Leifdrawing101

Painting 'en plein air'

2011-08-08T16:05:00.002-04:00

Last summer I went up to the LaCloche Mountains with some artist friends. We stayed in this little place called Whitefish Falls and spent a week painting 'en plein air.' Actually, my friends spent the week painting... I spent the week starting and abandoning paintings. By the last day I'd really produced almost nothing of value - and then I managed to squeak out these two small oil studies in one day.

They were done when our group went out to Willisville to paint on location. I was actually pretty happy with them and wished we were staying longer. It was my first time painting landscapes, first time painting with oils... and because of my schedule back home in the real world, that was it ...

... until last month, when we all went back to Whitefish Falls again! This time I was determined to sink my teeth into painting - inspired largely by the discovery of the work of Albert Pucci in a couple of old Grumbacher "How to Paint..." books I had found in a used bookstore earlier this summer (you can read about Albert Pucci on my other blog, Today's Inspiration). As well, I've been following the progress of a couple of friends, Michael Cole Manley and William Wray, who have been doing some fabulous, inspiring landscape paintings over the last couple of years.

Anyway, things started off quite well... on the first day I managed to get one painting done.

I spent about four hours on this, which was done mostly with palette knife, a technique I was really curious to try after reading the lessons in the Grumbacher books.

Day two (Tuesday) and I'm starting on my second painting, using a burnt umber ground like the one Pucci uses in one of his lessons. Initially I included the bass boat you see just beyond my artboard... but I was struggling with this piece, getting more and more frustrated. Ultimately, my friends advised me the boat was the problem. They said the painting needed a dose of "Boat-be-gone."

So I scraped it out and went with just the natural features in the scene. This was met with hearty approval from my ' painting advisory committee' and I have to agree. Sometimes you need to edit your scene or else, as our instructor Richard Edwards explained, you get a painting that actually has two or even three paintings crammed into it.

I passed this old rusted bulldozer every day on my way to get the morning paper at the variety store. Finally, on Wed. morning I went out at 6 AM and sat down to paint it in the rising sunlight. By 9 AM the light was gone so I planned to come back the following morning and finish it - but we had cloudy weather both Thursday & Friday morning. I hope to still go back in and work on this further. Interestingly, it was particularly well-received by a lot of the husbands of the women who were in the painting class!

This is a tough read, I know... its the view of an old abandoned hydro generating station built right into the cliffside on the opposite shore of a waterfall (which is not visible in this angle). The cliff is made of multi-coloured stone and part of the back interior wall of the station is exposed cliff face. Very cool, but probably looks very odd in my painting.

We spent the morning on top of Willisville Mountain, which is to the left of this scene, picking wild blueberries. So I only had about an hour and a half to whip this up. Looking across toward the tiny hamlet of Willisville.

That was my last effort up in Whitfish Falls. The next day I drove to my friend Wade's family cottage, near Dwight, Ontario, on the Oxtongue River for our annual fishing derby. I painted the piece below over about three hours on the Saturday afternoon of that weekend.

Oh yeah, and I won the derby!

HBD to Me from Super Simon

2011-06-03T09:01:00.000-04:00

June 1st was my 47th birthday. Super Simon presented me with this awesome birthday gift. Thanks Si!

I need to post more of Simon's recent work. Hope to do so soon!

What IF...

2011-02-20T16:46:00.004-05:00

What IF... popular video game concepts had existed as paperback novel adventure series back in the '50s and '60s? I've been intrigued by the illustration styles and the graphic design of that era for some time now. Intrigued enough to want to try my hand at creating some mock vintage paperback covers of my own! Participating in Illustration Friday gave me the perfect opportunity to have some fun exploring the possibilities.

Here's my concept for the Illustration Friday word "Dusty"...

... and "Surrender."

I was struggling to get GTA 4 star Nico Bellic to look right at that angle - so I built a model in Corel Poser to help me work up my initial sketch.

Now I'm working on the word "Reverse" (I know, I know, I'm, like, 3 weeks behind).

I've already got something in mind for the video game I'm going to mock up. I really want it to be a bit of an homage to the great Robert McGinnis' paperback covers...

... and that means spending some time doing some drawings of gorgeous ladies.

Oh, what a chore! ;^) For reference I used some old girlie magazines for these figure studies - just to - *ahem* - get the right period 'look', of course.

I'm really going to take my time on this one, so check back now and then - I'll be adding more drawings as I work my way through the development of this piece.

* More of my Illustration Friday pictures here.

IF "Chicken"

2011-01-31T09:43:00.000-05:00

This time around the word for Illustration Friday was "Chicken." Since I've decided to build up portfolio of video game-related artwork I racked my brain trying to come up with something fun that involved chickens.

Simon reminded me of the chicken attack in Zelda. Perfect!

I remember watching the boys when they were young, playing Zelda - and how weird it was to see Link being chased around by a bunch of chickens. So here it is - my version of a Chicken Attack from Legend of Zelda!

More of my Illustration Friday images here.

Super Meat Boy Wallpaper for Desktop & iPhone

2011-01-18T13:56:00.000-05:00

I've had some requests for wallpaper of this Super Meat Boy illustration I did last week, so here it is - thanks for the compliments!

Someone asked for 1920 x 1200... just click and then drag it to your desktop.

... and I made a version for iPhones too!

Edmund and Tommy at Team Meat, the creators of Super Meat Boy, both sent me nice notes that they liked my illustration - many thanks, guys!

Visit the Super Meat Boy blog

SMB is © Team Meat.

Illustration Friday: Deja Vu!

2011-01-16T20:16:00.000-05:00

Have you heard of Super Meat Boy? My son, Simon, has been playing the video game like crazy recently. I'm not a gamer myself - but I've watched Simon play quite a bit and I have to admit, its a pretty wild concept. Its hard to drag your eyes away from the carnage of a little red cube of meat being slaughtered in a splash of blood over and over as he tries to dodge all manner of deadly buzzing saws.

When I looked at last week's Illustration Friday word, "deja vu", it made me think of Super Meat Boy... how he must surely experience a feeling of deja vu each time he leaps and zips past the blood stains left behind by his earlier incarnations.

Does he have a vague feeling of distress... does he realize he's been by here before and didn't succeed in rescuing Bandage Girl... ?

More of my Illustration Friday illustrations here.

A Textbook (Art) Example

2010-11-28T21:16:00.000-05:00

Earlier this year I did a whole pile of illustrations for a textbook series on vehicles and transportation. A WHOLE pile!

All of these vehicles illustrations were done as spots, to be inserted in various places along with text and photos. But to make things a little more interesting for presentation here on my blog, I decided to mock them up as imaginary covers. So don't bother looking for these at the library or in your six year old's knapsack. (I just made 'em up)

Normally I don't really love drawing vehicles because, *ahem*, I'm not very good at mechanical objects. But this came by way of a designer friend who specifically asked me to do them and I was looking for a little freelance to do on the weekends and evenings between teaching my classes.

And as I worked on them, I was so happy with how they were turning out that it actually became quite a fun assignment.

Believe it or not, all of these vector-looking illustrations were done in Corel Painter. Why? Because I'm not an Illustrator illustrator. I've been using Painter for a few years now and find it quite versatile. I know, I know, I really, really need to learn how to use Illustrator. I've just been, you know... a little busy lately.

Right now I'm working on another giant batch of vehicles for a new series of textbooks from the same client, so this seemed like the right time to show off the last batch.

Hope you like 'em! Let me know what you think!

Seven Spots for the Medical Post

2010-11-21T07:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a job that arrived on a Friday afternoon and had to be done on Monday morning: seven spots for the Medical Post. That's a LOT of art to complete in just two days, but I didn't have anything planned that weekend so... what the heck!

These first few are my favourites because I was able to devise these sort of interesting contrasting visual elements of the 'infographic' style juxtaposed with the more painterly style of the small figures. In retrospect, I wish I'd used this devise throughout the entire series, but "them's the breaks" when you're cranking stuff out at speed, I guess...

One thing I am really happy about is the handmade paper background element I used throughout. I think it works well as a nice unifying visual device - and is a little more interesting than the typical flat colour treatment you see in most infographics. I felt that by adding something 'organic' to the mix it would balance images that otherwise could end up with a very cold, technical look because of the the line art style.

Yeah, I know this one looks very odd. Apparently doctors are using honey to treat burns. Go figure!

