Margeaux McClelland

Tuff-Girl
Artwork © Margeaux McClelland
Tuff-Girl ® and © Bryan Mon

Margeaux McClelland has a bubbly comic art style with obvious anime and manga influences (think "Lupin III"). Add too that her watercolors and her pieces often become an amalgam of saucer-eyed manga and comfy, spectral storybook qualities.

Margeaux is a young artist not too long graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design. She has collaborated with two other artists on a web comic and has on her resume work done for Carter's and StorybookAnytime.com.

I met Margeaux when she interned with Cartoon Network for a summer. She created the pin-up above for the first issue of "Unstoppable Tuff-Girl."



http://mxartdump.blogspot.com/

Check out the web comic, "Burning Heart:"
http://www.burningheartcomic.com/index.html

Stephanie Gladden

Tuff-Girl and Tuff-Mutt vs Rip Tyler
Artwork © Stephanie Gladden
Characters © Bryan Mon

Stephanie draws funny characters like Walt Kelly (Pogo) and draws cute like Fred Moore (Mickey Mouse), fresh, lively and always appealing. If that wasn't enough, she draws great dinosaurs - everything needs to have her dinosaurs in them.

Stephanie has been drawing professionally since 1991, where she got her start working in animation, including Disney’s “Pepper Ann.” Stephanie started drawing comics in ’93 and has drawn many licensed books over the years, such as “The Simpsons,” “Ren & Stimpy,” “Looney Tunes,” and “Tom & Jerry.” For nearly ten years, she worked as a character artist for Cartoon Network, creating art for “The Powerpuff Girls,” “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,” “Duck Dodgers,” and “The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy.” In 1998, Bongo Comics published her own original comics creation, “Hopster’s Tracks.”

I met Stephanie working for Cartoon Network, Atlanta, where I estimate she drew 98% of all Powerpuff Girl (PPG) art ever to be used for marketing, advertising and licensing and a few PPG comic book adventures to boot; enough that I’d have to check myself and remember that some guy by the name of Craig and not Stephanie had created the super powered trio.



To see more of Stephanie’s work, visit her web site:
www.stephaniegladden.com.

Ruben Procopio

Tuff-Girl and Tuff-Mutt
Artwork © Ruben Procopio
Tuff-Girl ® and © Copyright Bryan Mon


Tuff-Girl and Tuff-Mutt
Artwork © Ruben Procopio
Tuff-Girl ® and © Copyright Bryan Mon


Ruben Procopio skills as an artist are expansive covering both 2-dimensional design and 3-dimensional sculpture. His concept and comic art has a romantic noir feeling that reminds me of classic action thriller comic strips of the 1940's and '50s. His character sculptures are lively and fresh and are doubly astounding given his prolific output.

Ruben has contributed his creative talents to over 16 Walt Disney Feature films, including "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Lion King." His father, Adolfo Procopio, was a long time artist with Walt Disney Imagineering having worked on attractions for nearly all the Disney theme parks.

I met Ruben through mutual friend Ed Murrieta when we were all working for Disney in some way or another. When I asked Ruben for an action pinup for the first issue of "Unstoppable Tuff-Girl" he obliged with not one but the two smash-up pieces (above).

For more about Ruben, check out his studio web site, Masked Avengers Studios or visit his web log for the latest from the creative dynamo. There's also an entry on Wikipedia.



Masked Avengers Studios
www.maskedavenger.com

Web Log:
http://maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com/

Water Gal!

"She-Bolt"
Digital color over scan of black pencil.

I made this drawing to commemorate a milestone of Juan Ortiz's. She's based on the design of his own Sea-Bolt character whose stories can be found in his independently published "Silver Comics".

http://www.silvercomics.org/
http://juanortiz.org/secondpage.html

Comic Talk

HeroesCon
Charlotte, NC
June 4-6, 2010


Aside from being creeped out by the bizarre expression of Elongated Man on a Justice League tee-shirt hung on the wall of shirts across from the Monster Enterprises booth, the only thing I forgot to mention was the podcast interview of Merrill and myself by ComicRelated.com.

I tripped up on the blog i.d. It appears that spelling it out is a bit harder for me than writing it out, kind of like "Mississippi" before learning it as a mnemonic. Otherwise, Merrill's by then well rehearsed 1-minute breakdown of what is Tuff-Girl pretty well covers things.

The bonus part is that this picture from the site is the only one I have of Merrill and I at the booth. In the back you can just make out the variant covers of the "G.I. Joe Origins" comic featuring a story Merrill wrote.


Podcast interview:
http://comicrelated.com/news/6802/the-related-recap-202

http://comicrelated.com/news/6866/heroescon-photo-flood

http://comicrelated.com/

Girls for Sale

HeoresCon, June 4-6, 2010
Charlotte, NC


The general consensus around the hall was that business wasn't as good as hoped. Possibly attendance was lower. Definitely, folks just seemed to have a tighter hold on their monies - out side of the Saturday night auction I'm told.

Having naught but my experience drawing and painting personalized artwork on Disneyland's Main Street, my business of convention sketches surprised me by being fairly brisk.


