Jeff Harter

Bigfoot

2011-12-07T14:45:00.001-05:00

Igor and Me!

2011-10-19T17:25:00.001-04:00

Another card with characters that I illustrated for AG, just in time for Halloween!

2011-10-07T13:23:00.000-04:00

Another card for AG. Had fun drawing these ladies...

2011-10-01T16:50:00.003-04:00

I created this image for a poster and guest talk for Lyndon State college in Vermont. It is based on the original "New York State Cow" image that I originally created. Based on the response I received, I will be making "State Cows" for each of the 50 U.S. states and Canada's ten provinces and three territories. Coming soon to Etsy...

More "Wink"

2011-09-07T13:57:00.001-04:00

The top "Just Wink" card performed pretty well in our test stores (#2 overall). Bottom card page 3 says "Don't let the bastard win." Both were written by Scott Mendenhall of American Greetings.

Fish Taco

2011-06-28T17:20:00.001-04:00

"Fish Taco" illustration for American Greeting's just Wink card line.

just Wink

2011-06-20T23:38:00.012-04:00

American Greetings launched a new card line on June 20th called "just Wink," with writing, art, and a sense of humor geared toward the Millennial generation (gen Y). Our alternative humor illustration team was heavily involved with developing the look of these cards. It's hard to pinpoint any one particular style across the board. It's actually a nice blend of sophisticated, designed, retro, contemporary, boutique etc., but as a whole, the line holds together really well and looks pretty fresh, in my humble, unbiased opinion ;o)

You can find "just Wink" cards in CVS, Rite Aid and many other drug stores everywhere, or grocery stores like Wegmans in the northeast, Ralphs and Albertsons in my old stomping grounds out in California, and so on....

Here is part of one of those "just Wink" cards (the part that I illustrated.) The character is based on that guy that we all seem to know... ;o)

Want to play a game of TSA?

2011-06-10T19:54:00.007-04:00

Here is a topical card about the TSA gropings (er, I mean pat down searches) at airports.
Copyright: American Greetings

Mother's Day card

2011-06-09T16:28:00.003-04:00

Okay, tell me you haven't done this as a kid :o)

Happy Mother's day, 2011.

Happy Easter

2011-04-27T11:30:00.004-04:00

Illustrations for two recent Easter greeting cards...

Another card...

2011-03-04T19:59:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorites, written by Tom Ellsworth, illustrated by me...

New Birthday/Valentine's Day Cards

2011-01-07T16:03:00.008-05:00

A new Birthday card for Target (top) and a Valentine's Day cards for mass retail (Walmart etc) that I illustrated for American Greetings Alternative Humor.

2010-12-15T20:33:00.000-05:00

I created this illustration for a holiday card, to be sent to friends of American Greetings Properties (AGP).

Hey.

2010-11-18T13:46:00.000-05:00

Hey.

Maryoku Yummy

2010-10-09T11:37:00.016-04:00

Another American Greetings animated show appearing on The Hub

is Maryoku Yummy, animated by OddBot. This has turned into a
very cute show for pre-school aged children. Before Maryoku evolved
into what it istoday, I did some really early visual development of
environments like Nozomu and the Wish Mill. It was a while ago, but
these were a lot of fun to work on... Above is a sketch of Nozomu,
a magical place where Wishes and their Wish Sitters live.

The idea for this image is that under ground roots trap drops
of water (center). The Yummy live in these mushroom houses,
which defy gravity and crawl around on the underground roots
like snails.

A very early concept of the Wish Mill... wishes would

drop down through roots in the ground and float

through a system of water ways to Nozomu.

Another Wish Mill Concept... Wishes drop down through roots

in the ground into another series of tubes, then enter the "mill."

The area below is where the wishes would be nurtured.

... and yet another Wish Mill concept.

This concept of the Wish Mill includes an early concept of Tapotapo/

mill. He's sort of controlling the whole process and all the wishes
go through him.

Another Tapotapo/Wish Mill concept.

The Twisted Whiskers Show

2010-10-07T15:23:00.016-04:00

"The Twisted Whiskers Show," an animated TV show created by American Greetings, is now on the HUB, formerly the Discovery Kids channel. I had fun working on the early development stage of the show, designing some of the backgrounds and characters. (see below for more...)

Packages From Planet X

2010-10-01T09:48:00.013-04:00

A bit more info was released on Packages from Planet X, an animated TV show concept that I created at American Greetings... this is from the September 30 Spotlight section of Kidscreen.com:

...AGP is also working with Disney XD on the new action series Packages from Planet X. Kidscreen cited the series as a Cool New Show in October 2008 and it's now entering the pilot stage.

Click links to read the full article from September 30, 2010, and October 2008. The good news is that everything seems to be moving in a positive direction... keep fingers crossed and stay tuned!