All of these were printed at about 3" by 3", in case you're wondering. Not too small, but small enough to best be served by a simple style, which is why the AD asked for this bold line style I used.

This last one with the six-pack was added late in the game and without any concept sketch from me - just a quick email describing what was wanted. Because of the subject matter it feels to me a bit out of place with the rest of the spots, but I did like how it turned out.

So there you have it -- seven spots for the Medical Post!

The Return of SuperSimonSundays!!!

2010-09-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

After a long summer of endless hours in a horizontal position on the couch in the back room, Playstation controller firmly affixed to both hands, Super Si returns to school, to his Grade 11 Entrepreneurship Class, to bring you...

Le Cat Machine!
written and illustrated by Simon Peng
© 2010 SuperSi Enterprises (Patent pending)

The cat died!

What to do...?

Recycle it?

Hide it under a cardboard box...?

Stash it in the neighbour's mailbox?

Make an attractive hand-crafted dead cat head pendant???

Introducing "Le Cat Machine!" (plugs into any standard home outlet)

Simply take your dead stinking cat and place it on the handy conveyor belt...

Press the start button...

... and voilà! A tasty burger!

"Le Cat Machine" - for all your dead cat needs - only $49.00!

(plus shipping and handling)

Promotional Illustrations

2010-09-11T20:07:00.000-04:00

I've been an instructor in the Graphic Design program at Mohawk College since January, 2010. Check out the full program description here.

This semester I'm teaching a course called "Promotional Illustrations," something I'm very familiar with.

Dermabond promotional colouring book

Doing illustrations - both concept and finished art - related to the promotion of products or services has always been a major component of my work.

Coke contest counter card

For the benefit of my class ( and for anyone else who might be interested ) I thought I'd show a few of the projects that have passed across my drawing board in the last 20 years.

Promotional Concept Illustrations

As a storyboard/concept/layout artist, I'm often called upon to draw up ideas generated by art directors at marketing and promotions companies. Now, unlike the assignments my students are working on, I can't take any credit for coming up with these concepts. The ADs who hired me did the (often clever, sometimes not) thinking and called upon me to visualize what their concept would look like for the purpose of presenting it to their client.

Sometimes the artwork is about as close to utilitarian as you can imagine. These drawings for a South Park poster dump bin...

... and for a video store end-aisle merchandiser...

... are intended to do nothing more than explain to the video chain store's executives what their store would look like with South Park merchandise in it.

Yes, business people are sometime so visually inept that they need something this obvious to 'get it'!

Here's another concept illustration for an in-store promotion -- this time for Absolut Mango Vodka. Here the promo concept is much more clever: the AD proposes that the grocery store chain replace their regular hanging weigh scales near the fresh fruit section (where the mangos would be kept, right?) with weigh scales shaped like a silhouette of an Absolut Vodka bottle. Clever.

And to compliment the promotion, he devised an oversized plastic "dome" shaped like an Absolute bottle to be placed over the mangos, with an oval 'doorway' cut into it so you can reach in and grab a mango. Nice!

Because this was ( as usual ) needed at double-quick speed, I used some found photography as a background element for the drawing. You wouldn't be able to do this if you were producing finished art for publication, but in the hyper-fast paced world of advertising presentation art, you use whatever trick will get a decent looking visual to the client meeting on deadline!

Below, a few fun Absolut Mango promo items the AD asked me to visualize for him: a shrink-wrapped mango pit ready for planting (instructions on the mango tree-shaped hang tag), a mango-shaped bar coaster, and a couple of those little gel caps you put in water that grow something after 24 hours, in this case, a mango tree or an actual mango.

All these items would have been branded with Absolut Mango Vodka logos before being presented at the client meeting, of course.

Next up, a couple of promotional merchandise ideas for the launch of the Porche Cayenne. The keychain in the shape of a cayenne pepper seems like a natural...

... but what's with the bib? The AD's idea was to suggest that, once you get a look at the new Porche Cayenne, you won't be able to stop drooling (the merch would be personalized with the dealer's name, in this case, Pfaff Porche in Woodbridge, Ontario).

Below, some promo merch concepts for Molson's. This stuff wasn't even for public consumption - this promo was intended for a weekend getaway at a Mexican resort for beer reps!

(Incidentally, I was also commissioned to design the little devil mascot that appeared throughout this promo)

And finally, some drawings for a promo "event marketing" concept: a mobile Carlberg beer garden.

The idea here is that you put a bar in a trailer and pull it to various festivals and outdoor events. Everything folds right out and - voila! - instant bar!

(Again, keep in mind that these illustrations would have been branded with Carlsberg logos before the agency showed them to the client. The reason you don't see that in these drawings is because the art director said he'd take care of it in-house)

Also, remember that all of the drawings above are "concept drawings" only - never to be published - only for client meeting presentation, and thus not required to be finished to the same degree as artwork that would actually be viewed by the consumer market.

Some examples of the promotional illustrations I've done that were ultimately printed are coming up just below...

Promotional Finished Art Illustrations

Flyers, coupons, P.O.P. material, promo t-shirts; they all need visuals to help the client promote their goods or services. Sometimes those visuals are photography or graphics ( like logos and such ) - but in many cases the ideal visual will be an illustration. Over the years I've done more promotional illustrations than I can possibly recall.

Below, an illustration for Heinz ketchup that was used for an in-store backer card, if I remember correctly. From the looks of that cartridge Mario is holding, many of you who were avid gamers while growing up will appreciate that this piece was done a loooong time ago! Unfortunately I rarely get printed samples from my clients once I've delivered the art so I don't have any type elements to remind me what the heck this was for. A contest to win a free Super Mario game, I think...

Here's another backer card, this time for a Nestle's Quik promo where you got a free glass with purchase (the glass would have had some Quik Bunny artwork on it before this went to the printer)...

This is a good example of the important role illustration can play in the promotion of a product. Even though photography could have been used for the image of the clear glasses in the bunny's hands, the client wanted to retain an element of "illustrative realism" to connect the glass more effectively with the bunny.

And yet another Nestle's Quik promotion: three on-pack Quik Bunny comics I produced for a marketing and promotions company back in the 1990s.

These were digest-sized comics/activity booklets shrink-wrapped right onto boxes of Nestle's Quik chocolate powder ("Collect all three!")

Promotional comics have been popular for most of the last hundred years - and over the last twenty years, I've done quite a few for advertising clients and charitable organizations.

The example above is unique in my portfolio because it wasn't done for the consumer market. This comic was done for a cardboard engineering and manufacturing company and sent out as a "business-to-business" promotion.

Similarly, the mouse pad below was created for a pharmaceutical company and used as a "B-2-B" promotional item.

Here's another backer card that was used for an in-store display, this time for Lay's.

And at last, a printed sample! A tent card for Campbell's Soup with all the type elements in place.

Incidentally, I also did the character design for these veggies, which were turned into plush toys for the purpose of the promotion.

And finally, one of the most unique promo's I've ever had the privilege of working on: a limited edition Kokanee beer snowboard that was given away as the prize in a promotional contest.

The bottom...

...and the top.

Hope you enjoyed these examples and I hope they gave you some ideas for your assignments. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions!

10 Years Ago, Right Now: My Pokémon Adventure

2010-09-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago right now I was in the middle of drawing a huge series of Pokémon storybook illustrations. My Pokémon adventure had begun about a year earlier with a ton of black and white line drawings for Golden Books' colouring book division.

Those of you who, like me, had young kids at the time ( or maybe were young kids at the time! ) will probably remember what a massive pop culture presence Pokémon had for a few years around the turn of the millennium. Starting with the cards ( which were quickly banned at my - and many others - kids' school), the weekday afternoon animated tv show and, in pretty short order, a feature length animated movie (and sequel).

All of this meant that a huge amount of artwork had to be generated and Nintendo's animation studio, OLM, Inc., simply couldn't keep up with the demand from all the world-wide licensees. When Golden Books needed several hundred pages of b/w line art for their Pokémon colouring book series and wanted them tailored to their specific editorial directions, Nintendo relented and allowed (apparently for the first time) some outside artists to test for the project. Five of those tested were deemed acceptable. I was one of them.

This is only a tiny fraction of the total number of pages I had to crank out - and I mean at speed! I think I did 40 pages over a weekend on one occasion...

If I remember correctly, I think I got a hundred dollars a page, which was, at that point in my career, the cheapest I'd ever worked.

