Illustration Friday - Robot

My original, finished robot pattern

It's been a while since I've submitted anything for the Illustration Friday weekly challenge, but when I saw that this week's challenge was "Robot," I couldn't resist.  Coincidentally, I was working on an update of a robot pattern that I had originally designed for my Spoonflower shop. My aim was to create a fabric design with some kid-friendly, retro-looking robots.

My original pattern featured 5 different robots (plus one that was repeated within the basic repeat module). Below, is the sketch for their original design. To the right, is the finished color pattern showing how it repeats. To the finished version, I added some textures in Photoshop to help give the image the feel of vintage cloth.

If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see my updated version that uses the original robots, plus a couple of new ones.

The original sketch for my robot pattern

A test, using the sketch, to see how the pattern lined up when repeated

For the updated version, I added two more robots, and lots of little gears to fill in blank spaces. I also changed the color scheme.

My recent updated robot pattern where I added two new robots and lots of gears

A sheet showing how the new pattern repeats

Illustration Friday - "Yesterday"

Click illustration to see it larger

As someone who has a hard time of letting go of his past, I’ve often associated the word “yesterday” with a feeling of nostalgia. I especially get nostalgic for my childhood, a time when I was closer to my sister and lived in a home where I felt safe and secure. I didn’t come from a perfect family, we definitely had our dysfunctional problems but I won’t go into those problems here. Despite our dysfunctions, I felt cared for and loved by my parents and even when I was younger, I think I knew they were spoiling my brother, sister and me.  

I was sick a lot as a child and because of this I missed a lot of school. My bedroom became my refuge and safe haven. I was a shy and inhibited child, afraid of much of the real world and my room, with all of its books and toys, became the only place where I felt safe and secure. I remember thinking that I would be perfectly happy to spend the rest of my life in my room. 

For this week’s Illustration Friday challenge, I’ve drawn an affectionate portrait of the way I remember my room.  It represents ‘yesterday’ to me because I often feel as if my childhood in that room took place only yesterday. I find it hard to believe that it’s been over 40 years since I could legally be considered a child. It really does seem like yesterday that I was curled up on my childhood bed and reading the Oz and Narnia books.

I’ve tried to include a number of things that were actually in my room at one time or another. I always had a lot of stuffed animals and dolls on my bed, a few of which I’ve shown in the drawing, including a Raggedy Ann doll, a plush green snake, a large dalmatian, several bunny rabbits and a teddy bear.  Above the bed, sitting on the headboard is a large papier mache cheetah that I made when I was 11 or 12.  On my walls I had thumb-tacked several posters, including a reproduction of a 1920s poster for  “The Thief of Bagdad,” starring Douglas Fairbanks (shown on the wall behind the cheetah). I remember I also had a poster showing a ruined castle in Ireland (you can see a portion of it on the right edge of my illustration).  The floor was made up of linoleum tiles in various shades of speckled browns and tans.  For awhile I had a large, oval braided rug that took up most of the floor space.  At the base of my bed I remember having a decorative green cardboard box that had a flowered lid. There were often newspapers stacked on this box because for a while I used to cut out and save the ads for my favorite movies.  The curtains on my window were beige and patterned with green, blue and tan representations of colonial shop labels and broadsheets. My room faced our backyard and from my window I could look out on to our backyard with its oval swimming pool and the brown mountain that rose up a block away from our property.

Even after I moved away from home in the late 1970s, my parents continued to live in this house so I often returned for visits.  Some time in the mid to late 1980s disaster struck my room in the form of a busted water heater which was in a service porch behind my bed. When the water heater broke, it flooded my bedroom, damaging many of my record albums and anything else I had stored on the floor. The linoleum was also damaged and had to be replaced. After this disaster, many of my things were put in storage and moved to other parts of the house. From that time on, my room never felt the same again. It no longer looked, or felt, like the room I had grown up in. 

I created the illustration using Painter 12's "Real" watercolor brushes and a customized "Pen" brush.