"Rex"
Convention sketch.

With a 6.75" x 10.5" comic backing board advertising "CONVENTION SKETCHES $15.00 1 CHARACTER" I began Friday morning with a Rex from Cartoon Network's new action show "Generator Rex" in black sharpie on the slick side of another comic board.


"Ben, Big Chill"
Convention Sketch.

Second I drew a composition with half a Ben and half a Big Chill, one of Ben's alien hero transformations. Two halves equal one character sketch right? As I would on the remainder, I drew on the dull side of the comic board, except in the cases where I was drawing sketchbooks or other paper provided by the client (yes, some folks do anticipate having sketches done and bring their own paper stock).


"Samurai Jack"
Convention sketch.

In keeping with the Cartoon Network theme and as a marketing ploy I drew Samurai Jack thinking that would start to attract art patrons.


"Tinker Bell"
Convention Sketch.

And with the red and blue pencils and black pens I had brought, I continued to sketch characters in between "Hello"s and "Have a free button"s to attract potential business to the Monster Enterprises booth.


"Batgirl"
Purchased sketch.

Early on I even gave away two sketches, Wonder Woman and Scarlet Witch, to two young girls whom I'm not even sure recognized who the characters were, but were looking for free stuff. Their father almost stopped them, but I let them keep them. Merrill laughed.


"Belle"
Purchased sketch.

At some point some body stopped at the booth and was admiring the "Supergirl vs. Kid Flash" print we had on display and risked $15 on a commission for a Supergirl sketch.


"Green Lantern"
Convention sketch.

And that got a ball slowly rolling. We sold 21 sketches, with a total of 24 characters; of those 24 characters 20 were girls, that's over 83%.


"Zatanna"
Commission.

Saturday we (or I should say "I") were the busiest with the commissions with me drawing for most of the day. Merill had the brilliant idea to spread out some of the drawings I had done within easy view of passersbys. I even had repeat customers in the form of two brother a friend claiming to be patrons of the comic arts.


"Batman, Robin, Catwoman"
based on the cover of Batman #42
Commission.

Alas it wasn't until Sunday morning after having drawing the three-character "Batman, Robin Catwoman" piece Saturday night, that I had the brilliant idea to take pictures of what I was drawing. I guess that shows you the value I place on a 20 minute sketch.


"Space girl"
Commission.

So presented here are twelve pieces I had the presence on mind of which to take pictures starting Sunday morning. Pieces sold but of which I have no pictures are these:
4 - individual Supergirls
2 - individual Batgirls
Catwoman in some body's sketch book
Starfire in sketchbook
Mary Marvel
Supergirl vs. Kid Flash
Neil Gaimen's Death
Tinker Bell
Wonder Woman
Paul Chadwick's Concrete

... and as I said earlier, 1 - Wonder Woman and 1 - Scarlet Witch I gave away.


"Supergirl"
Commission.

Sadly, even though Samurai Jack caught many an eye, my first three, Rex, Ben and Jack, were set out on the table unsold for three days.


"Jungle Girl"
Commission.

Heroes Are Hard To Find

Heroes Convention, June 4-6, 2010
Charlotte, NC


Thursday, June 3 is set up day.
It was humid that day in Charlotte. It was humid that day in the convention hall. And if I failed to mention, it was humid that day in the Charlotte Convention Center as we were setting up.


At the last minute, I called my friend Garret Webb (seen here above) to help me with the set up duties when I learned that my planned help, well, wouldn't be there to help. The booth is a standard 10' x 10' footprint with 2 eight-foot tables with skirts and 2 folding chairs supplied by the convention center.


The front table where writer Merrill Hagan and myself sat to greet the attending masses was pretty well covered with book racks, prints, comics, sketches and free buttons (not pictured).

What I see in the photo above represents a lot of things I didn't have (nor had the notion of having) before last 6 month's effort to have the first copy of "Unstoppable Tuff-Girl" printed and a booth at HeroesCon: An original independent comic book (duh); 2 book racks; 1 DVD spinner rack for more books and cards, 1 vinyl banner; printed black "Tuff-Girl" hoodies; 2 hooks for hanging things like tee-shirts on hangers from the back scaffolding; 1 toilet paper roll floor stand for use as a make shift table top arm to hang things like tee-shirts on hangers, 10 boxes of various sizes to store and transport books and stuff; 2500 pin back buttons for promotions; 1 glass jar to hold the free promotional buttons; 4 business card holders, 100 laser-print posters, 18 sets of 12 ink-jet prints; a set of bed sheets and a table cloth to cover things between show days; a table top spinner intended to display a sculpture of Tuff-Girl; and about a half dozen other miscellaneous things.


Knowing what a struggle for attention it is for small independent start up publishers in a field dominated by Superman, Spider-Man and the like, I'd say the Monster Enterprises booth and Tuff-Girl received a bit less than moderate reception over the weekend. However, folks who stopped at the booth generally seemed pleased with our offering, most welcoming a free button.