But work is work and I figured I'd make it up on volume.

Besides, my sons were at that age where Pokémon was HUGE in their lives... and who doesn't want their kids to be impressed with what they do for a living?

It was a chance to be a "cool" dad... and for them to be able to say to their friends at school, "My dad draws Pokémon." This scored them a lot of cool points of their own, I don't mind telling you.

After the colouring book series I guess I must have proved myself -- because another licensee was given my name by Nintendo as a reliable supplier. This time they wanted full colour art instead of just black and white line. But I was sort of disappointed to find out I wouldn't be drawing any character artwork. They would be picking up existing character images from OLM and dropping them on new backgrounds - mazes - created by me.

I know some people will be interested in seeing the layouts so I've included a couple here.

This way you can sort of see the 'before' and 'after'.

I realize these are pretty hard to see here on the blog but if you click on them you'll be able to view a MUCH larger version.

Frankly, this was not one of the most exciting projects I've ever worked on. I had to devise the mazes based on the client's directions... so for instance, for the sake of the story line, this one had to be constructed out of sleeping Beedrills. Its was tough as hell trying to make the maze work - make it look good as an image and make it logistically navigable. It was tedious and time consuming and there was enough editorial interference to make the whole thing thoroughly aggravating.

Happily, some spreads where much more straightforward, however...

... and I'm pretty happy to see them again after all these years. They work visually and I can see that the reader would understand where all the pathways are without any confusion.

A very important component of landing this project: the client insisted I do my best to mimic as closely as possible the painting style of the animated tv show backgrounds. That challenge became a big part of what I found most satisfying about the work of doing these pieces. Luckily I was able to find a few untranslated full colour Pokémon manga paperbacks in Chinatown in Toronto. The art in each panel was essentially a frame grab shot very clearly from the animation art. I also spent a lot of time making and studying the backgrounds from screen captures I shot straight off the tv. Remember - this was ten years ago - no dvds yet! I had to freeze-frame VHS tapes of the show and shoot the tv screen with my digital camera! That was a long, tedious and often unsatisfactory process - but it was the only way to get semi-accurate reference.

Below, one of my favourites of the bunch.

There are several more spreads... unfortunately (as mentioned in my previous post) a lot of my old artwork is lost forever; locked away on decade-old gradually deteriorating CDs. I was only able to get my computer to read about half of the files on the disc I stored these images on.

Next, I think, was the spiral bound "Worlds of Adventure" story/activity book from Reader's Digest Children's Publishing.

When my U.S. rep called to tell me I'd been offered this assignment I was pretty stoked. At last I was going to get to do some full colour Pokémon art, including characters.

This is again some of the stuff that I can't recover from the back-up CD... so I scanned a few pages out of the printed book.

I can't tell you how happy I was to finally be doing what I consider some 'real' illustration for Pokémon...

... unfortunately, the timing of the project was less than ideal ( isn't it always? ) and I ended up having to juggle several deadlines at once. Thank goodness I had, at that time, my buddies Ben Shannon and Steve Murray were working for me in my studio. Ben and Steve were just fresh-faced kids, recently graduated from my old amla mater, Sheridan College, and had become a fixture in my Toronto studio, assisting me on all kinds of commercial art projects.

These two pieces, above and below, are from a bunch that Ben and Steve did when they took over the project half-way through. They did a fantastic job on these illustrations - and saved my butt on the deadline!

And then came the assignment I'd been waiting for: Pokémon was at that time so wildly popular that Reader's Digest Children's Publishing soon came back with an assignment for two full colour storybooks! Each one would contain about a dozen large, elaborate double page spread illustrations and spots. They would be published world-wide in a bunch of different languages.

The pay was not too bad: around $800 per spread, if I remember correctly. The catch: the deadline was horrendously short. I'd have to produce all of the art for both books in just a couple of months. Based on my calculations, I'd have to work from the moment I woke up in the morning until I went to sleep at night, seven days a week, to get everything done on time.

To make matters even more trying, we had just bought a new house and were in the middle of moving. Two second floor bedrooms were being renovated into a studio for me, as I had recently given up my space in Toronto.

On top of those stresses was the worry of taking myself out of the loop for a couple of months. I wouldn't be able to do work for any other clients who called. When you're a freelancer you always worry about that: if you're not available for a client's project and they have to go elsewhere, they may not be back!

In the end, I decided it was just too good a project to pass up. Thus began my real Pokémon adventure - one where I literally ate, breathed and slept nothing but Pokémon 7 days a week for all of September and October of 2000. It was the weirdest form of sensory deprivation I've ever experienced.

And because I needed every waking moment to get all this artwork done, not only did I not leave the house for two months... I didn't even live in my house.

You see, when we bought our new house, the closing dates hadn't lined up with when we would have to vacate our old house - there was a three month gap between the two closings. So that summer my wife and kids and I had been living with my amazing, generous in-laws.

They own a very large house, and with their own kids all long grown up and moved away, they were able to accommodate all of us PLUS allow me to use a spare bedroom as a working studio. So when Wendy and the boys moved into our new house at the beginning of that September, and while my new studio was still being renovated, I stayed back on the other side of town in my in-laws' spare bedroom and slaved away at these drawings!

I'll tell you... it was very odd. Wendy and the boys living across town in our new house and me living at my in-laws so I would be able to spend all of every day working on Pokémon. On the weekends my wife and kids would come over and hang out so we could at least be near each other... while I continued to slave away on Pokémon!

It was a bit like being in jail -- albeit the most comfortable jail you could ever hope for (my mother-in-law is an excellent cook).

When I finally finished "Ash's Battle" I had to dive right back in and get started on "Orange Island Adventures".

I felt like I imagine one feels half way through a marathon. You're half way done... but there's a tough slog ahead and you're no longer fresh and energized. You know the second half will be even harder.

So my routine continued. Get up, eat a bite for breakfast, shower and get to work. Lunch in front of the computer... a quick break for dinner, then work until ten or so at night. Half an hour of television with the in-laws, then off to bed so you can do it again the next day.

And the next day...

... and the next day.

(I was only able to rescue a partially completed file from the CD for this illustration)

I'll always remember this one incident as I neared the end of completing the illos for the second book: Wendy had come over with the kids as usual for Sunday dinner... and I felt confident enough that I was going to make the deadline that I agreed to go with her and the boys for a nice afternoon drive in the country. This was the first time I'd left the house in nearly two months. I remember riding in the car and thinking, "something seems different." The world looked... not quite right.

Then I realized it was that I hadn't seen anything far off in the distance in nearly two months. I'd been so intensely focused on getting the job done, keeping such absurdly long work hours, that I'd literally not seen anything beyond my four walls for most of the previous eight weeks! Its like I'd been living in a cave...

And then it was over, and I moved myself and my studio home - to the newly renovated studio space on the second floor of our new house. Things seemed to quiet down in Pokémon country. With the move to the new house I moved on to other clients again.

This last batch was from another colouring book , done a year or so later and featuring a bunch of second generation Pokémon characters. By this point my kids had sorta lost interest in Pokémon so I wasn't being as well informed about who this new owl-like protagonist was.

My kids were always a good barometer of kid kulture in those days and I think they accurately reflected what was a waning interest in Pokémon in general.

I never heard from Golden Books or any other licensee about doing any more Pokémon artwork.

Its too bad the Pokémon gravy train had to come to a stop... but that's how these pop culture phenomenons go.

One thing that working on Pokémon taught me was an appreciation the limitless potential for creating interesting character designs. Not that I designed any of what I was working on, but I still marvel at how the designers at Nintendo/Creatures/Game Freak had to come up with hundreds of new characters at a time. Some of them were really neat!

And that was the end of my Pokémon adventure. The journey lasted about three years all together, I guess. There were some pretty big bumps in the road. But looking back at it, ten years ago from right now, it really was quite a big adventure and I'm glad I took it.

I've never really told anyone about it all. I hope you enjoyed the story and, of course, the art!

* My Pokémon art set on Flickr

Promo Postcard Retrospective

2010-08-21T16:04:00.000-04:00

I was asked recently about the promo postcards I mentioned in my podcast interview with Thomas James of Escape from Illustration Island... so I dug through all my old back-up CDs and managed to salvage a bunch. * Note: if you've only ever backed your stuff up on CDs its probably a good idea to get those files off of there before the discs degrade. I found out the hard way today that a lot of my work from 10 or 12 years ago is as good as gone, because the $@#&#!% discs won't read anymore!

