Published in Stern

I found out last night that Germany's most read news and lifestyle magazine STERN (15 million visitors monthly on it's website) has published one of my cartoons. Which makes me think of one of my favorite Norm McDonald lines... "Germans LOVE Ed Hall." Actually he said "Germans Love David Hassellhoff." I guess he's OK too.

Anyway, it's this cartoon that they published, which is kinda cool seeing as it looks like he's gonna be our next President. Some of my colleagues have been concerned that we could conceivably have trouble "going after" a President Obama, to which I reply: he's a politician! Trust me, he'll do something stupid!

Anyway, I had to go to translations.com to get the heading translated from German to English, But here's what they put under the cartoon:

What comes? If it concerns in Barrack Obama a telegenen Showstar, that only blümerant speaks, the sweet woods raspelt, like in the cartoon of Ed hall (USA) - and like it an age old New-yorker-cartoon already once a candidate into the mouth put has: I promise you that I will be just as charming after my choice, like previously!

I think what that means is he will continue his flowery prose even after being elected. And if that's how they saw it, then they got it. Which is a relief. I'd hate to disappoint the Germans.

Last syndicate cartoon of the week

I don't know about you, but I've often marveled at the sheer volume of automobiles that are produced in this country every day, and wondered what would happen if no one showed up to buy them. Looks like that's finally happening. It also looks like GM is attempting a merger with Chrysler in hopes of saving it's rotting carcass. We'll see if that works, or if Chrysler "bites." Don't forget to give me a shout, or sign up as a follower of my blog. It's pretty pathetic when I look down there (see bottom of this page) and only one person is following me. Snort!

Oh well, Happy weekend!

-Ed

Another in the series

Here's another Samurai-Geisha. I decided with this illustration to show her in a rare moment of contemplation & stillness (usually she's jumping, striking, or just generally moving very quickly). I thought this might be a nice change of pace.

It won't last long. She'll be back to chopping heads off in no time.

New syndicate cartoon

Here's my first syndicate cartoon of the week. I go through spells sometimes (I'm in one right now) when I'm struggling for ideas, but this cartoon hit home for me. It was one of those, "where the hell did that come from?" cartoon moments. Those are usually the best. With the election Tuesday, I knew I wanted to get something in on the vote, so here it is. Enjoy.

Samurai/Geisha - structural form

Here's a quick morning sketch to show how I'm using the Manga structure to build some of these now. You should be able to see how the simple construction elements used in Manga can help to create an illustration with depth and volume of form. I start by getting the three major volumes of the figure in correct proportion to one another (head, hips, torso), then I build the contour onto this rigid structure, and finally I add color and shade. It's a pretty effective way to get the figure drawn quickly, but I am not trying to go strictly Manga here. I would like to think that they are somewhere between Manga and traditional figure drawing. I also try to pick poses that are out of the ordinary, where the figure is in a kind of mid-pose; not at rest, but also not in full motion either.

Florida Press Club Awards

We drove down to Daytona Saturday night for The 2008 Florida Press Club Awards, and we had a great time. That included being invited to the President's "wrap" party afterwards, where we mingled with some of the other award winners until the wee hours.



Here's me accepting my award.




And here's me, clowning around with FPC President Jennifer Cason. She was a little nervous, so I decided to lighten the mood by having my picture taken with her in the middle of the ceremony. Funny thing is, several others did the same thing after I started the trend!








Jennifer did a great job.
















Man, look at all those awards!

Here we are with a really nice guy we met when we first got there. Clayton Park - he's a Senior Editor for The Volusia/Flagler Business Report in Daytona.








And here's the dessert I couldn't eat. Damn you lactose intolerance!

Patrol Dog Model Sheet

Here's a character design/model sheet I'm working on for a possible book deal. I won't comment too much yet - I'll just say it's for a children's book.

Posting this again

Here's a Barack Obama walk cycle that I did at the beginning of the year - back when I thought I was going to get into Flash animation more heavily. For some reason I thought I might post it again in hopes that it will inspire me to continue, and do some more political animations. The learning curve is pretty steep in Flash, but now that I've done this, maybe I can move on to more complex animations. This is the look I'd like to see in more animations these days. The classic Chuck Jones model, only political. The problem is, most animators are too lazy to learn the basic fundamentals, so it just looks like a rarefied flip book. There are exceptions, and I shouldn't spout of too much until my stuff gets a little more along, but short, to the point, classically animated snippets are what we need in the field of editorial cartooning. OK, I'll slowly slide my soapbox back under the bed now.

Sunday Sketch

We had a male model this Sunday; and a pretty good one at that. He held his poses well, and was able to do a reclining pose for 90 minutes at the end of class. I'm not gonna comment too much on these, as I was experimenting with some different techniques during class (ink wash mostly). I did manage to work back into a couple of them in Photoshop.

The long pose is the pencil drawing at the bottom of this post. Enjoy.

Finished illustration from earlier today

As promised, here's the finished illustration from the ink I was working on in today's videos. Tomorrow I'm off to Daytona to pick up my award. More on Sunday or Monday. Let me hear from you!

Cheers,
Ed

More video of yours truly

You guys asked for it, so here it is; another video of me inking my Samurai-Geisha illustrations. This is in two parts because the video ran a little long - sorry. I'll post the finished illustration in color here later, but in the meantime, enjoy the video! BTW, while you're here, why not take a second to become a follower of this blog? Just go to the bottom of this page and click on follow this blog. That way, when I update, you'll be the first to know about it. I look forward to hearing from you all. -Ed