Earl Norem...

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately, I got some freelance again from Universal, then went back home to see my family in Texas (click here to see where my mom lives, and learn a little history), and then I came back to have yet another freelance opportunity on a commercial with my former director/producer on Making Fiends, Dave Wasson. I have been drawing alot (and I took alot of Photos in Texas, which I will post on my other blog sometime soon), but I'm also caught up in the NBA Playoffs right now and going nuts. The Playoffs are to a basketball fan what sugar is a to an ADD kid.

Anyway...


The real reason of this post till I get my new material together is to give awareness/promote an artist that I loved seeing the work of growing up: Earl Norem. You can find a brief wikipedia summary here. I grew up seeing his work on the covers of comics and especially He-Man stuff (and by stuff I mean practically anything with He-Man). He seemed to know how to combine real world realism with the comic world's extraordinary humanoid standards. I have examples of his work below. His unofficial page is having problems right now (and will be hopefully up again soon), but if you google him in images, you will see a plethora of work and fun. I didn't know if he had retired or what when I came across a painting he did for the newer version a He-Man a few years back. I got excited thinking he was still making work, but at the bottom of a wikipedia entry there was this quote that broke my heart:

Norem favors painting in acrylics. Suffering from arthritis, he is now retired; only painting for his own amusement and for his grandchildren. As he said in a 2005 interview, "All the contacts that I had in the commercial art field are either retired or dead, and the younger art buyers don't want anything to do with an 81-year-old artist."

So this post is my feeble attempt to not let the awesome work of one of my favorite illustrators, Earl Norem, be forgotten. Enjoy.

Just as I was about to publish this post I found someone else had done an even better tribute to Earl Norem's work (click here).

Gorilla...

I'm in Texas right now visiting me mother and family. Tonight we are watching Bednobs and Broomsticks. It alot of fun but I really wanted to draw a gorilla... so here it is.

Money Doesn't Equal Success or a Great Life (I Have the Tax Returns To Prove It)...

Sorry there is no picture in this post, but I just got done doing my taxes for this year. It always gives me plenty of moments where I'm cocking my head to the side like that of a confused dog. Anyway, I got everything taken care of and what do you know. I made quite a good less money this year than last. But how could that be? I had way more fun this year that I didn't even notice it. Plus I fell more accomplished as I've done things for (and in my) career that I didn't think I'd get to:

I got work more professional work (trust me, that means alot), I got to work in commercials, got to co-create/develop a short for a tv series, and even started boarding for a feature film (and that's outside of many other less notable, but still enjoyable tasks).

The year before was monumental, don't get me wrong. I finally got my first storyboarding gig (after two years of being half student, half professional test taker). Yet, that year wasn't as enjoyable as this past one. I think it has to do with two main factors. First, my fiance is living with me and not 2 hours away--moral support goes a long way. Second, last year I was even more 'green' than I am now at working professionally for animation. I mean sure, I've done graphic design and illustration stuff here and there for 12 years now, but animation is different. Just the fact that your artwork deals with the element, and showcasing, of time is complication enough. Then compound that by every production/studio has a different work setup than the one next to it, yet everyone thinks their way is cannon. So while money helps (believe me it really does) you can still have one hell of a life without having a whole lot of money. How many people can have the guts to say that in this global economic climate and while inbetween jobs?

Character Design...

A friend of mine, Zachary Lind, asked if I had time to doodle up some design variations of a character that he has for his thesis film. I made several that I just wasn't happy with. Then I did this one. This is a totally different way than I usually draw, but I really liked where it was going--luckily he did too. So here is the rough sketches I sent him. Sometime I'll probably get around to cleaning them up.

Middle Of The Night Doodle...

I finally am starting to feel creative for the first in time weeks (hence why there's been so many observational drawings and so few drawings from imagination). Now this picture has been floating around in my head all day and though it is weird, I really wanted to fight and get it out of my head. Hope you like.

Security Guard...

Actually he was a public safety officer, but I saw him at the zoo and just had to do a drawing of him (keeping the zoo safe, one bad hair piece at a time).

Snow Leopard...

It was too big for my scanner, so I took a quick snapshot.

Prepare To Be Cuted...

I just drew this on the couch. It was Mr. Ollie looking at me sad wishing he could be on the couch with me. C'est la vie dog.

Stuff...

Here are some sketches from last night where Ashley had her student jazz band play at a parent teacher night.