These are some of my earliest cards, done in the late '90s before I had managed to land a lot of high-profile accounts. In retrospect they're also some of my favourite, most fun images that I've ever made, because I made them only to please myself.

I wanted clients to be a little bit shocked by the mischievousness of the imagery. These were intended for advertising and editorial clients and you know what? They did get me a lot of work!

I think the combination of retro-pop imagery and slightly off-colour subject matter got my work noticed by ADs who, frankly, probably felt a bit cynical (as I did) about the corporate bullsh*t you have to shovel to make a living in the ad business.

Hopefully these cards gave the ADs who received them a moment's pause and a chuckle when they arrived in the mail. It always made me feel really good when I'd go to client meetings and project briefs to see my postcards pinned on their bulletin boards - even several years after I'd first sent them out.

At some point in my career, probably about 5 or so years in, I began to change my promotional strategy a bit. I still believed very much in the power of the promo postcard -- but I began using imagery from some of my more high-profile assignments instead of making up images from scratch.

This strategy wasn't always as successful as I imagined it would be. When I sent this card after doing a bunch of Pokemon art for Golden Books, I figured a ton of calls would light up my phone. In fact, not a single client called. I'm not sure if the joke with the Korean translation threw them... or if Pokemon was too specifically stylistic at the time that clients couldn't imagine what else I might be capable of drawing for them... or what exactly the problem was. But I really loved this card - and concept - and was really disappointed when it failed to generate any new assignments.

This next effort was somewhat more successful. Again, I tried to make it fun and a little wacky - but still very evident what exactly my specialty was. I seem to recall this card got me a couple of decent packaging art assignments from design firms working on products targeted at the kids' packaged food market.

Around 2001 I had a nice run of luck, doing three covers for Maclean's magazine in a fairly short time frame. (For those who aren't Canadian, Maclean's is Canada's weekly news magazine, the Canadian equivalent of Time or Newsweek in the States, so this was pretty sweet in my books - having my work seen nationwide on every newstand in the country).

I decided to try leveraging that sucess and recognition into more magazine work. I devised a postcard that collaged all three of my Maclean's covers into one image. This card was only sent to magazine art directors in Canada.

Unfortunately this card was also a dud. I don't know why. Actually, I should clarify that it seemed to be a dud - but to be honest, the illustration business really went south during 2001. Not just for me... a lot of people I've talked with over the years will confirm that after 9/11 business kind of dried up for them too. This seems to have been the case on both sides of the border. My feelings must have been showing in my next effort! I remember doing up this card with a sense of quiet desperation.

I wanted to capitalize on the success I'd had throughout the years creating commercial art with a Roy Lichtenstein/pop art feel to it. For a long time I seem to have been the go-to guy in the Toronto area when clients wanted this sort of look for their project. I still do quite a bit of stuff for editorial art directors where they'll ask for "that Lichtenstein dot thing."

Whether these cards are the reason I've landed those projects or not is up for debate. This is the down side of doing promo postcards: each card ends up costing you about a dollar to send ( when you add up the cost of the mailing list, printing and postage) and you send them off en masse, say about a thousand at once, and you have no idea how much of an impact they've made unless somebody calls you back fairly soon after they've gone out. When that doesn't happen, you can get pretty bummed out. But like I said - the real idea behind the cards is to create an arresting image that and AD will like enough - not just to stop him for a moment - but to want to pin that card up on his bulletin board and look at again and again.

I've had clients call me and say, "I'm looking at this postcard you sent me and I think you're perfect for this project I've got..." and I'll ask them what the image is and think, "Jeez, I sent that card out three years ago!"

Sending promo postcards requires a pretty big investment - both in time, effort and money - but its one I highly recommend. However, its imperative you do your homework! Be critical of your own work and only send your best, most arresting, most appropriate imagery. You have to think like an advertiser, because that's exactly what you are in this case. The product you're promoting is you and your artwork. Try to have fun and be creative, but also be objective and practical - so you're not just mailing dollar bills away with no hope of a positive return for your hard-earned investment.

Good luck! :^)

IF: "Muddy"

2010-02-11T17:55:00.001-05:00

This is not only my entry for this week's Illustration Friday... its also my entry for a very cool new blog called "Monsters in Real Places"

I always figured Yukon Gold potatoes came from the Yukon. But no, the bag of 'yellow fleshed' potatoes in the basement came from nearby Shelburne, Ontario. Huh! Curious, I decided to check out Shelburne on Google Earth... and was amazed at what I saw! Yup, its Muddy Pete, the giant potatoe monster, caught on Google's satellite photos as he tries to sneak around the outskirts of Shelburne, leaving his signature giant muddy footprints behind him . You can tell by all his many, many eyes that Pete's been hanging around for quite some time.

Anybody can contribute a monster in a real place. Just drop by the MIRP blog and check out how to participate!

* Incidentally, Muddy Pete is very much inspired by an old Power Rangers action figure called "The Eye-Poppin' Eye Guy". My kids used to love playing with their Power ranger action figures when they were little. When they got older and decided to get rid of all those action figures, I rescued Eye Guy from the trash and he holds a place of honour on my studio toy shelf.

IF "Focused"

2010-02-04T09:22:00.000-05:00

This week's Illustration Friday word was "Focused". A tough one to figure out! I had a lot of different thoughts about this but finally came up with the idea of doing something like those cool old title sequences you always see on James Bond movies.

I found some reference of a girl pointing a gun on Flickr and used that as the basis for my illustration. I'm going to send the Flickr member a link to this post - I hope she likes the way I used her photos for inspiration to create this IF piece!

This really was a fun one to work on... but I wish I had more time to explore the design further. Maybe I'll try out some variations on the weekend!

IF: Wilderness

2010-01-28T06:55:00.000-05:00

Its been a very long time since I participated in Illustration Friday - but recent events in my life have brought me back, and I'm really happy to be participating again. This is not actually the theme for the current week... I wanted to "warm up" with an old theme before I actually jump back in and join the IF group. So I chose a theme that IF ran a couple of weeks ago: "Wilderness".

This one was especially meaningful for me because every day, seven days a week, I take my dog Zero for a hike in the nearby "urban wilderness" of our local conservation areas. Lately, I've been disturbed by the creep of suburbia. In some areas I've watched it approach over several years to the point where it seems the developers will chew up every last inch of their green space to build cookie cutter houses.

In a sense, our urban wilderness is being replaced by a suburban wilderness.

SuperSimonSunday on a Monday: Gory Story

2009-10-19T10:49:00.000-04:00

A cautionary tale from the twisted mind of Simon Peng!

* More super cartoons by Super Simon Peng

SuperSimonSunday: DIE!

2009-08-16T15:12:00.000-04:00

"Dad, you know what tomorrow is...?" Simon slyly asked me yesterday afternoon as he pressed a jumble of odd-sized papers into my hand.

Of course. "Super Simon Sunday." Its been a while since I posted some of Simon's insanely clever and entertaining cartoon art. So here you go... hot of the griddle of nearly-15-year-old Simon's brainpan; a handful of new Super Simon Sketches (done while he should have been working).

*MORE Super Simon Sunday Sketches here.

Work in progress: Ranxerox sample

2009-07-25T14:05:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted much in quite a while, so here's something I've been fooling around with during slow spots in my schedule.

One of my favourite characters from Heavy Metal magazine when I was growing up was Libertore's Ranxerox.

I'll post the whole thing when its done.... this is just a teaser.

GAAH! It's Father's Day!!!

2009-06-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

I don't know about you but nothing makes me happier than a home-made gift. This year for Father's Day, my two super-cool sons made me extremely happy.

Simon presented me with this awesome full colour original King Flabu-Flabu illustration. Simon rarely works in colour (and if he does its usually digital colouring) so this is a very special treat. Si pointed out to me that this is the first time he's ever drawn King Flabu-Flabu getting all emotional. Why is he so irate? I know better than to question an artist about his motives. I'm just pleased as punch that Si would create this beautiful piece for his old man.

This illustration also features Simon's latest (as far as I know, unnamed) character. This pointy-eared fellow made his first appearance just a few weeks ago in an earlier post. So I think Si is still developing exactly who - or what - he is... or even how exactly he should look.