Malibu

2010-08-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

A few sketches from Cedar Point and at work...

Taxi

2010-06-29T02:12:00.030-04:00

I imagine this guy stranded on an island or in the middle of the wilderness and he hallucinates that he's still in New York city trying to flag down a cab, but he's really chasing after a dolphin or a moose.

What makes animation funny part 2

2010-06-09T12:39:00.020-04:00

I am fortunate to be developing two animated comedies for TV (keep your fingers crossed), along with creating goofy characters in humorous situations for the alternative humor card team at American Greetings. So I am on a constant prowl to find good nuggets that will inspire my sense of humor. Without sucking the joy, spontaneity and gut feeling out of my own sense of humor, it's also a way of understanding and making a science out of what and why certain things make people laugh. A while back I asked the question: what makes a cartoon funny? A bunch of you pointed out bits of animation and the reasons why you thought they were funny. To follow up that post, I found this podcast from the web site Speaking of Animation. And just like the web site points out, Ken Fountain, Ben Rush, David Weatherly, and Steven P Gordon give their insight on what it's like to animate comedic shots and why something might be funny.

The thing that struck me most in listening to this is the idea of being funny without looking like you are trying to be funny. The choreographed "funny," and, wait for those punch line drums... followed by polite laughter, often falls flat. The best comedy is spontaneous and unexpected.

Anyway, this interview of the guys from Dreamworks is informative and funny. For the quick podcast link, click here. Check it out and enjoy!

Upular by Pogo

2010-06-03T10:11:00.017-04:00

Wow. If you haven't seen yet, this is fantastic music (and video) called "Upular" by Pogo, composed using chords, bass notes and vocal samples from Disney Pixar's film "UP." I can't stop watching or listening to this...

Father's Day

2010-05-26T17:21:00.010-04:00

A few father's day cards that I illustrated for American Greetings Alternative Humor team, to be sold at a mass retail store near you. Happy Father's Day!

Acting

2010-05-24T01:19:00.010-04:00

A few images from a power point presentation on character acting/posing that I gave at Lyndon State College (Vermont.)

Peg Leg Pete

2010-03-13T07:52:00.008-05:00

Nothing brand spanking new to post, so here are some more oldies... Peg Leg Pete (without the peg) these are a series of Pete drawings for a men's big and tall program that I developed while at Disney (see color finishes in older posts). I see Pete as sort of a Blue collar slob and weekend warrior.

More Cleaning...

2010-02-03T21:36:00.008-05:00

It's official, we are in fact moving, so more cleaning through old boxes and portfolios and more postings of art rediscovered. These are some illustrations from my freelance editorial days:
Image 1 "Boosting Corporate Morale" pastel, USAir Magazine
Image 2 AARP Bulletin
Image 3 "Drug Money," AARP Bulletin
Image 4 "Espionage" pastel (unpublished)
Image 5 "Tourettes" pastel (unpublished)
Image 6 "Sunday Morning Slasher" pastel (unpublished)
Image 7 "Adirondacks" pastel (unpublished)
Image 8 "Nuclear Balance" pastel, Computer Professionals Newsletter.
Image 9 "Guinness Book of World Records: World's Largest Pumpkin"
Buffalo Illustrators Calendar and Print Magazine (May/June 1990.)
Image 10 "One Knight Stand" (Pen and ink) Buffalo Illustrator's Calendar

Enjoy!

Paul Bunyan

2010-01-24T17:49:00.007-05:00

We are getting ready to move, so I'm going through my massive amount of boxes and folders and whatnot, trying to thin out my collection of junk. Being somewhat of a pack rat, it's not easy to get rid of anything. I want to take it ALL with me, but my wife is encouraging me otherwise. Anyway, I came across these Tom Oreb inspired Paul Bunyan drawings (Love Oreb's work) and this Big and Tall apparel concept that I did while at Disney many moons ago. Paul Bunyan is Big and Tall, get it? Anyway, it got me thinking... wouldn't it be great if Bunyan had a moving company? It would take him no time at all to haul all of my junk across town. Oh wait, Paul Bunyan isn't real. Shoot.

Disney World Trip 10.09

2009-12-13T01:57:00.002-05:00

Some caricatures of various guests from our October trip to Disney World.

Twisted Whiskers Visual Development

2009-11-05T10:43:00.019-05:00

I worked at American Greetings Properties as a visual development artist and character designer on an animated TV show called "Twisted Whiskers." The show is currently airing in France and will air on the BBC this spring. Here are a few characters that I designed early on, as well as layouts of various settings. This is an early version of the character Fleebis.

My favorite character, Broken Bear.

Ird the Bird makes an appearance in every episode.

A random butterfly.

Early design of Flouncy.

Preliminary turn of smidgeon, the mouse.

This is Claude, one of the few humans in the show (above). You only ever see him from the neck down.

