Can you draw Chris Battle? If so, you could have an exciting career in commercial art!!

Forget about Tippy the Turtle or Patchy the Pirate-- apparently, the toughest thing an artist can attempt to draw is yours truly. Take a look at what happened when the gang at Cartoon Network set out to capture the uniqueness that is me:

Nobody tried harder to figure out the magic formula
for drawing me than Paul Rudish and Clay Morrow.
Paul's are above and Clay's are below.

Being office mates on Dexter's and PPG placed current Dreamworks hotshot Andy Bialk in a unique position to study me. Here's two takes from him:


Dan Krall has known me the longest of any of the CN gang,
so his is brilliantly savage (and probably the most accurate):

But wait, there's more:
Andy Suriano
Chris Reccardi
Aaron Springer
Mike Stern
(This is back when I had more facial hair.)
Then there's my guest turn on the Powerpuff Girls
thanks to Stef Choi.
I finally wound up taking a crack at it myself a few years ago.

Happy Tree Friends: KA-POW!

A new HAPPY TREE FRIENDS short from the gang at Ghostbot that I did character layout for is now online. Working from cool new re-designs of HTF's super-squirrel Splendid by Roque Ballesteros, I had the lucky assignment of drawing all the cool action poses that went into this super-powered beatdown. Here's a sampling:



Check out more behind the scenes goodness at the Ghostbot Blog!.......................
BERFDAY!

Can ya believe it's been 3 years since I started this blog?
That's a lot of Post-Its.

Procrastination

I finally finished this one after finding the original sketch
in an old folder from early last year........................
★★★ VOTE! ★★★

STARBUCKS will give you free coffee and KRISPY KREME will give you a free donut, so you have no excuses!!!

Still alive

... but a little too busy to post anything of my own, so instead I'll just promote some of my pals' stuff!

The always amazing CHRIS RECCARDI has an exclusive on-line interview with HI-FRUCTOSE Magazine that you must check out. Chris shoots the shit about his lengthy career in the biz working on all your favorite cartoons, and even shares his rough sketches before they become painted masterpieces. Be sure to check out the awesome catfight storyboard sequence from the long-delayed EL SUPERBEASTO!

Okay, so I'm a little late spreading the news, but I sure as hell hope you guys watched the Billy & Mandy spin-off special UNDERFIST over the weekend. Maxwell Atoms and the gang turned out a trick-or-treat bag full of of Halloween cartoon kick-assery featuring the work of rock stars like Andy Suriano, Phil Rynda, and more. Some guy named Carl even did some voicework. You can check out some kick-ass layout art from UNDERFIST by Andy HERE.

Speaking of Andy, you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of his book ART OF ANDY, chock full of Andy's unbelievable cartoon masterworks. Do yourself a favor and go to his blog and order one, or if you're in LA, head over to House of Secrets in Burbank and pick one up. You'll be glad you did.

That Dan Krall guy found time between working on cool stuff like CHOWDER and CORALINE to illustrate a children's book. Way to make the rest of us look lazy. You can pre-order it HERE.

psst... The COMPLETE POWERPUFF GIRLS SERIES is coming to DVD in January 2009. With tons on extras. Pre-order it NOW, whydoncha?
In the meantime, I'm busy working on one of Cartoon Network's new "Cartoonstitute" shorts... involving one of the guys mentioned above. I won't say which, tho. That would be telling.

I am a dirty press whore

So if you check out the latest issue of Animation Magazine, you can read a multi artist-interview about breaking into the field of animation prop design, where guys like me, Lance Falk, and Darrel Bowen give you the low-down on what it takes to get a job in this biz. If you already have a job, feel free to ignore it; You know what you're doing. To save you $6, I've posted the article below:

"BEE" Bits: Cutting Room Floor

Here's a bunch of rough designs from the MIGHTY B! While some appear in the finished show, most wound up on the cutting room floor when scripts were rewritten or scenes got cut, so this is your only chance to see 'em...

Abandoned re-design for Portia that Erik Wiese
and I were noodling with at the beginning of the season.

Believe it or not, this isn't the first time I've had to
draw a rabid leprechaun for a show.

... and here's another "process" image. I have no idea what the finished one
looks like-- what episode is this from? I think the board was done by either
Lynne Naylor or Chris Reccardi.