Recently (for my birthday) I got a new Intuous4 Wacom Tablet. Simon installed it for me late one night after I had gone to bed, and when I started up my iMac the next morning -- this is what I found on my desktop.

Its my favourite drawing of "the new guy" that he's done so far.

Simon's not the only artist in the family. Below is my Father's Day gift from Duncan, my older son. This is so cool... at first I thought he had bought me a new Kid Koala CD. But no - Dunc designed, illustrated and built this mix-CD cardboard case all on his own!

Were having a love affair at our house with mostly-90's hiphop these days. If you know what kind of tunes I'm talking about, you'll appreciate this playlist as much as I do. This was our soundtrack yesterday when the four of us drove out to the country for a hike and picnic.

I love my boys - they gave me the best Father's Day ever!

* Check out Duncan on bass and Simon on drums with their band, Damien Fernandez & Friends, here.

* And Duncan created this song on his Monome.

SuperSimonSunday: Let's Fight!

2009-05-31T20:10:00.000-04:00

No idea why, but Simon's latest efforts revolve around some seriously bad-ass robots, just itchin' for a dust up.

Here's the piece he proudly presented me with after coming home from work yesterday - a Giant Robot about to go 'Godzilla vs Mothra' on a giant King Flabu-Flabu.

But this is interesting... it turns out King Flabu-Flabu is a pacifist ... either that or he just doesn't like his chances against this particularly aggressive tin man...

And as an afterthought, Simon showed me this variation he wasn't quite as happy with. Still pretty good though, in my books.

So whattaya say, huh? Wanna Go?! Son??!! Grrr!!!

SuperSimonSunday... on a Wednesday!

2009-05-20T11:36:00.000-04:00

Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted any of Simon's cartoons. That doesn't mean he hasn't been busy creating them, though! So rather than wait until next Sunday (when I'll be away at the NCS Reubens anyway), here's his latest batch. Once again, he drew these while he was supposed to be working at his part-time job at Omi's store, the bum.

This smaller group has a couple of my favourites in it... King Flabu-Flabu, of course, but also the robots playing 'Rock/Paper/Scissors. (BSG fans will catch the swear reference). Simon's favourite is the long-eared character in the center, above.

But as usual, my favourite favourite is the rejected sketch Simon hates. I love this little monster with the red accents! Simon crumpled it up, but half-heartedly showed it to me anyway. Its awesome! He thinks I'm wrong. We have a difference of opinion, as usual.

Which one's your favourite?

SuperSimonSunday: The Awesome Test Monster!

2009-04-26T16:31:00.001-04:00

Simon brought this test home the other day and left it on the kitchen counter.

I picked it up said to Wendy, "Did you see this test Si brought home? This is awesome!" Wendy came and agreed: "Wow, Simon," she said, "that's a great mark!"

Still holding the test I turned and looked at her. "I meant the drawing of that monster. The drawing is awesome."

"You're ridiculous", she said in exasperation as she walked away.

Si came in and said, "That drawing? You like that drawing?! I didn't even like that drawing. I was thinking about erasing it!"

Simon was annoyed.

"Why do you always have to like the drawings I hate?" he demanded, stalking off in frustration.

I dunno... I think its awesome! And yes, that was a very good mark too. Great work, Si!

Drawing Drugs

2009-04-26T09:30:00.000-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I posted a step-by-step of a magazine cover I was working on. Well, here's a copy of the cover PDF that my wonderful art director Linda sent over! Linda was amazing to work with - very enthusiastic and open to my suggestions. What a pleasure it was collaborating on these visuals with her!

As well as the cover, we did two interior spots and ten small icons which Linda planned to use to break up columns of mostly grey type. Drugstore Canada is a trade magazine, meaning a relatively tight budget, and that was quite a lot of artwork for the money. But I didn't want to pass up such a fun project (and really, in this economy, who can afford to turn away work?)

Happily, Linda was open to suggestions and by putting our heads together we came up with some creative solutions and figured out ways to re-use elements for different purposes, cutting down on the total amount of artwork that needed to be created.

So for instance, notice how the column icons have found a second life as a conceptual way of illustrating that the heroic pharmacist has a multitude of solutions to your health problems literally "at his fingertips".

And, if you scroll back to the top and take a closer look at the cover, you'll see how the pharmacist artwork plays a supporting role in the background, again eliminating the need to create a new piece of art.

This was accomplished by carefully planning ahead and then executing the artwork of his many "ghost hands" on various layers. That way, when it came time to add him to the cover, I just turned off the layers with the extra hands and dragged and dropped him into the cover artwork.

I'm delighted with how this project turned out - and I hope Linda was as well. I'm proud to add the cover to my collection of Magazine Cover Art by Me Flickr set. Not just because I love how the art turned out, but because Linda's excellent design of the type elements makes this cover a real showpiece. The interior art joins other work in my Editorial Art by Me Flickr set

Thanks to Linda for giving me a chance to shine on this great assignment!

SuperSimonSunday: King Flabu-Flabu

2009-04-12T20:49:00.000-04:00

Simon's has created a few on-going characters over the years... characters which appear again and again in his drawings over a long period of time. One of his most enduring creations is the little guy on the far-right of the drawing below: 'King Flabu-Flabu'.

Simon tells me he has been drawing KF-F since he was in Grade 6, when he was 11. He says he was playing 'The Legend of Zelda' at the time on the N64 and that there's a level where Link is inside Lord Jabu-Jabu, and that's how he came up with the name "King Flabu-Flabu". I thought this drawing below might be an early incarnation of King Flabu-Flabu because he doesn't have a crown and there's no drool on his lips. As well, he's more elongated than in later drawings, but Simon says that KF-F always had a crown right from the start. He figures he just forgot in this case.

Here's a KF-F drawing from 2007. Simon was 12 at this time. Notice the drool on KF-F's lips. Those big drooly lips were the crux of the character's creation. Simon invented King Flabu-Flabu because he wanted to draw a character with big drooly lips.

Last year Simon spent 'Take your Kid to Work' Day in Wendy's Grade 4/5 class. He taught all those little kids how to draw King Flabu-Flabu ... and even now, a year later, its not that uncommon to see KF-F drawings being done by those same kids! I think that's pretty remarkable. Si really made a big impression on those kids!

Below, the back panel of Si's calculator.

Below, a much more recent drawing from this year. KF-F has become shorter and cuter over time, and if he appears at all in Simon's work it is usually only in a supporting role.

I get the impression Simon has moved on from King Flabu-Flabu, although he insists he has not grown bored with the character. I guess time will tell. But what I find kind of amazing is that Si developed such a consistent and fully-realized character while in middle-school. I never had that kind of focus when I was his age, that's for sure!

Who knows what might become of KF-F? One day we may see him starring in his own video game or animated cartoon series...

Just in case, I better make a point of saying "King Flabu-Flabu is © 2009 by Simon Peng". After all, I have my retirement to think of!

A Magazine Cover in Progress

2009-04-04T13:24:00.000-04:00

I'm having a lot of fun working on this magazine cover. Thought I'd share it with you as I go along. Here's the pencil sketch, done with the Chalk Pastel tool in Corel Painter.

Now with the sketch on a transparent layer, I begin inking in Painter with the Fine Round Gouache Brush tool. I used to use the Scratchboard Tool to mimic the sweeping lines of a sable brush and india ink, but my pal René Milot turned me on to the Fine Round Gouache Brush tool. Thanks René.

... and, for mechanical objects, the Pencil Tool in Photoshop. By "mechanical" I mean not just the boxes and bottles, but anything that needs a precise linear or circular (or elliptical) shape - like the woman's eyes, for instance.

Have to get this done this weekend - so drop by later for more! ;^)

Tuesday Morning Update:

Well, things didn't work out as planned, schedule-wise. I got - not one - but two storyboard jobs in over the weekend. But now I'm back at it!

After finishing the inks, I began flat colouring in Photoshop by using the Polygon Lasso Tool and Bucket Fills. The labels were created with a combination of Lasso and Pencil Tool. Those labels took a very long time. Most of one day, in fact.

Shading was added on a multiply layer, mostly with the Pencil Tool but I did use the Path Tool for the facial shadows.

This part's done and sent away to the client... now I'm working on the background elements... so stay tuned!

Later that evening...

Finished! Well, just about. There may still be some tweaks here and there, but this is essentially it. The background took most of the afternoon to do. Because the cover girl's final position was uncertain, I had to make sure the background art was done all the way across.