A winding mountain road (above.) Below are exterior and interior designs for a fish market.

A random lobster that appears in the fish market.

Flying Leap Cards

2009-11-04T13:59:00.005-05:00

Here is a "Flying Leap" card that I illustrated at American Greetings. Check it out at a Target near you!

Animation

2009-09-25T08:42:00.012-04:00

I finally had two of my early animations/animatics transferred from 3/4" tape to digital. I'm doing a little chat about animation and thought it would be educational to show these first two attempts. Both are a little clunky in spots... but it's interesting to look back to see where one started.

The top animation, titled "Umbrella Tree," was my CalArts freshman year film. For anyone not familiar with CalArts...each year the college selects a handful of student films to run in the Producer's Show. It's a year end event held at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in North Hollywood and all of the major studios attend. Fortunately my student film was selected to run in the producer's show of that year (1994-1995). The music is Erik Satie's gymnopedie #1. It's pretty quiet film and has basic animation based on what I learned as freshmen (walk cycle, jumping, some limited acting) but I like the mood of this piece.

The Bottom story reel/pencil test was just something I was messing around with in 1999 while at Disney Feature Animation durnig the down time between Mulan and Tarzan. I wanted to do a simple situation of a snowman shoveling heavy snow to experiment with weight. It turned into a story of a snowman wanting to trade his shovel up for a snow blower, then thinking his shovel wasn't so bad, until he encounters some heavy wet snow (something everyone in the Northeast can relate to.) The music is from one of my favorite Christmas tunes, Christmas Dreaming , by Harry Connick.

Bear in mind...

2009-09-04T16:01:00.002-04:00

Hysterical laughter

2009-09-02T15:51:00.003-04:00

Did you ever laugh so hard that you turned blue, you started levitating, and your tongue grew a head and started laughing too? O.k., I haven't either. Just checking.

Sketching...

2009-08-11T18:30:00.002-04:00

Kennywood

2009-07-21T22:43:00.008-04:00

Went to Kennywood theme park (near Pittsburgh, PA) this past weekend with the family. The kids loved the thrill rides and the short lines. As usual, we saw a plethora of interesting looking people and sights, like this one Pittsburgh–ian waiting to go on the Bayern Kurve (a winter themed bobsled ride with a logo you can't read).

Olivia's T-ball

2009-07-08T01:32:00.003-04:00

Did some sketches at Olivia's last T-ball game. She loves T-ball. She had 3 hits and three runs in three innings, and the game ended in a tie. (These are the same stats for every game, by the way.)

Fish Doodles

2009-06-26T02:17:00.002-04:00

"Steps to mowing the lawn" by Sasha the Dog

2009-06-13T00:37:00.023-04:00

This is becoming a pattern... We have an invisible fence for our dog Sasha, so naturally there is a section of our yard that becomes the Sasha mine field. So before I mow the lawn, I pick up all of her "mess" with our handy Jumbo Jaws Scooper (a brilliant invention, btw.) After I am about half way through the now empty mine field with the lawn mower, she does her business again. Not in the grass that has already been cut, mind you, but in the grass of the next row over that I'm about to cut. (I'm not kidding, this has happened several times) She likes to sit back and watch the scene unfold. Maybe she is conducting some sort of doggy experiment to see how I will react when I catch her. Or maybe she just wants to see what will happen if one of her bombs goes unnoticed and I either a) step in it or b) run over it with the mower. My dog obviously has a mischievous sense of humor.

Rainy Day

2009-05-30T02:33:00.008-04:00

My daughter and I watched a cold front move in. We watched it rain and counted the seconds between the lightning and thunder (in the Garage, of course.) She had a blast. Life is all about the simple things.

D.I. Columbus

2009-05-01T17:44:00.002-04:00

AS promised, some sketches from our Destination Imagination Trip to Columbus Ohio.

Wide Asleep

2009-04-23T00:36:00.002-04:00

I've been moved into another department of American Greetings where I get to illustrate and design Alternative Humor greeting cards. So I've been studying humorous drawing from one of the masters, my 6 year old daughter. Her drawing is on the left. My drawing of our "wide asleep" dog (as she puts it) is on the right. She drew her picture while wearing her "cooking suit" (apron.) I am learning oodles from the master.

Doodles

2009-04-06T23:21:00.002-04:00

D.I. Day

2009-03-08T12:16:00.004-04:00

We spent the day at an event called Destination Imagination. It's the olympics for the mind for kids K-12. All three of our kids participated in instant challenges (improv, on the spot problem solving) and a central challenge, where teams get a problem to solve and work on it for the season. Our fourth grader's team won first place in the regional competition. Now we get to go to the state championships in Columbus Ohio. If they win again, they go to the global competition in Tennessee.