Illustration Friday - Chicken

When I first saw the word for this week's 'Illustration Friday' challenge, which this week is "Chicken," I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to do something somewhat retro looking. My first sketch showed a chick with a worm in its mouth being chased by a mother hen while another chick comes running in from the side. For some reason I couldn't get the sketch to look the way I imagined it in my head, so I tried again. This time I decided to eliminate one of the chicks from the foreground and to have the hen and chick pursuing the worm (which I decided to turn into a caterpillar). By doing this, it allowed me to make the hen and caterpillar larger and therefore give me some space to show a facial expression on the caterpillar.

First Sketch

Revised Sketch

After I was happy with the sketch, I placed it into a new Adobe Illustrator file where I started to draw the basic color shapes (I could have done this in Painter, which I used for doing the sketch, but I don't like Painter's shape tool as well as I like Illustrator's).

To the left is the image after I traced the basic shapes in Illustrator. From here, I exported the file as a Photoshop file where I used a Mister Retro filter on the shapes to give them the appearance of a vintage print.  With Mister Retro you can make it look like the ink has been scuffed or even out of register.  You can also add halftone dots.

Once I finished adding the Mister Retro filter, I reopened the file in Painter where I used some of Painter's brushes to add in detail. If I knew more about Photoshop's brushes I could have finished the image in Photoshop, but I find Painter's brushes unbeatable when it comes to imitating chalks, pastels, conte crayon, watercolor and leaky pens.

To the right is the image after I started adding some details in Painter.

At this point, I was pretty happy with the image and could have called it quits, but then another idea struck me. While working on this image I had come across an old card game from my childhood. It was a card game based on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show. I have always loved the graphics on card games from the 1960s so I decided to try and make my image look like a vintage children's playing card. That was my first idea anyway.  As I continued to work on the image, I began to think that it might be even better if I tried to duplicate the look of an old card game box.

Here is the original box from the Bullwinkle card game.  I scanned this box and then removed the illustration in Photoshop so that I would have a blank background to work with.

Image with the layer mode set to Darken

I pasted my image of the chicken over the blank box and scaled it to fit. I changed the layer mode to darken, which made the image somewhat transparent allowing the textures from the box to show through. But because this also made the colors too dark, I decided to duplicate the chicken layer and to place the new layer under this original layer.  I changed the layer mode on the new layer to screen.  This caused the colors on this layer to brighten almost to the point of looking washed out, but when viewed through the layer above it, it made the colors look just right. 

Image with layer mode set to Screen and the above Darken layer turned off

Image with both the Darken layer and the Screen layer visible

The last step was adding in the text.  I decided to call my fictional game "Who's Got the Worm?" because that sounded to me like the name of a children's card game. After trying a few fonts, I ended up using one called Saddlebag.  I played around with distorting it a bit, being careful not to make it look like a computer distortion (I wanted this to look vintage after all).  Once I got the letters to look the way that I wanted, I duplicated the text layer.  With the lower of the two text layers, I rasterized the type, selected it and then expanded the selection by 20 pixels.  Then I added a red stroke to the outside edge of the selection.  By expanding the selection it gave the stroke some distance from the original text on the layer above, so it looked like an outline that was drawn around, but not touching the original lettering.  I then ran the text through a Mister Retro filter to give it the scuffed, vintage printed look that I had given the illustration and then lowered the opacity a bit so that some of the texture of the box showed through.

Illustration Friday - Spent

On top of keeping our dog out of trouble, I've been so busy with other projects that I'm late posting this week's 'Illustration Friday' challenge which is the word "Spent." I ended up going with my first thought which was to depict a scene of how a boy spent his saturday, in this case, reading his stash of old comic books. I guess you could say that this illustration is somewhat autobiographical, since that is how I spent many a Saturday as a kid, not to mention days when I was sick and stayed home from school.

The image was created digitally using Corel Painter's water color brushes and a leaky pen brush that I modified somewhat. Below is the original digital pencil sketch that I started with and used as my guide for the finished piece. Beneath that is an intermediate stage where you can still see the pencil sketch showing through.