So there's a lot of little bottles and boxes on those shelves that will probably never be seen. But they had to be drawn anyway.

Our man behind the counter is going to be making a guest appearance inside the magazine as a spot illo (with some interesting modifications). I might post that later. Maybe tomorrow. For now, I still have ten little icon-type illos to do for this job!

SuperSimonSunday: SNAKES!

2009-03-22T14:17:00.000-04:00

Here's something Si got into a few months ago. He did a few of these amazing pages of snakes!

Some of these really blow me away. This happy couple is my favourite.

But I love all the variations he achieved with what is really a very basic premise for a character: a profile view of a tube with an eyeball and a mouth.

I was hoping Si would finish colouring this piece... but he got bored and moved on.

It makes me sad!

Super Simon Schoolbook Sunday

2009-03-15T16:25:00.000-04:00

When I was picking out what to scan for Super Simon Sunday a few weeks ago, Si casually mentioned that the best stuff wasn't even in his sketchbooks -- it was the stuff he doodled in his school notebooks. No kidding!

So I snuck one of his binders out of his knapsack and bingo! Paydirt!

Here are just a few of the brilliant drawings my little genius did when he should have been paying attention in class. God love him... he's definitely an artist.

So he caught me while I was scanning these. "What th'-! You're going through my stuff?!" Yes, I'm going through your stuff... you said that this was where the good stuff was and you weren't kidding.

For the record, Si says he hates this drawing below, but I think its awesome. If you agree... leave a comment and let him know!

From Mary Blair >>to Paige Pooler >>to Me!

2009-03-12T20:51:00.000-04:00

Here are two hand washing safety posters I did last month for a client in Toronto. These are intended for use in kindergarten classrooms. Black and white versions that kids can colour will also be distributed.

Notice how they changed from the sketch stage to the final.

My initial inspiration for these was Mary Blair... but I must tip my hat to the amazing Paige Pooler, who's work always inspires me when I have to do cutey-pie artwork.

I get a little frustrated with what seem like arbitrary client changes...

... like the simplifying of the table legs and lettering on the hand sanitizer bottle. Why? I thought those touches added some charm. And they didn't understand my stylized sun "rays" (which I lifted from an old 1950's Golden Book).

... but that's the ad biz for ya!

* More colour book-type art by me.

SuperSimonSunday: BIG PINK DOODLE SHEET!!!

2009-03-08T20:37:00.000-04:00

One day Simon brought this home... a massive fluorescent pink sheet of bristol board - 22 by 28 inches - covered in tiny doodles!

Turns out he'd been working on it off and on for about a year down in the basement of my mom's gift boutique, where Simon works part-time on Saturday mornings. Yeah - while he's being paid by his Omi to work for her, this is what he does!

Clicking on the image above and spend some time enjoying all the crazy characters... I pulled out a few of my favourites... tell us which ones you like best!

The End of an Era?

2009-03-07T15:57:00.000-05:00

U.S. Steel purchased our iconic hometown steel company, Stelco, just about a year ago. This week they announced they are shutting it down because of the current world financial crisis. In a hundred years, Stelco's furnaces have never stopped running, not even during the Great Depression. 2,000 people will lose their jobs.

My friend Aviva Boxer, Business Editor at our local paper, The Hamilton Spectator, commissioned me to do this piece at the time of the takeover. Steel has always been the foundation of industry in Hamilton -- and a point of pride for Hamiltonians that it was a Canadian-owned and operated business. When the steel industry went through a consolidation in recent years, reducing it to just a few world-wide players, it became inevitable that we would be bought out by foreign owners. It seemed like the end of an era. For reasons I'm not really sure of, the illustration was never used... but now, with the shutdown of the mill, it really is particularly poignant.

I'm glad this piece is finally seeing print... I just wish it weren't under such unfortunate circumstances.

You can read the related Hamilton Spectator article here.

The whole thing was done in Corel Painter. The figure was rendered using the scratchboard rake tool.

* More examples of my editorial artwork here.

SuperSimon's Sketchbook Sunday

2009-02-22T15:58:00.000-05:00

Herro! And welcome to another SuperSimonSunday! Today we're looking at some typical Simon sketches.

Simon sketches constantly, usually on any old scrap of paper that's handy, in his school notebooks, Post-It notes.. whatever. But he actually also fills a LOT of sketchbooks. Always has.

These are some sketches he did yesterday, while at work at his Omi's (my mom's) store. Si's regular Saturday gig is working at her gift boutique. When things are slow - yup - he starts sketching. Omi caught him sketching on all sorts of stuff he shouldn't sketch on... invoice pads, gift wrap and so on, so to help him NOT sketch in the wrong places, she did the typical loving Omi thing: she made sure he had his own steady supply of sketch pad paper on hand. (Click on the little TV sequence below to see a larger version)

Where does he come up with all this stuff? I have no idea. I didn't draw this kinda stuff when I was fourteen! But I love that he does. I may be the professional cartoonist in our house...

but Si's the natural cartoonist in da house!

Super Simon Sunday: Peace Man!

2009-02-15T13:23:00.000-05:00

Still haven't really managed to get back to posting my own work here on a regular basis (I've been too tied up getting my new storyboard blog rolling) - but perhpas this week's Super Simon Sunday gives me the opportunity to hog at least a bit of the spotlight:

This was the beginning of a comic book project Simon started last year. We had visited our favourite local comic shop, Big B Comics on Upper James in Hamilton, and Simon found this neat little half-size blank booklet intended for sketching up comic pages. He pencilled a cover and completed the pencils on the first story - then showed it to me.

I was so excited I offered to ink it for him (Si hasn't quite got up the confidence for inking just yet). I thought it would be SO cool to do a father and son comic like this...

Buuuut... I got busy and distracted , and Si lost interest in PeaceMan as he moved on to other things. Personally, I think he was overwhelmed by the magnitude of having to come up with enough material to fill a whole comic!

So this is as far as PeaceMan ever got. A real shame, because I still think it could have been awesome. And hey, you never know; Si may yet come back to it. In which case, I will absolutely jump back on the inking chores.

After all, you never know - PeaceMan could be the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... and I have my retirement to think of!

SuperSimonSundays: Monster VS Robot = A+++!!

2009-02-08T09:57:00.000-05:00

Last semester, Simon had Grade 9 art. Yes, in today's school system, you only get Art (or Gym or Math or whatever) for half the year. (?!) This is a patently flawed system! How many kids are going to stay current with doing art or exercising or remembering their equations or whatever if its off the table for, like, 8 months out of the year?

Anyway (grumble)...

Here's one of Si's big "culminating activities" as they call them.

Its a little hard to grasp the scale of the piece from this scan but the original is 2 feet wide! So I have included some close-ups for your enjoyment.

Robots have been a recurring theme in Simon's work over the past year or two. I credit Futurama with being the influencing factor. Bender is Simon's hero.

Si has inherited the family trait of 'working best under extreme pressure' or as its more commonly known, "procrastinating". He was up until something like 4 in the morning trying to get this piece done in time to hand it in for marking. That's my boy!

But hey, what can I say? The piece was a huge hit with his teacher.

Check out the mark at bottom left (in pencil).

The Return of Super Simon Sundays!

2009-02-01T13:25:00.001-05:00

Its been a long time since I first posted some of my son Simon's artwork. Too long. I had hoped Simon would keep posting to his own blog but he kind of lost interest. I guess its up to me to make sure the world gets a chance to see what he's been drawing, so expect Super Simon Sundays to once more become a regular feature here on Leifdrawing 101.

Simon actually did this strip two years ago, when he was just 12. I think its pretty damn hilarious - and the drawings and character designs are fantastic. Or maybe I'm just a proud papa. Whatever. Enjoy!

* This one's ©2006 Simon Peng so don't be stealin' it.

20 Years of Making Funny Faces!

2009-01-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

It occured to me recently that I've been designing my own (and illustrating other people's) cartoon mascots for 20 years.

Wow... 20 years...

So I thought it might be fun to take a look back. In the coming weeks I'll be recounting the details of various past projects here on the blog.

(click on the image to see a GIANT SIZE version)

Each week I'll focus on one character from the sheet above. I'll dig up old pencil sketches and related finished art, tell you about how I got the project and how it went -- or at least as much as I can recall... some of these projects happened a looong time ago!