My wife was a coach. I was a volunteer at the registration table for a few hours, and spent the rest of the day watching our daughter's events and various interesting looking people....

Poking fun at motion capture...

2009-02-21T07:21:00.008-05:00

Oh my gosh....I must live under a rock all the way over here in Cleveland, but If you are like me and have not seen this yet, check out this hilarious opening for the 2007 CalArts Producers' show. Created by Alex Hirsch, Joe Pitt, Erik Fountain, and Steve Macleod, with appearances by animation legends Glen Keane, James Baxter, and my former animation instructor at CalArts, Frank Terry.

Jeffery B. Bot

2009-01-11T15:11:00.005-05:00

....and color.

Pencil sketch of a Robot boy fishing in space. Color to come...

Robot repair

2008-11-13T23:30:00.019-05:00

Merry Christmas!

2008-11-11T21:00:00.010-05:00

I'm a Christmas nut. I'm also a big fan of American Folk Art. You can see a collection of my folk art on the blog Harter Country.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T00:48:00.001-04:00

Packages From Planet X

2008-10-15T21:00:00.036-04:00

It's exciting AND difficult to work on a top secret idea and not be able to talk about it with the rest of the world. As the creator of said concept, I've been heavily involved with story development, visual development, character design, and writing for the entertainment pitch bible for the past 2 years. Now I'm finally able to share a tiny bit of info...

Back in June 2006, I pitched a TV show concept to American Greetings Intellectual Properties called "Packages From Planet X." It's a story about a kid who receives mysterious packages in the mail. The packages are filled with some pretty bizarre and amazing stuff, or even mundane items that do really bizarre things. Dan, the recipient and main character (above), doesn't know where the packages come from or who sends them. But the contents of these packages wreak havoc and hilarity on his life and his boring little town.

Check out this month's October issue of Kidscreen Magazine
for more info. That's all I can say about it for now. But stay tuned... I will post new information and art as it becomes available to the public!

Washington D.C.

2008-10-10T16:48:00.021-04:00

Vice President's mansion

The Capitol Building

The "Situation Room" (door)

On October 2, my wife and I went to Washington DC for our anniversary. I think we would both agree that, aside from our honey moon in Hawaii, it tops the list for one of our favorite trips. I have always been sort of a geek about American history, government, and politics. A friend of ours (who has an extremely fascinating profession) showed us some pretty amazing sights. One of them was a personal tour of the White House west wing. We saw the oval office, cabinet room, press room, and the front door to the situation room (above... we couldn't go inside, obviously). I also made a pit stop to the men's restroom. I can now say I took a pee in the west wing. Also saw where the VP works and lives. Cameras and photos were forbidden, but I did have my sketchbook and a photographic memory :o) More to come!

Pooh - Baseball

2008-10-01T22:59:00.002-04:00

Playoffs are just around the corner...

Bunny, Cat, Frog, Bird

2008-09-19T01:50:00.003-04:00

A recent illustration for a coloring book cover with initial sketch...

Whitney Martin

2008-08-24T10:22:00.010-04:00

"Oh man, that's how I look to you? Is that really how I look to you?"

While getting together my portfolio again, I found this ridiculous caricature of me by Whitney Martin. During our stay at Disney, we (Bob P. with his Starbucks, Whitney in his patented plaid shirt, Niko at the drawing board) did some pretty unflattering and hilarious caricatures each other. That's really not how I look, in the yellow shirt... really.

Michael Phelps

2008-08-12T01:53:00.005-04:00

American swimmer Michael Phelps, winner of 9 career gold medals (tied with Spitz), 3 for 3 in Beijing and counting.

I'm a huge fan of the Olympics. I witnessed the miracle on ice in the 1980 Lake Placid games when the U.S. defeated the Soviet Union, and I've been hooked ever since. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. I'm already looking forward to Vancouver in 2010.

Amazing Grace

2008-08-10T21:06:00.002-04:00

A quick watercolor sketch of my daughter, Gracie, while at the Cleveland zoo.

Syracuse University

2008-07-19T22:53:00.009-04:00

This is a watercolor sketch of Crouse College, the main building for the music students at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. I studied illustration at SU. Not in this building, but another, considerably more boring looking building without air conditioning. Some of the visiting lecturers during my stay were CF Payne, Anita Kunz, Gary Kelley, and Bunny Carter. A super program at the time.

Adirondack Vacation

2008-07-09T10:52:00.012-04:00

Some watercolor studies in my Moleskine sketch book. This is Bubb lake in Eagle Bay (of Bubb and Sis Lake, just before Moss Lake) in the morning. It was about a 15 minute hike into the woods. Very secluded, not another person around, common for a lot of the lakes up here. A loon appeared right in front of me. I looked down at my sketchbook for a few seconds and when I looked back up, he had disappeared. He surfaced again about 100 yards away.