We exchanged books with Tom Bancroft ("Mulan", "The Lion King", "Opposite Forces" comic), who was complimentary about our book. We also traded a few stories about our respective days with Disney.

http://tombancroft.blogspot.com/
http://www.funnypagespress.com/
http://tombancroft.deviantart.com/

Merrill passed a copy of UTG #1 to comic writer Mark Waid ("Kingdom Come") who said that he spotted our booth and was interested in what he saw.

Michael Neno, a contributor to Juan Oritz's "Silver Comics", was pleasantly surprise to see copies of Silver Comics" at our booth, although we only had up to issue #7.

http://www.nenoworld.com/

http://www.silvercomics.org/


Here are are 3 thing I learned:

1) There's no air-conditioning during loading and breakdown because the loading gates are open to the outside.

2) Kid's safety scissors can cut flesh.

3) The maid will not clean up your room if you leave a "do not disturb" sign hanging on your hotel room door knob.

I Need a Hero

Look for Merrill Hagan and me at the Monster Enterprises booth #329.
Heroescon
June 4 - 6, 2010
Charlotte Convention Center
501 S. College St.
Charlotte, NC 28202

Open to the Public:
Friday: 11.00 am - 7.00 pm
Saturday: 10.00 am - 6.00 pm
Sunday: 11.00 am - 6.00 pm


http://www.heroesonline.com/heroescon/

http://www.heroesonline.com/

120 [m ] : Ben 10 Art

Part of the function of the Illustration group at Cartoon Network is to create posed character art to be used on licensed product. While there are times art is created especially for specific product items (a.k.a. SKUs), most of the art for licensing business is created prior to the decision of what and at what quantities of product will be made. That art along with logos, color palettes, patterns and more go into a "Style Guide", kind of like an album of assets.


Character poses in rough pencil, "Ben 10 Alien Force"
Color pencil and black roller ball pen ink on copier paper.
2008.



Gwen poses in rough pencil, "Ben 10"
Color pencil and black roller ball pen ink on copier paper.
2008.

With such a schedule, there is a sizable amount of guessing done with these pieces, but generally the artists try to mix up the static with the dynamic, the left-facing with the right facing, and the ones towards the consumer with the ones off-stage interacting.

With Ben, who wears the ever important Omnitrix only on his left wrist, most of his poses have that arm coming forwards to the consumer. It's become kind of iconic. It's also, arguably, become a little boring.

With the alien heroes, and really most action characters, you get a lot of running and jumping. Hitting and kicking are good too, as long as you keep any swish lines and bursts under control.

Making a set of poses of Gwen, Ben's cousin, is a relatively rare assignment, since most of the network's programs are aimed more to boys. Here Gwen from the first "Ben 10" series is a ten-year old girl with magic powers. What she is not is a princess, a sexy video-game heroine or moody vampire. As such, it was actually fun drawing these.

Crush

“Romantic love is the ennoblement of basic lust in a society with too much time on its hands”

I had formed something close to that “revolutionary" statement in college regarding what may be the world’s largest wastes of time, resources and finances next to linear particle colliders. It is exactly the type of statement to be made by a bugeoning cynic with knowledge collected and sorted like precious coins to be forged by youthful idealism into a sharpened edge to sunder outdated notions and unproved myths.

Such a well-formed concept then meets head-on its first and eternal antithesis in the Copernican-like submission, the crush.

The crush as opposed to the object of the crush may be explained as some combination of pheromones, thoughts and feelings focused by civilized politeness. But to say that much is to admit that it is real. It has weight and occupies space. There are no small crushes. It is loud and insistent and pulls upon your attentions at all hours. It is both the fuel and ignition for stupid poetry and brainless ballads. And more than that, it is the filter that makes the stupid and the brainless truer than one’s own name.

Unfortunately, it is one sided, because a crush isn’t a crush after it’s been mutually expressed. When that happens it’s mush, and at best it has only a one-in-four chance of happening: 1) he does but she doesn’t - strike; 2) she does but he doesn’t - strike; 3) neither he nor she does - strike, duh; and 4) he does and she does - bingo! See, one in four. And of course the odds grow ever worse with “he lied”, “she just wants to have fun” and $1,000,000 in prize money. But it’s the one-sided aspect that makes the crush a private bittersweet thing, with high chances for it to crash and crumble.

On the up side, a good and thorough crush will boost creativity. But even at it’s worst, what harm is there to write the 24,601st song to rhyme “girl” and “world”, or to bake cookies with too much salt in them. Practically speaking, the world is a better place for crushes if it accomplishes no other thing than encourage people to more closely attend their hygiene and bathe more frequently.

On the extreme down side: Grecian/Trojan level destruction and super-villains.

Left Brain say, “you fool.”

Right Brain says, “yeah, so what?”

I know that everything that I’ve ever written and drawn is in part an attempt to impress some body else. That may be as much an awkward form of social integration as it may be symptomatic of a crush, but in either case, that’s a lousy statement with which to conclude this article, so let me try this:

Only the crush knows why birds suddenly appear,…

… you fool.