Cartoon art for advertising is kind of an obscure area in the larger field of illustration. The artist who works in this niche is usually not credited (you don't see a lot of signatures on the front of cereal boxes!) so despite how well known the cartoon characters are, rarely do we know much about their creators.

I'll try to shed a little light on this part of the business, based on my personal experience.

Hopefully these posts will be interesting to at least some people.

My website: leifpeng.com

How I build an illustration

2007-03-19T11:09:00.000-04:00

Inspired by last week's theme on my other blog, Today's Inspiration, where I showed how my friend Will Davies used to go about building an illustration back in the 1950's, and the subsequent post of one of my friends, Shane White, on his blog, where he explained the process he uses to build an illustration, I thought it might be fun to show how I do my work. As an example I decided I'd like to show this recently completed piece I'm quite proud of - which was done as part of a much larger series for an ad agency on the West Coast.

First, I did a very rough sketch in Corel Painter based on the client's concept: an East Indian female doctor battling (and overwhelming) a germ monster.

Once I had client approval, I next did a Google image search for appropriate photo reference. Much like the "morgue files" or reference files illustrators used to compile by clipping magazines in "the olden days". The beauty of the computer is how easily these bits of photo reference can be manipulated into an approximation of what you're trying to draw. Here, I chopped up one jpeg in Photoshop, transformed the pieces into a perspective similar to that in my rough, used the same leg for both of my character's legs and a head from another found shot that was a better fit for angle and character type.

Of course, you don't want to trace off the photos, as Will explained in his step by step. It usually results in a very static, dead looking drawing. But the photo provides a handy reference point for doing a tighter pencil sketch of unusual facial angles and clothing drapery. I do the pencil sketch in Painter...

...and the inks as well. I've been using the Pen Tool with the Scratchboard tip on the advice of some other artist's online tutorial. I'm sorry, I've forgotten where I found that advice! I wish I could credit that artists - because I'm very happy with the results. I had been using the Felt Marker tool and then "hardening the line art in Photoshop because it always came out slightly soft-edged. Now I don't have to worry about it anymore and the thicks and thins I get with the Scratchboard Pen are very close to what I used to achieve with real ink and a sable brush.

Next, its back to Photoshop for flat colouring. I lift my line art onto a layer, delete all the white, and colour on the background by Polygon Lassoing areas and deleting them to whatever background colour I've chosen for that selected area.

Next, I add shading on a Multiply layer above the background and highlights on yet another layer above the shading layer.

I did the germ monster outline with the Barbwire Pen tip in Painter and brought it in as a new layer. Lots of colouring, effects and general messing around on a bunch of other layers finally gets us to what could be the finished version. However...

... I kind of felt like our heroic doctor could easily whup more than one germ monster - and the composition seemed incomplete -- so back to Painter to do up a couple of cringing pals for monster #1.

Then I thought, maybe she needs a kid who's happy to be rescued by such a confidently heroic doctor. I went back to Painter, drew up this li'l guy and brought him over as another layer.

I'm not sure which version will see print, but the client appreciated the extra effort and I had a lot of fun working up the variations!

Illustration Friday: Dance!

2006-06-22T20:48:00.000-04:00

My gosh! - its been so long since I posted anything on Leifdrawing 101... I feel just terrible. But this week Ward Jenkins inspired me with his beautiful Dance illustration that I had to make the time. As well, I've been showcasing the work of 50's illustration genius Jim Flora on my other blog (with the aid of Flora author/editor Irwin Chusid) so the combination was like fire and gasoline - my brain combusted!

I hope its ok that I put a twist on the "Dance" theme - and changed it to pole dance. Hope that's not too offensive...

Also, you HAVE to check out my son's I-Fri since it is a Father's Day gift to me. get out your box of kleenex - its a tear-jerker ( in a quirky Simon kinda way ).

Simon's Sketchbook Sunday: Ed Emberley

2005-12-11T19:33:00.000-05:00

Several years ago I found this great book on cartooning at a yard sale: Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Faces. Its been handy in so many ways... I've used it as a teaching aid when I volunteer to teach cartooning at my kids' school. I've used it myself as a source of inspiration when designing characters.

But best of all, Simon has spent hours pouring through it and filled pages with characters either taken from the book or created based on the principles Emberley describes.

Here are just a few done on two sides of a single sheet.

I can see why Si glommed onto this book. Emberley's style is immediately appealing and the process he developed to create hundreds of variations using basic shapes is incredibly clever - yet impossibly simple! Any kid can create tons of fun character faces in minutes and I realized from looking back on these drawings that Si still keeps the principles he learned from this book in the back of his mind when he does his crazy creatures and freaky friends. We could all learn a lot from good ol' Ed Emberley!

A conversation over at The Retro Kid reminded me of Ed Emberley and one of the contributors over there kindly included this link to Emberley's website.

Illustration Friday: bluegirl

2005-12-04T09:26:00.000-05:00

bluegirl, originally uploaded by leifpeng.

When I first started experimenting with the kawaii style this was one of the first paintings I did - and of course Wendy fell in love with it... and of course I sold it at my show.

I'm a cad.

But I tried to make it up to her - I did a recreation for her birthday at a larger size, and set it up on an easel at the foot of the bed so she's see it when she woke up that morning.

Of course, she loved it. But every once in a while she'll say, "and there's my bluegirl... Leif sold it on me!" with that accusing tone, like I sold her favourite childhood doll, or our firstborn child.

Ya can't win! ;-)

Simon's Sketchbook Sunday: joe&friends

2005-12-04T09:11:00.000-05:00

joe&friends, originally uploaded by leifpeng.

What did I tell you? Once Si starts drawing a new character he attacks it like he's a character designer exploring this new guy until he completely understands him. Here's a random page I found laying around the house. There's Joe in the middle again and some funny, freaky friends. I love how Si's jokes are based on the irony of each character's situation: "Where'd he go?" asks the guy with nine eyes. "He's over there," says the little guy with no eyes!

Of course.

Illustration Friday: Small

2005-11-28T12:16:00.000-05:00

Here's a small painting of a small dog. This isn't what I intended to show for I-Fri this week. I did a rough for my actual piece but I'm just swamped with work, so I just don't know if I'll get to finishing it. But I love I-Fri and don't want to miss a week so this small dog will have to stand in for my other piece... who knows, I just might find the time later.

I did this piece as part of a large series last year when I first started experimenting with the kawaii form of cartooning. I think it works pretty well, and so did Simon, who immediately claimed it for his room. That's where it hangs when its not sitting face down on my scanner! And speaking of Si...

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

2005-11-28T09:06:00.000-05:00

Wendy spent the weekend "decluttering" Simon's room. This was akin to those giant bulldozers you see pushing piles of trash around a landfill site while seagulls skreetch and wheel in giant circles overhead. I'm not kidding. The pets were getting lost in the debris.

Something else that almost got lost in the debris was this page, along with the rest of Si's art sketch book from school. I rescued it from the recycling bin so the world could enjoy Simon's take on what must be some rappers. I didn't get a chance to ask him (but I will) who these guys are. With older son Dunc's interest in turntabling we have a lot of related magazines like Scratch laying around and for all I know this might be somebody from an article in there.

I'll let you know when I find out!

Illustration Friday - Free

2005-11-20T16:19:00.000-05:00

First I just want to mention, if you are a fan of illustration from the fifties, be sure to check out my other blog, Today's Inspiration, and please feel free to comment.

The piece I did here this week for I-Fri was very much inspired by the amazing work of Candy Killer artist, Brian Taylor. I just received the book version of his website and its fantastic! If you ever saw Art Spiegelman's "RAW" magazine, this guy would have fit in there like a dirty shirt.

I used to go crazy for this kind of faux-retro cartoon style back in art school when a guy named Lou Brooks was just making the scene. He was a huge inspiration to me. The first few years in the business, I used to snap up every promo piece Brooks put out. He proved to me that you could work in a cartoon and comic style in the "legitimate" illustration field.

Once again this week, I put Painter to the test, as I try to learn more about this program's capabilities. All the line art was done in Painter, first in pencil and then in ink - then coloured in Photoshop. I used Photoshop's halftone filter for the dot patterns, and the background texture is a scan of the inside cover of an old Dennis the menace Pocket Full O' Fun digest comic I bought at a used bookstore probably almost thirty years ago. For some reason they never printed anything on the inside of those digest covers...