Toys That Remind Me of My Childhood Part 2

As much as I try and keep this blog to the subject of illustration and favorite illustrators, I tend at times to drift into areas of nostalgia, in particular, nostalgia for my childhood. But even when I'm indulging in nostalgia, I try and have a link to something illustrated. In this posting, I'm going to share another toy from my childhood, that is if you can count a card game as a toy (since the back of each card has a small logo on it that says "A Built Rite Toy," I guess I'll let that be my confirmation that they are toys). 

I have three old card games from my childhood that were based around cartoon or comic strip characters. In this posting I will show you the cards based on the Harvey cartoon characters.

The Harvey cartoon characters that we all know and love, the most well known of which is Casper the Friendly Ghost, have a rather convoluted background.  Casper (who is not represented in this card game) was a cartoon character developed in 1945 by Famous Studios (which itself came into being after Paramount absorbed the Fleischer brothers' debt-ridden studio).  In 1951, Harvey Comics, who was already licensing newspaper comic strip characters like Dick Tracy, licensed Famous Studios' cartoon characters, including Casper.  At the same time they began releasing comic books with characters that they had created (Wendy the Good Little Witch, Little Dot, Richie Rich, etc). In the late fifties, Harvey Comics stopped licensing the characters from Famous Studios and purchased all rights to them. In 1963 they started producing their own cartoons, the "Harveytoons," that I'm sure many of you baby boomers remember from your childhoods. (Thanks to Don Markstein's Toonopedia website for this background information).

I don't know the individual histories of the characters represented on these cards or even when these cards were manufactured (there is no date or copyright marked anywhere that I could see). I suspect they are from around 1963 or 1964. I believe that Wendy the Good Little Witch, Spooky, Nightmare and the Ghostly Trio were all spinoffs from the Casper series.  I have strong memories of seeing all of these supernatural characters in either cartoons or in comic books.  I have vague memories of cartoons starting Inchy and Wolfie, but I have no memory of Pedro or Little Feather.  Wily Fox, Moe Hare and Tommy Tortoise are so generic that if I remember them at all, I may be confusing them with similar characters created by other studios (what studio didn't create their own version of the Tortoise and the Hare story?).

It would have been great if the backside of the cards depicted a grouping of the Harvey characters, but instead we have a group of generic funny animals and goofy people. In closing, I'll mention a few things about the cards that I love - Besides the great artwork of these once famous characters, I love the wavy edge of each card, which according to the box top, was designed to more easily fit the hand, making them easier to hold. I also love the box itself which has a clamshell opening design, which is much sturdier than the other card game boxes I have where the flaps have torn and in some cases gone missing.

I hope seeing these cards, have jogged a few memories for some of you.  For those of you new to the Harvey characters, I hope you have found this interesting and will be curious enough to seek out their old comics or to read them in their newly released archive collections being put out by Dark Horse comics.

A Paper Doll That I Can Call My Own Part 3 - Betsy McCall

In two previous blogs I've written about my fond memories of playing with paper dolls when I was a little boy and I've posted some examples of some of the dolls that are still in my possession.  Readers of this blog will probably know by now that I still have many of my childhood toys and playthings.  Today I came across more of my paper dolls.  This time I stumbled upon my collection of my old Betsy McCall paper dolls. In preparing to write this blog, I did a little research on the internet and found out that Betsy McCall first appeared in McCall's magazine in 1951. I happily discovered a site that has documented her history and even has scans of many of the complete pages (http://www.thebleudoor.com/betsymccallhome.htm). I was very excited to see that many of the dolls in my collection were listed on the site.  Now I can put a date to them. My three oldest dolls (two from 1958 and one from 1959) are in the worst shape due to an unfortunate mending job done years ago using Scotch tape that has yellowed and darkened. You can see in the above image the way that the dolls look today.  On the right, I've posted my attempts at restoring the same dolls (click on the images to enlarge them).  The doll on the far left is from the Valentine's Day issue of 1958. Each doll was always accompanied by a couple of outfits and a short story with a cute illustration.   The image of the page on the right shows the doll the way that it appeared with its clothes and accompanying story in McCall's magazine.

