long, but you can tell the animator had a ton of fun doing it.

This little cartoon highlights one one of the often overlooked strengths of animation: the ability to really mess with physics, time, and space. This piece reminds me a bit of the work of Bill Plympton or “Duck Amuck” by Chuck Jones.

Click here to watch the cartoon.


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This Just Ain’t Right

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Warning: This post is way off-topic. Please indulge me.

I just finished listening to today’s Focus on the Family radio broadcast. The broadcast is an interview with a man named Bill Kennedy who is currently serving a twenty-year prison sentence for white collar crimes. The problem is, a few years ago new proof surfaced to prove his innocence and so far the government hasn’t done anything about it. He’s already been in prison for 14 years, and during that time his children got married and three grandchildren were born. All of which he has missed out on because he is unjustly behind bars.

I’m not a conspiracy kook or a sucker who believes every sob story he hears. But the Bill Kennedy story appears to be very credible and, as a result, very tragic. Focus on the Family is trying to build public support to get some action and have Bill Kennedy freed. You can find out more by listening to today’s radio broadcast, or by visiting www.justiceforkennedy.com. If you decide you want to do something about it, here’s a list of phone numbers (PDF) you can call. In a friendly voice, politely ask that the government do something to free Bill Kennedy.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled art blog.

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Ask Mr. Artist Guy

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Announcing a new feature coming to Cedric’s Blog-O-Rama!: “Ask Mr. Artist Guy”

I love writing this blog, but sometimes it’s a challenge to come up with fresh and interesting topics to write about five times a week, every week, all year.

My friend and fellow illustrator/blogger Tom Richmond actually blogs more frequently than I do (I don’t know how he does it). Tom also has a regular “mailbag” feature on his blog where he answers questions emailed in from readers. Tom, if you are reading this, and if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then consider yourself flattered. I’m about to steal your idea.

To keep this blog fresh and interesting I’m going to ask for a little help from you my faithful readers. If you’ve got a question about freelancing/illustration, send it to blog@cedricstudio.com. If you have a cool link or a suggestion for a topic, send that as well. I can’t promise that everything I receive will eventually make it onto the blog, but every email will get read and if I think it will make a good springboard for a blog post I’ll work it in eventually. I’ll also give name credit at the end of each post, so if you want to be anonymous just say so in your email.

This’ll be fun. I know you readers are smart, thoughtful, and curious, so I’m looking forward to hearing your ideas and questions.

Re-Post: Free Drawing Lessons

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Here’s an old blog post from 2005. My blog audience has grown since then so I thought it was worth re-posting:

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(Sketches by Pixar artist Tom Gately)

Walt Stanchfield started as a Disney clean-up artist in the 60’s, and by the 1990’s he had become one of Disney’s premiere drawing instructors. Now, thanks to the folks at Animation Meat you can download 70 different notes and handouts from Stanchfield’s classes. Though they are geared more for the advanced artist than the beginner, there’s enough valuable information to benefit anyone who has a serious interest in drawing the human form. Enjoy!

(If you print them out, have a lot of paper on hand. I think the entire set of notes takes up about 200 pages).

EDIT: Yikes! I just checked the site and the PDF files are no longer available for download. My apologies. As best I can tell, the handouts are being compiled into a book that should be available soon. Oh well. Check out the rest of the Animation Meat site, there’s some great stuff there.

Audiobooks

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I love a good book. My wife and I have five large bookcases filled with books and four more boxes of books in a hall closet. A surprising number of them we’ve actually read.

But life gets busy and I’ve got less time to read than ever. Thankfully, there are audiobooks I can download and listen to while working on client projects. Of course as a professional artist I usually can’t listen while I’m in the conceptual or sketch phase of a project because it is too distracting. Building the structure of an illustration requires my full concentration. But once that foundation is laid I can relax a bit and listen as I do the inking or coloring.

Audiobooks can be more expensive than their paper-and-binding counterparts, but I don’t mind. Personally I’d rather spend $25 on something that I will actually listen to rather than $15 on a book that I will never get around to reading. Reading means carving out time to give a book my full attention, whereas listening to an audiobook can be done in the background while I’m simultaneously working on something else. Ah, multitasking!

I don’t buy novels, I’m more of a nonfiction guy. Here’s a few of my favorite audiobooks (in alphabetical order):Read More