Back in October, I was asked to do artwork for a children's app for Christmas. I know what you are thinking..."Mike you do children oriented artwork all the time...this should be easy". Well, you are kind of right. I have always love cartoons...I grew up watching Looney Tunes every morning before and after school. Heck, I still watch them whenever they are on.
But, after about 20 years of drawing guns and monsters (and getting payed to do it) I jumped at the opportunity to do something out of the ordinary for me. Granted, I've done some illo work in the "cartoony" style, but that had been for goofy one off gags for Mwahahaha! and assorted goofiness at the White Wolf offices (although, I never got to make the "How to use the Bathroom Correctly starring the Wizz'rd" and lord knows it would have been useful there). All of this artwork was influenced by my love of Christmas specials from the 70s and 80s (Garfield's Christmas Special was a tour de force when you are a kid). I also brought in some influences from some modern cartoons such as Adventure Time, Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Dexter's Laboratory, & Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (and yes, I still watch all of them on Cartoon Network and Boomerang).
All of the artwork you see here orginally started out as a pencil drawing which I then "inked" and colored in Illustrator. Up until that time, I had used Illustrator primarily as a tool to create logos and simple graphics and icons, but never full blow artwork. Luckily, Craig Grant posted a link to a Youtube video that would turn out to be my Rosetta Stone for Illustrator. Seriously, I will whip out Illustrator at the drop of a hat now...the hell with Photoshop.
What I think set this illustration gig apart from many others is I had a lot of fun doing it. I haven't had this much fun drawing something since I did Freak Legion back in "the Olden Tymes". I'm really hoping to get the chance to do some more art in this style. Got my fingers crossed.
