Quick Samurai-Geisha sketch

Here's a quick sketch for another Sanzoku I'm working on. I'm not particularly happy with the "feel" of this one, and I'm still not quite sure why. But I figured I'd go ahead and post it, so I can get some feedback.

We've got our Sunday sketch class tomorrow, so look for some fresh figure drawings on Monday.

Happy Weekend!

-Ed

Digital Hair Pulling

My editor wrote a pretty interesting article last week about something I've been talking about over at The Daily Cartoonist. Here's my quote from that thread:

“Real” editorial cartoons will make a comeback only when a new generation of people understand what they are, and what they are for. I’ve touched on this before in other forums, but I believe that this is a societal issue. Quite frankly, we’ve raised a generation of wussies. Plain and simple. Until people grow some thicker skin it’ll be this way. I saw it when I was teaching art classes. I had students coming in that had never been told “no,” or where their work was lacking. They thought everything was “perfect” (insert fragrant flowers and star dust here).

Here's my editor's opinion piece.

And here's my cartoon. It's pretty sad when our own school board has to enact a revision in its harassment policy to include messages sent over the Internet, most commonly as text messages.

New Samurai-Geisha sketch and a new follower!

Welcome William Knox-Davies - Art Student extraordinaire! Or is it Bill? Anyway, I've got a new follower of my blog, and this guy has skills. He's a student out in California, and you should go check out his blog. Interesting stuff.

Also, I was doodling away yesterday, and accidentally stumbled upon an interesting pose for my next Sanzoku. Here she is:

Stay tooned for the ink and color version; coming soon to your other favorite blog!

Cheers,

Ed

The Beautiful comic art of Loisel

If you're not familiar with the French comic artist Régis Loisel, you should be. I first discovered his work while buried in a stack of books at Chamblin's Book Mine here in Jacksonville (also an entity you should be familiar with). Anyway, he did a series entitled Roxanna, and you can see some examples of this at his website (it's in my links to the right of this page). I stumbled across his on line portfolio accidentally last night while searching for something else. And I'm glad i did. Any opportunity to tell Americans about this guy, I'm gonna take. So click the link and enjoy (note: his website is in French, so you may have to just enjoy the images or Google him for his bio - he worked on Disney's Mulan).

-Ed

Takin' the good with the bad

The Comics Reporter gave me a mention last week in reference to my plight in the weeklies. I think they got it right: "One of the underplayed elements of cartoons losing traction in newspaper via the decline in staffed editorial cartoonist positions is that freelancers are treated much differently than a staffed cartoonist in a way that can make it much, much more difficult for that cartoonist."

Another irony in all of this is that I'm continuing to be picked up by the major national newspapers. Go figure.

Sunday Sketch

Well, we had our weekly sketch class today, and I must say I was glad to get back. Drawing from the figure always relaxes me after a hard week losing cartooning jobs. And best of all, no deadline! Anyway, I think I got a couple of decent drawings from this class. We started out with some quick 3 minute gestures, I'll post those first. Then we did a series of 20 minute poses, and finally finished up with a long 1 hour pose (that's the drawing at the top of this post). You might notice that I couldn't get her left hand in the picture, so I sketched it separately to cut and paste later in Photoshop). I usually don't do portraits of the models, opting instead to draw the entire figure, but for some reason today I gave it a shot. I'll post those here as well. Oh, and I can't forget my drawing from the skeleton. I always seem to have a better day drawing when I sketch the skeleton before class. I think it gives me a sense of the major masses of the figure before I even see the figure. Give me a shout if you've got a second.

Cheers,

Ed

Last Syndicate cartoon of the week

Well, it's been a tumultuous week (to say the least), and with my editorial cartooning career in limbo, it's time to start looking for that next door to open. I've been hitting the online art boards pretty hard, and posting my drawings where ever I think people will take the time to look at them. I'll probably keep working for the one weekly I have left (my longest running gig), and of course I'll keep contributing national topic cartoons to my syndicate,; but political cartooning is in a transformative stage right now. With newspapers dwindling, closing, and moving on line, everything is changing. We'll just have to see where that new door leads.

Happy Weekend & Happy Holidays!

-Ed

PS - Look for some new figure drawings on Monday - we've got sketch class on Sunday, and I'm really looking forward to that. It's my peace.

Politics as usual

This whole Blagojevich mess got me to thinking about the thin line between the gangster mentality and politics. Only this time, Mr. "tough guy" shot himself in the foot.

Enjoy.

I have to mention that I've just updated www.halltoons.com so be sure to stop by for a look. I'm sure there are at least a couple of cartoons that didn't appear here.

Also, if you are an editor (or know an editor you can tell about this), please note that reprints of all the cartoons posted at halltoons are now available for purchase through PayPal. Just click the Buy Now button under each cartoon to purchase the one time printing rights to the cartoon of your choice.

Happy Shopping.

-Ed

More Flyin' Geishas!

Comin' right at ya. Watch out! I've got a few more national topic cartoons to do this week, so I'd better get on those now. Enjoy, and let me hear from you!

Cheers,

-Ed

Doesn't get much more local than this

It seems that our local animal shelter supervisor has been playing a little loose with the facts concerning where donated animals are ending up. In one instance they told the former owners that the dog had been adopted by an out-of-town family, when in fact that dog had been euthanized. Oops. Guess she didn't count on anyone finding out that little kibbles & bit of info.

Here's the cartoon. I used the long hallway shot from the movie The Green Mile for this.

Enjoy, and let me hear from you!

Cheers,

Ed

A Sanzoku from a digital sketch

As promised here's another "little bandit" taken from a gesture drawing I did in class yesterday. It's interesting to do a drawing that has no origin based in the physical world (i.e. no pen and paper - just a digital drawing, straight from the figure, and into the computer). This is intriguing to me, and something that I definitely want to continue to work at. The more people that creep up behind me in class; very curious and kind of dumbfounded at what I'm doing, the more I think that maybe I'm on to something. Something that is just not being done right now.

Here's the gesture:

And here's the finished Samurai-Geisha.

Enjoy, and let me hear from you!

Cheers,

Ed