This is Little Long Lake in the early morning fog. Version below is shortly after the fog cleared. As I was painting in my moleskin sketchbook at about 6 am, the perfect calm and peacefulness of my Adirondack experience was shattered by a guy walking up the road, whistling and talking to himself REALLY LOUDLY. I sat really still and quiet, hoping he would just walk on by. No such luck. Then I hear the crunching of gravel under his feet getting closer, and he says very loudly, "Hey buddy, did you catch anything??!" I ignored him again, hoping he was talking to someone else who actually had a fishing pole. Not a chance. He came down to where I was painting and started a conversation. The thought that popped into my head as he described White Lake as being the Manhattan of the Adirondacks was that out of 6 million acres of forever wild land, how did this guy stumble upon me? When I experience the Adirondacks, the last thing I want is Manhattan! Anyway, he turned out to be a nice enough guy... offered me the use of his canoe, etc. Probably would have given me a fishing pole too!

Different versions of White Lake, a very crowded, a lot of boats. Not exactly the Adirondack experience.
From the Adirondack Museum cafe overlooking Blue Mountain Lake.

A few sketches from inside the Adirondack museum. The sketch on left is of a model of a building from Santa's Workshop, designed by Arto Monaco. The first step in realizing the theme parks he helped build or built himself in the late 1940's, which included Santa's workshop and the Land of Make Believe.

A totem pole from memory, outside of Blue Mountain Lake.

Sushi Pack

2008-05-06T23:31:00.001-04:00

Twisted Whiskers

2008-04-24T14:27:00.008-04:00

Here is a "Twisted Whiskers" Illustration that I did for American Greetings. These are two of my favorite characters, the cats "Dine and Dash." They are basically thieves and constantly think about their next meal. I designed "Ird the Bird" in the background.

What makes a cartoon funny?

2008-04-13T09:33:00.014-04:00

No pictures today. Just a simple question: What makes an animated cartoon genuinely funny, or NOT funny, for you? For your 10 year old kids? For you when you were a 10 year old kid? There is no right or wrong answer here, but try to be specific. Is there a particular film, TV show, character, scene, bit of acting or dialog or situation that actually made you laugh out loud? Do you have an example that is suppose to make you laugh but just insulted your sense of humor, or just made you angry? I don't care if you are 9 or 90, a grizzled animation veteran, just starting out, or not in the cartoon biz at all. Don't be bashful. This will be topic that I will continue to cover on this blog. The future of humor in animated entertainment could depend on you!!!

Levels of Engagement

2008-04-08T22:06:00.016-04:00

Drew this while at church this past Sunday. I had one ear on the message, "Levels of Engagement," but was distracted by three out of about six teen boys in front of us. They were goofing around... playing with their iphone, flicking each other in the head with their fingers, covering up their faces trying really hard not to laugh, eating little containers of Mott's apple sauce with broken plastic forks, that sort of thing. It was, dare I say, the same sort of thing my brother Fred and I might have done during church when we were younger. Actually, it was more Fred than me. I remember Fred farting so loud it sounded like a large tree branch breaking. I couldn't help laughing back then, and this Sunday. Only this time I laughed to myself, very quietly. My wife said they were respectful for the most part (I think she was paying more attention to the message.) Anyway, this was the only kid who sat still long enough for me to draw.

A different example of levels of engagement, I suppose.

Pixar Story

2008-03-14T20:26:00.005-04:00

I saw the Pixar Story at the Cleveland Film Festival. Very inspirational.

Queen of Hearts and Caveman

2008-03-01T00:52:00.006-05:00

I've been working on a live action TV show pitch for the past few weeks, so, as they say, I've got nothing (nothing new to show here, that is.) The pitch went well, and was given the green light to continue. As with all of these sort of projects, I'm cautiously optimistic. As some of you may know, it's a monumental task to get a show on air. Wish I could show and tell more about some of the projects I am helping to develop, but I can't, of course, not now. So stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed. Anyway, I dug deep into my dusty portfolio and found these. Sorry to my friends who have already seen. Top is the Queen of Hearts I did for Disney a while back (pastel). The bottom cave man image was a freelance assignment for an elevator company promotion (acrylic).

Sheep

2008-02-19T00:30:00.009-05:00

I finally finished this sheep wood carving. You can see more of my folk art at harter country.

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-15T01:55:00.011-05:00

Some February 14th themed doodles for my wife's Valentines Day card... Surprisingly, she preferred the flower over the robots or the goat boy with heart candies.

Race Horse

2008-02-01T14:01:00.000-05:00

I think I've been to two horse races in my entire life, both at Vernon Downs. I bet a few dollars and lost. One of the best horse races I ever saw was at the end of the movie Black Stallion with Mickey Rooney and Kelly Reno. Very dramatic. A must see.