2 Girls & a Monkey

... and they're actually in color for once! (All done with ad markers and pencil/pen on watercolor paper)

Everyone loves ERIN ESURANCE!
A more finished version of the AAYLA SECURA pic
from a few posts ago.
... and finally, for all you evil monkey lovers out there,
POWERPUFF GIRLS super-villain MOJO JOJO.

1.5 seconds of fame

I guess these days you know you've made it when you get mentioned on a DVD commentary. Here's a short clip where Genndy (along with Bryan Andrews) gives a little shout-out to yours truly in the commentary track for the "Jack & the Spartans" episode from the SAMURAI JACK Season 2 set:

Here's my designs for the robot monster:


My idea was to have the robo-beast's facial graphics resemble
a Greek vase, with orange graphics on black.

Of course, red and black are always seen as symbolically
representing evil, so they went with that.

Another damn STAR WARS post

I just realized we've almost hit the half-year mark and I haven't posted a single STAR WARS related drawing in '08. That's gotta violate some sort of animation blogger law, and since I don't want any trouble, here's one of Aayla Secura, the one who got shot in the back by her troops on the gummi mushroom planet in Revenge of the Sith.

Sedusa Post-It

Wound up drawing this pic of POWERPUFF GIRLS villain Sedusa after doing a few birthday Post-Its for some of my co-workers at Cartoon Network. Ya gotta love a lady villain that wears fishnets and thigh-highs.
...................................
While you're here, be sure to check out my recommendations from Amazon.com on the right; It's an easy way to grab DVDs of some of the shows I've worked on, some of my pals' stuff, and even great inspirational works no artist should be without.

Who wants some MIGHTY B??

At last, THE MIGHTY B has aired, and I can finally share some of what I've spent over a year working on. A lot of work went into this show, and here's a small example of the extreme attention to detail we in the Character Dept. put into it:

Here's the original storyboard panel of Bessie smelling a dirty diaper.

Here's my first pass at a more on-model Bessie
(on Post-It Note, of course)

...and here she is after tweaks requested by the Character Supervisor.

Now multiply that amount of work by the number of people
it takes to fill the show's San Francisco setting!


Now you can see why I haven't had as much time for fun Post-It Note doodles in the past year ;) To give you an idea of how long it's been, I started work on the show in late 2006 and finished up this February, then started and finished another project, the show finally premiered late last month and now I'm back out there looking for my next gig! Thank god for the down-time; I'm tired.

...................................




Check it out!
You can download
THE MIGHTY B on iTunes
by clicking the picture
on the left or just
click HERE.

Yay! Now can watch
it on your Zune!!!

MIGHTY B Premieres April 26th!

The wait is almost over: THE MIGHTY B premieres Saturday morning, April 26th at 10:30 AM! We also made the cover of Animation Magazine's May issue, available now at your local newsstand!

Collectively, the MIGHTY B crew is staffed with the people who brought you REN & STIMPY, SPONGEBOB, DEXTER'S LAB, POWERPUFF GIRLS, TEENAGE ROBOT, SAMURAI JACK, CLONE WARS and EL TIGRE, including such heavy-hitters as Emmy winners Seonna Hong and Bryan Arnett(who's artwork graces the cover of the mag), as well as Lynne Naylor, Bill Wray, Louie Del Carmen, Alex Kirwan, Sunil Hall, Jenny Baker and many more! (... and I apparently had something to do with it also)


Be sure to check out the official site for videos and downloads!

Hype Machine

If you wanna find out more about me than you really wanted to know, I was recently interviewed for the coolest new cartoon blog on the block, CARTOON FUNLAND, a creation of Doktor Viktor Von Kreep, the ghastly ghoul behind the upcoming CREAL KILLERS cartoon art book.

The truth is laid bare for all to see. It gets ugly, but the truth is never pretty, kids. Click on the image above or HERE to read the whole dirty deal.

Rogue's Gallery

Since everybody really dug the last post, how 'bout another helping of PPG nostalgia? Here's some drawings from an episode where they were looking at photos of their many villains:

(...and I know I posted that Mojo Jojo pic a while back,
but I couldn't break up this set, now, could I?)