Most of you probably know that there was also a Betsy McCall doll that had her own line of doll clothing.  My sister had the doll and several of her outfits (my sister also had the plush toy version of Betsy's dachshund, Nosy).  I loved playing dolls with my sister and I was a bit jealous when she received her Betsy McCall doll. Even though I had a few dolls of my own, my mom resisted getting me my own Betsy. It looked like I was going to have to settle for playing with the paper dolls version until one day my sister's Betsy McCall doll had a medical emergency - her jointed leg popped out of its socket. Somehow the doll's hip joint had separated a wee bit which meant that the leg would not stay in the socket. I think my mother tried tightening the joint with a cloth bandaid, but it didn't help. It looked like poor Betsy was going to live out her life with just one leg. Finally, I suppose after witnessing how sad this must have made my sister, my mother told my sister that she would take the doll to the doll hospital. The next day, Betsy was back and as good as new, her leg snug in its place. But, and here's how I came to have my own Betsy McCall doll, one day when my sister and I were both home sick from school and my mom had gone out on an errand, my sister and I decided to snoop through my mom's dresser. We were shocked and surprised when we found a Betsy McCall doll hidden under my mom's slips. It only took us a moment to realize that this was my sister's original doll, the one with the broken leg, the one my mom had told us she had taken to the doll hospital. The "good as new" Betsy that my mom said had been repaired at the doll hospital was actually a brand new doll. I don't remember exactly what happened next, but since I wanted my sister's original, broken doll for myself, I know what happened next must have involved admitting to my mom that we had been snooping and found the doll. I did end up getting to keep the broken doll and somehow I managed to put some tape around the leg to hold it in. Yes, she now had one leg that appeared to be slightly longer than the other, but I didn't care, I had my very own Betsy McCall.

Well, back to the paper dolls.  The second doll from the left in the above group, is also from 1958. In the image on the right, you can see how she looked in the original magazine page from October of that year. The accompanying story is about her family going out to dinner. Betsy McCall's purpose in the magazine seems to have been to help sell clothes for little girls. Each story and paper doll was accompanied by a footnote telling the reader what stores carried the clothing shown in the illustrations.

As Betsy entered the 1960s, she adopted a more modern look. In this period, she has an almost Jackie Kennedy look to her (I think it must be the hairstyle).  Even her mother, who you can see in the group on the right, looks a little bit like Jackie. The other characters in this group are Betsy's male cousin, Sandy McCall and another cousin, Linda.  The hand drawn Betsy image with the askew face, was my attempt to copy the Betsy McCall paper doll that appeared in this 1962 issue where she goes to dancing school.

The clothing of this period looks like something that you would see Don Draper's daughter wearing in "Mad Men," which shows what a good job the costumer designer for that show has done in capturing the era of the early 1960s.

In the group on the left, you'll notice a tiny Betsy McCall paper doll.  This was from an issue in 1965 where Betsy's mother makes some new clothes for Betsy's new doll, which in Betsy's fictional world, I believe is supposed to be a doll patterned after her.  So, this is a paper doll version of another paper doll's doll. Got that? It's metafiction in the world of paper dolls. And of course, in the story, Betsy just happens to mention which McCall's pattern number her mother used to make the clothes (just in case you want to try making them yourself).

Below, you can see the technique I used to strengthen my magazine cut-out dolls.  This backside view shows how I use to glue them on to scraps of cardboard to give them added durability. And boy oh boy, I remember how difficult it was to cut out the doll shapes from the cardboard using only a pair of children's scissors.

The Betsy on the left of the above group is not out of McCall's magazine.  It is one that I sent away for from McCall's.  In each issue, at the bottom of the Betsy page, was information on where, for ten cents, you could send for a paper doll that was printed on card stock that came with a set of clothes.  So of all of the dolls shown, this is the only one that I didn't have to paste on to a piece of card board.  Because of this, she's the one that's in the best condition.

Below, you can see more of Betsy's clothes, including an outfit that was never cut out of the magazine (I think I must have been confounded on how I would cut out the Lily that she's holding).