Hilary Clinton

2008-01-23T01:30:00.001-05:00

My version of Hilary Clinton, who won the New Hampshire primary.

I actually caught a glimpse of the Clinton's while they were vacationing in upstate New York a few years back. It was a summer night in 1999 at around 9:00 pm. I saw on the news that they were dining at the Sherwood Inn in the neighboring town of Skaneateles. So I jumped in my car and raced over. By that time a very large crowd had gathered in front, and sure enough, I saw them as they exited the Inn. There was Bill Clinton and the first family, and several people in black suits, waving at the crowd. Now this area of Central New York is Republican territory for sure. But regardless of which party one is affiliated with, it was pretty amazing to see the President of the United States roaming around our small community.

Baseball player

2008-01-20T23:37:00.000-05:00

As I was drawing this, my four year old daughter, the art critic, said "It would be better without the pokey nose." I explained to her that it was supposed to be sort of a funny drawing. Then she laughed and said "look at him's pokey nose."
It's funny what kids zero in on.

John McCain

2008-01-17T00:17:00.001-05:00

John McCain, winner of the New Hampshire primary.

Barack Obama

2008-01-17T00:11:00.000-05:00

It's that time again... the race for the '08 U.S. presidential election is in full swing. Here is Barack Obama, winner of the Iowa caucus.

Sushi Pack development

2008-01-09T12:54:00.001-05:00

A Lava Rocket for one of the Sushi Pack episodes.

Dream Catcher

2007-12-03T01:41:00.001-05:00

Here is a folk art wood carving that I'm doing for Kellee, (it is taking me forever, sorry Kellee!) This is the final digital color comp. I did a few studies using brighter, more saturated colors, but decided to stick with more traditional muted folk art colors.

The challenge was to design anything I wanted as long as the focus was sheep (she loves sheep). So I came up with the idea that sheep are what causes falling stars (The star is attached to the sheep's night cap that pulls the star behind them.)

The Over–Waitress

2007-09-27T02:39:00.000-04:00

Another assignment for Gum or Mints. This month's theme is "waitress."

Cat Licking Paw

2007-08-30T02:50:00.000-04:00

I'm part of a new blog called Gum or Mints. A bunch of very talented artists in the industry are working on character design assignments just for the fun of it. The Blog Gum or Mints was also featured recently in Drawn! Check it out!

Care Bear Town Center

2007-08-22T00:39:00.000-04:00

CG version of the buildings and tree I designed for the "Care Bears - Oopsy Does It!" movie.

Cop

2007-08-06T00:55:00.001-04:00

John Quinn and Dan Thompson started a club to design a new character each month. Their first assignment was "Big foot." I joined in on the "police" assignment.

Flying vs Invisibility

2007-07-24T01:30:00.002-04:00

There's a commercial that asks the question, what would you choose, to fly, or to become invisible? That is a tough one...

If you previously checked into my blog, all 5 of you, you would have noticed that I made a list of things you could do if you were invisible vs. if you could fly, pointed out the positives and negatives, whether it was used for good or evil. Blah Blah Blah.

But it really comes down to this for me. You have to be naked to reap all the benefits of invisibility, which is essentially sneaking around without being seen in order to spy on people. I have a hard time with the idea of sneaking around naked in public, even if I am invisible. What if my invisibility malfunctioned for some reason? There I would be, standing in the middle of suburbia or where ever, totally naked. Not good. So I would have to at least wear boxers. I would also need to wear my glasses so I could see where I was going. (I hate contacts. I tried them, but they make my eyes feel all dry and scratchy.) I also can't stand NOT wearing socks. My wife can walk around all day everyday bare foot, but it drives me crazy to be bare foot. So basically I would be sneaking around invisible in my boxers, glasses, and socks. Not really invisible. So what's the point of invisibility?

Unless I'm picked off by a hunter who mistook me for a goose during a leisurely flight over the countryside, I can't see a whole lot of negative in flying. And I get to wear all of my clothes. I think flying is good for me.

Town Square

2007-07-21T01:51:00.002-04:00

Some more early Vis Dev for the "Care Bear's Oopsy Does it" Movie. These are some Town Square and individual building studies.

We decided to update Care-a-lot by eliminating the old castle. The new gathering place would feel like Cleveland's Crocker Park or Legacy Village, Disney's Celebration, or any of those cozy towns you would find in James Howard Kunstler's book "home from nowhere."

In the initial design (red), I wanted the environment to not only feel modern, but soft, comfortable, protective, and inviting. I personally like towns such as Chardon and Chagrin Falls, Ohio, or any of these towns up and down route 306 where there are traditional downtown buildings surrounding a central square, with some focal point like a gazebo or a park. In the Care Bears case I used a big tree in the shape of a heart in the center of town.