Oh yeah! And just about all the fonts used are free downloads from FontDiner.com - with my thanks!

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

2005-11-20T16:15:00.000-05:00

Simon has started his own blog! If you like the drawings by Simon that I post here, be sure to see more and read his own words at The Art of a Genius...ME!

This is one of my all-time favourites by Si... its called "SMIL". He did it when he was about six and was enjoying drawing in Photoshop on dad's computer. Si used to draw a lot of pictures with my old Wacom tablet, and then title them with his six year old spelling - he meant to call this one "SMILE" - and that's just what it makes me do, even to this day!

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

2005-11-13T13:15:00.000-05:00

Si showed me his new character the other day. I think his name might be Joe - and he likes pie... but that could just be a specific reference to some private joke I'm not party to.

Si says that this new character was a hit at school with his friends, who immediately started copying Joe into their own school books. He has that effect on people.

Si will create a new character and start drawing him everywhere, refining and improving him. Pretty soon he's incorporating his latest guy in school assignments - as seen in this recent effort- a poster assignment in Health Class.

At this time of year, when the windows of parked cars we pass during our morning walk to school are coated with moisture, Simon will stop at every car and "tag" them with his latest character. I often wonder what people think when they come out to leave for work and discover "Joe" or some other wacky Simon creation on their windshield.

I hope it brings a smile to their day!

Illustration Friday - Strength

2005-11-13T09:49:00.000-05:00

One thing I'm loving about Illustration Friday is that its got me drawing even when I'm not working on a paid assignment. Its scary how you can fall into that rut. And seeing all the incredible concepts and executions of the other folks who participate has inspired me to put everything I've got into my own humble efforts.

This week's topic was "Strength', which immediately got me thinking of doing a cheese-headed man in honour of Jon Scieszka's "The Stinky Cheese Man" - a perennial fav around our place at bedtime when our guys were growing up.

But thoughts of strong cheese lead me to think of mice - or "meeses", as in "I HATE MEESES TO PIECES!"

Meeses may be small, but they can be mighty. Remember "The Mouse that Roared"?

So I started a sketch in my new favourite program, Painter, of an army mouse with several "kills" marked on his helmet...

I even started to take it to colour.

But then it occured to me that I could do so much more with the concept. So I did a revised sketch...

In the back of my mind was the always excellent art of Jamie Hewlett, of Tank Girl fame ( and more recently and more famously, The Gorillaz ). I've always loved the grittiness and mischievous attitude Hewlett embues his work with, and tried to capture a bit of that quality. After much futzing and struggling ( because I really don't understand this program yet ) I got this little feller to emerge:

I gotta give a big shoutout to Penelope Dullaghan for starting the amazing and wonderful I-Fri. Much respect P!

Wolf boy or...?

2005-11-07T22:20:00.000-05:00

Ever since doing this piece last year ( the original piece, that is ) I've been intrigued by the little guy peeking out from behind the tree. I really liked the looks of him, and always planned to do some character development on his silhoetted form...eventually.

After posting the digital recreation of the painting last weekend for Illustration Friday, I could resist no longer - I decided to see what he actually looks like when not lurking in the shadows. From the beginning I had always intended that he should be a werewolf - but a cute little werewolf. I've been playing with the kawaii form of cartooning over the last couple of years ( mostly unsuccessfully ) and I imagined wolfie in that style.

But the first sketch didn't look right...

And the second sketch didn't look right...

And the third sketch at least started to look "wolfish" - but it just wasn't "cute".

At this point I was feeling pretty depressed and in need of some kawaii inspiration. Whenever I need an injection of that kind of cute I head on over to the Pucca Club. The tiny little characters that inhabit Pucca's world are just the ticket to get my kawaii juices flowing.

I started working on a new sketch - direct to oils in Painter - and was feeling like this time I might just be on the right track when in walked my darling wife, Wendy, and commented enthusiastically, "Oh wow, I LOVE your angry chipmunk!"

Huh.

So there you go.

Should you ever find yourself wandering through the woods of my paintings at night, under the full moon, and you hear the snap of a twig and spy a shadowy figure crouched by an old dead tree and are filled with dread - fear not - its just an angry chipmunk out for a midnight stroll.

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

2005-11-06T12:43:00.000-05:00

In shameless imitation of Mighty Ward Jenkins' "Ava Thursdays".

I have two sons, both are wonderful artists and creative in many ways. My older son, Duncan, draws for profit - like his old man... good marks in his case, moolah in mine. But my younger son, Simon, draws for pleasure. And draws and DRAWS. He's filled more sketchbooks in his eleven years than I have in my forty one!

And the thing is, he's a brilliant character designer. I often have to come up with wacky characters in the course of my day and I wish I had half the imagination Simon has. His creations blow my mind! I guess a lifetime of exposure to cartoons, video games, books, comics and movies hasn't hurt.

I'm proud to say my guys have been watching Tex Avery and Chuck Jones cartoons since they were wee tykes - and not those awful hacked and slashed, censored, fifth generation retreads that have all the "offensive" violence removed. These kids have been exposed to every shotgun blast to the duckbill and anvil drop to the noggin that their dad experienced as an impressionable youth.

We all get our inspiration conciously or unconsiously from something that came before. But I believe Si has a special spark, and I'll be sharing a glimpse into his sketchbooks ( with his permission, of course ) with you every Sunday. Enjoy!

Illustration Friday

2005-11-05T12:43:00.000-05:00

This week's topic is "Night". It got me thinking about a painting I did for my mom last year for her birthday. I just started using Painter and thought it might be fun to try recreating that piece, which I did in oils, in Painter - using virtual oils.

My wife and kids call my mom "Scary Omi", because of her love of all things creepy. Not slasher movie creepy, but "Nightmare Before Christmas" creepy. I think its a sensability that comes from her childhood growing up in war torn Germany. She's described to me what it was like to be a little girl living in bombed out cellars in ancient cities that had been completely flattened by Allied bombers. About waking up in the middle of the night with a rat on her chest. About her brother and his little friends using a skull from the ancient town cemetary as a soccer ball. The explosions had turned over all the hundereds-of-years-old graves. About digging in the rubble for "treasure" - other people's silverware and jewellery buried under their flattened homes.

Not to mention the Grimm's Fairy Tales - the unabridged Grimm's fairy tales - that were her bedtime stories. Macabre stuff.

Even back in the sixties, as a young child myself, I got to enjoy a taste of those scary stories. We had this children's book that was read to me over and over - "Der Struwwelpeter" - Bbrrr! - and I loved it!

Which is why no doubt one day my grandchildren will call me "Scary Opa"!

I got a new Mac!

2005-11-03T21:21:00.000-05:00

OK I've had this thing for about a month now but still... its a huge deal for me. I've been using an old wood burning PowerPC 8500 with 96 megs of RAM and 2 Gig hard drive for, I dunno, eight years?

I've been doing all my work in Photoshop 4.0 on a first gen Wacom tablet, watching that little clock go round and round.

Now I've got a shiny new 20" G5 iMac with dual one Gig RAM chips and a 250 Gig hard drive and all the latest software and an Intuos 3 tablet.

I've never been so scared in my life!

Hey - welcome!

2005-10-26T23:58:00.000-04:00

Cool... my own blog... I'm so excited! I don't know where to begin...
I don't have a whole bunch of blogs that I regularly check out - but no doubt that will change as I get more involved with the whole blogging thing. I was introduced to the blogosphere by Ward Jenkins who has a super cool blog called Ward-O-Matic. Then I started checking out Drazen Kozjan's always excellent Hypnotik Eye. And finally a bunch of my pals at the Royal Academy of Illustration & Design got me hooked on their blog.

So I thought, "Why not?"

So... here we go...

Nothing yet...

2005-10-24T10:57:00.000-04:00

But be patient - I'll start posting soon!

Thanks for dropping by - L ;-)

Leifdrawing101

2005-09-30T16:50:00.000-04:00

Leifdrawing101

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Illustration Friday: Dance!

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Illustration Friday: bluegirl

Simon's Sketchbook Sunday: joe&friends

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Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

Illustration Friday - Free

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

Illustration Friday - Strength

Wolf boy or...?

Simon's Sketchbook Sundays

Illustration Friday

I got a new Mac!

Hey - welcome!

Nothing yet...

Leifdrawing101

Super Simon Schoolbook Sunday

SuperSimon's Sketchbook Sunday