Betsy McCall paper dolls appeared in the magazine on and off through the 1980s and 90s, though the art that I've seen of these dolls has none of the charm of these dolls from the late fifties and early sixties.

Illustration Friday - Ahead

This week's Illustration Friday word was "Ahead." The first thing that came to my mind was someone on a journey, not knowing what was around the bend, what was ahead of them.  But the word could also be used in the context of someone who is ambitious or striving, someone who wants to get ahead.  I decided to go with something along the lines of my first idea.  A dark, mysterious forest came to mind next.  From there I thought of a boy out walking his dog, the dog has gotten ahead of him and is about to enter the mysterious forest.  The boy doesn't know what lies ahead, but he's worried that his dog is about to disappear (Click the image to enlarge it).

I started this illustration as I usually do, with a sketch.  As I sketched, I found myself spending so much time working on the trees and the forest that I began to worry that I might not be able to do them justice when it came time to painting them.  That's when I decided to do the whole thing in black and white as a digital pencil drawing.  I rarely work in black and white, so I thought of this as a challenge.  I spent a lot of time trying to get the boy and the dog right.  I drew at least three different heads and countless expressions for the boy until I finally came up with one that I was satisfied with.  For the dog, I originally had made up something out of my head but there was something that just didn't seem quite right about the pose.  Finally, after reworking it over and over, and still not being satisfied, I decided to reference a photo of my dog Lucy who died three years ago.  She was part Australian Shepherd and loved to run into our nearby forest. It became much easier when I found a photo of her with a pose similar to what I was aiming for. So this is my tribute to Lucy and the many times I chased after her into the woods.

I tried to convey a sense of mystery in this drawing and some dramatic tension, I hope I succeeded.

Toys That Remind Me of My Childhood Part 1

If you've read earlier entries in this blog you know that I have a strand of the hoarding gene in my DNA.  So, it should come as no surprise that I still have in my possession a lot of the toys from my childhood. One plaything that I remember being around our home from my earliest memories, but don't really have any recollection of playing with, is this set of heavy-cardboard cut-out figures.  Each figure is backed with a black felt-like flocking that I believe allowed the figures to be placed on a fuzzy background scene.  The flocked backing kept the figures from sliding around on the background, sort of like a low-tech velcro.  I know this because I recently bought on eBay a similar toy called "TV Flannel Funnies."  That toy has this description, " Large Flock-O Board, 50 Flannel-Backed Pushouts, Easy On! Easy Off!!, Use Again and Again."

I no longer have the "Flock-O" background for this set from my childhood, so I have no idea if it was a painted scene or a solid color, but I do have lots of the figures.  I thought I'd share them because I do think the graphics are rather charming.  One thing you'll notice about them is that the off-set printing was way off register, so many of the images bleed off the edges.  I think it kind of adds to their charm.  It's especially noticeable in the figures in the red and yellow coats on the right.  As I kid I always pictured them as conjoined twins, but I think if the printing had been registered properly you would probably see that each of the women had two full legs, rather than the way they appear now where they seem to share a pair of legs.

The figures consist of a strange mix.  For one thing, there seems to be a preponderance of circus and side-show figures.  This strongman is an example, as is the above mermaid. Among the other figures are boxers, skaters, firemen, some buildings and of course some circus animals.

This skating lady in blue has always been one of my favorites.  With her leg extended high behind her, and one arm behind her head, she seems so happy and confident.

As a child, I always thought this lady in her pink bra (as well as the above mermaid) were a little risque, but that comes from growing up in a conservative, rather repressed household.

One of the buildings that came with the set was a hospital.  I think this smiling lady must have been its only patient.

The animals are some of my favorites as is this unusual depiction of a fairy. When I was little I always thought it was some sort of strange butterfly man.

 Of all of the animals, I think these two elephants are my favorites.  Even though I know real circus elephants live out a miserable life, these two purple elephants live in a circus fantasy world where all of the animals are well-treated, well-fed and happy.

I take these figures out of their box every once in a while to look at them, their childlike graphic quality never ceases to bring a smile to my face.