There are 5 buildings in town belonging to Oopsy, Grumpy, Share. Funshine, and Cheer. Pictured here are Grunpy's Garage (blue), Share's Candy shop (purple), and Funshine's home (bottom blue vector image).

Wingnut

2007-07-06T16:20:00.000-04:00

Above is the final CG version of the Robot "Wingnut" based on visual development work that I did for the animated movie "Care Bears: Oopsy Does It!" The movie will be released in theatres August 4, 2007 by 20th Century Fox, and is produced by SD Entertainment. I was given Lead Designer credit, which I'm pretty excited about.
Below is some early development. It started looking a bit too much like R2D2 so I changed direction...

I have this rusted outdoor fire place at home. The lower half where the logs sit looked like a body and the little smoke stack on top looked like a head. We wanted him to look like he were made out of old rusty scrap metal parts, so I thought it might be a good new starting point for our robot. I used it for inspiration for the top left drawing below. My designs eventually morphed into the bottom right concept, which is what we used for the final direction.

Wingnut turn around drawings...

The final drawing. We decided to get rid of the legs and add a wheel at the bottom. Also got rid of the belt around his waist.

I will be posting more of my visual development from the movie, so keep checking back!

5th grader #2 and 3

2007-06-18T12:50:00.000-04:00

A few more sketches from that elementary school visit way back. Just finally got around to messing around with color.

Tony

2007-05-02T16:33:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I went to my daughter's art classroom at her school to give a presentation about what we do at American Greetings. I also had time to do a few quick sketches of the kids. This little guy is Tony, the kid with a ton of hair.

Wampa

2007-04-27T11:03:00.000-04:00

I bought a new moleskin sketchbook and I'm determined to fill it. Here are some sketches from this morning's "Wampa," a sharing meeting we have every Friday morning at American Greetings.

Wedding Doves and Invisibility

2006-10-12T02:32:00.000-04:00

My wife and I went to another good friend's wedding a few weeks back. It was a very nice wedding. One of the neat things they did was, after the service, they uleashed a crate full of pristine white doves in front of the church. I wondered if these doves were trained to come back to some sort of dove keeper, someone who rents out doves for special occaisions, or if they just fly off into the sunset? Has anyone ever seen white doves flying around in the wild?

Just before the doves were released, a funny thing happened. (At the time it was "funny-peculiar," now its more like "funny ha-ha.") I was standing in the very SLOW moving receiving line, patiently waiting for the people in front of me to move down the line. I was next in line to shake hands and/or hug the bride. I think I was literally about a foot away from her, hand in "shake" position, when out of nowhere this guy appeared and wedged in front of me, squeezing his body between the bride and myself, beating me to the hand shake/hug. Then his wife (I think it was his wife) did the same thing.

I guess I can just chalk it up to wedding day over-exuberance, or perhaps they were in a rush to see the grand dove unleashing. Maybe they didn't notice my 6 foot 4 inch, 280 pound frame standing there, in line. With my hand out-stretched. I do sometimes have the power of invisibility, it could be that I turned invisible for a few seconds. That's probably what happened. The bride and I had a good laugh afterwards. It was one of those "what the..." moments.

Receptions are great places to find interesting faces to draw. Here are a few.

Cleveland Zoo

2006-09-27T07:16:00.000-04:00

The American Greetings Properties team went to the Cleveland Zoo yesterday to draw animals. It was a great day. I haven't been to the zoo to sketch in a while. I did about 50 doodles and drawings and ended up with a handfull that I liked. I did some studies of goats' eyes that I can use for a character that I'm working on. I was able to draw at the zoo for a day and get paid for it. I feel pretty fortunate to be able to do what I do for a living.

Here are a few of those animal sketches. The one on the bottom left is called an Anthony and the one at bottom center is called a Dave.

Norm, Jim

2006-08-18T23:55:00.000-04:00

Some messing around with drawing and color...

Super Care Bear

2006-08-18T10:39:00.000-04:00

Some doodling... another attempt to try to make Care Bears a boys property...

Beanstalk

2006-07-13T23:31:00.000-04:00

Welcome to "Beanstalk," my old/new blog now dedicated to sketchbook doodles, illustration, and miscellaneous rants, (I'll try to keep them about the art and animated film world, but you never know...) Harter Country, the old name of this blog, will be a seperate blog dedicated to everything folk art, such as my wood carvings, ("whittling," as some have referred to it as...) illustration, inspiration, information, etc.

Beanstalk was a nick name my mother gave me when I was a young child because apparently I was tall and skinny. I am still tall but not so much skinny anymore, although I'm working on that. I was reminded of my nick name a few weeks ago during an AG meeting, and viola.

What better image to put up on a blog named "Beanstalk" than some art that I did for my first children's book, "Jack and the Beanstalk." It's the Care Bear version of Jack and the Beanstalk of course, and is sold seperately for Play Along's "Share A Story" talking/reading bear. It's available at fine stores like Target, K-mart and Walmart everywhere (still, I think), so rush on out and buy one today!

More Kelly doodles

2006-05-04T09:46:00.000-04:00

These are some caricatures of Kelly. They obviously morphed into somebody else, but I still like the result.

Out To Lunch...

2006-04-06T22:22:00.001-04:00

I've been out to lunch lately, sort of. I've been busy trying to get a few ideas ready to pitch at AG. Needless to say, I have nothing new to share (with you guys and gals, that is.) But I did find this old caricature of myself that I used to hang on my door at Disney to let people know that, well, yeah, you guessed it.

Ro BOTs

2006-03-20T16:32:00.000-05:00

A few of us at American Greetings contribute to a Blog called Sketch-O-Rama (see links). My first contribution was for "Robot."

Owl

2006-03-08T05:43:00.000-05:00

This is an illustration based on the word "owl." I chose the snowy owl because of its incredible eyes... they appear to be rather human like. Their eyes sit on the front of their head, not on the side like most other birds, giving them binocular and very precise vision.

Pastel on Canson.

Winnie the Pooh is turning 80.

2006-02-25T00:13:00.000-05:00

Here are some drawings of Pooh that I did while at Disney. I think he was around 77 at the time... Enjoy.

Rooster

2006-02-13T07:13:00.000-05:00

Here is another wood carving. This is Rooster Doodle Doo, the husband of Mrs. Cluckhens (see "Chicken" post from January).

Softball

2006-02-01T06:24:00.000-05:00

Another older piece I did with Pete... This time playing softball.

Doodles 01.28.06

2006-01-28T05:05:00.000-05:00

We started a lunchtime gathering at AG where we watch cartoons, chat, and draw pictures. Sometimes the pictures vaguely resemble the people in there...

Fish eat fish

2006-01-20T23:05:00.000-05:00

Some doodles turned into another wood carving. I used bass wood again with relief carving on both sides. Initially I thought I'd make a pull toy (bottom) but here is how it turned out, a slightly scaled down version (top). At some point I will paint, I'm still figuring out the colors.

Doodles

2006-01-19T07:22:00.000-05:00

This is my daughter during a break at her basketball practice (center.) Not sure how she can sit like that...

Sketches

2006-01-14T06:53:00.000-05:00

The other day I was talking to Ryan (Punch my Face) about the caricatures we used to do of each other at Walt Disney Feature Animation in Burbank. We had this white dry erase marker board on the wall outside of the "bullpen" that was probably supposed to be used for announcements and such, but the artists quickly took it over. One would enter the hallway to the sound of a squeaking dry erase marker, and see a person standing inches away from the board intensly focusing on what was to be a very jacked up rendition of someone else. You would hope that you weren't the featured subject. Sometimes there would be a crowd of people surrounding the person at the board, pointing, and laughing. If they looked at you and started laughing harder, that was a bad sign. It's a shame that the art on this board had to be erased, there was a lot of hilarious work that will never be seen.

There were the usual suspects (Niko, Whitney, Bob P., myself) who perfected a particular jacked up way of drawing one another. Some actually made it to paper. I found this one I did of Niko during one of our internal figure drawing classes, before he got his few hairs cut (drawing at right). It was probably more funny to me back then when I had a full head of hair. I feel your pain, Niko.

The Drawing at left is a European fellow named Nils. I met him during my brief stint at MacKenzie Childs.

As I find more of these drawings I will post. I also want to dust off my sketchbook and start doing this sort of thing again... good times.

Alice in Wonderland

2006-01-13T06:32:00.000-05:00

Swithching gears from wood carving (below) to character art. Here is is my rendition of the characters from Alice in Wonderland that I did while at DCP, I think from around '02-03. We would do stylized interpretations of the characters, which was a lot of fun. This one is all about playing around with the model proportions and with straight lines against curved lines.

Digital.

I Love Bowling...

2006-01-12T20:44:00.003-05:00

... and chicken wings. Sometimes we were able to sneak a little bit of our own personalities into the Disney characters that we drew.

This is Peg leg Pete, without the peg leg... Another piece I did at Disney Consumer Products. I wanted to create a rough, grainy, graphic look since out target was boys'/mens' product. I ran the original drawing through the copier a few times to give it that several generations removed from the original copy look.

I think Cleveland might have more bowling alleys per square mile than Los Angeles, which is a good thing. But we have Sushi, too. Ha!

graphite, digital color.

Chicken

2006-01-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

Here is another wood carving that I did for my gallery show at A.G. I worked on this during our visit at my aunt's Adirondack camp near lake George. My daughter and I came up with the name "Mrs. Cluckhens." I gouged my finger sereral times while carving her skinny little legs. There are 30 rings on her legs, so it could have been worse.