Unearthing the Bones of J. Giggles Flintstone

This week I had to work on a commission, and since it aligned nicely with the usual cartoony-spooky-vintage stuff we cover on our YouTube channel, we recorded my process. The medium is colored pencil, and the subject of the commission is the late J. Giggles Flintstone, a minor Season Five character who bequeaths Fred his entire fortune, on the condition that he stays one night in the old, haunted Flintstone estate. See? Told you it fit right in with our other videos.

The video isn’t just a rundown of my process, though. Michelle and I also discuss the episode in question, A Haunted House Is Not A Home, and recap it for anyone who might not instantly recall the 60-year old cartoon. It’s one of our favorite episodes, due in no small part to the malevolent staff who are also spending the night at the mansion, Creepers, Potrock, and Wormstone. If you think they look a little shady, keep in mind that should anything happen to Fred during the night, these stone-age weirdos get the fortune to themselves. Now, it’s a party!

The Flintstone commission is only the second time I’ve tried using solvent with colored pencil. It was a special request by the client, and I was happy to give it another try. And, as usual, in the spirit of passing on any knowledge we acquire by trying these things, I try to drop as many tips as I can think of while I work.

If you haven’t seen how solvent smooths out the texture of colored pencil, it’s really kind of magical. The colored pencil pigments are carried in the wax core of the pencils. When the mineral spirits of the solvent are brushed onto the wax, it melts, releasing the pigments. The result is a much smoother blend of colors.

If you’d like to see more of this solvent effect, you can check out our original Velma and Black Knight video from 2022. And if you want to know if Fred makes it through the night alive, you can watch this week’s Flintstones video at the link below.

Manmoth Patreon Commission

There is a tier in the Long Lost Friend Studio Patreon where, after a year membership, you get a commission. Either a felted figure from Michelle, or a color illustration from me.

This time, I was up. And the commission was a character I hadn’t had much experience with: Manmoth, from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtleverse. Familiar or not, I had a great time working on this one.

And it was a win/win situation because the patron loved the finished product too. If you’re at all interested in checking out the various tiers of our Patreon (there are some at just a dollar a month) you can check it out here.

If you’ve ever been interested in commissioning either me or Michelle for a piece of art, you can contact us through the form on our “About/Contact” page and we can discuss options and pricing.

And if you’d like to see my process on this Manmoth commission, here’s the video:

Commissioned to Build a TMNT / Universal Monsters Diorama

Sometimes a job’s just a job. Other times, it’s so much fun you feel guilty cashing the paycheck. Such was the case when, recently, a client commissioned Michelle and me to build a diorama that’s a cross between the Mutant Turtles’ sewer lair and Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

The diorama was designed to be a base for the new Mutant Turtle Universal Monster figures our client picked up. So we grabbed a Raphael to help scale everything and got to work. We also used his color palette to inform our paint choices.

A lot of what we did consisted of cutting/carving foam. Both by hand with craft knives, as well as with the invaluable Proxxon hot wire foam cutting table.

But there was also a fair bit of pvc plastic parts (that sewer pipe, sluice vent, and rusty grate). That meant a few trips to the hardware store where explaining to skilled builders and craftsmen what we wanted and what we wanted it for was an adventure in humiliation.

The client also had a list of props and accessories he wanted in the diorama, so we needed to sculpt some things with clay. Below you can see a couple of journals, a turtle skull, a human femur, and a delicious slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza with green peppers.

And, of course, some of the props were cobbled together from foam, wood, plastic, chipboard, and resin…like this damaged power supply Frankenstein uses for his experiments.

Over on our YouTube channel, we’re back from hiatus this week. Our video this week features this Turtles/Universal Monsters diorama and shows some of our process for creating this commission.

If you’d like to see how it all came together, you can watch the video below.

Inking Daredevil

Did a quick video where I practiced my spot blacks with a Daredevil piece. (First image digitally colored)

Most of the time, when I’m doing comic-style work, I go light on the inks, leaving the image open for color.

But I know that even a heavily-inked piece with big patches of black in the right places looks great once the color is added….and has the further benefit of looking amazing as a black-and-white illustration.

So, in this video, I’m practicing dropping more ink into an image than I’m used to. And I’m having fun talking with Run Red Run about inking, commissions, and Daredevil:

An Informal Chat About Needle Felting with Run Red Run.

You all know my friend Run Red Run. She’s here at the studio all the time sculpting and building our joint projects with me, learning new skills alongside me, making our YouTube videos, and (every once in a while) she’ll step out of her comfort zone and do an “Ink It or Stink It” video with me. In addition to all that, she enjoys needle felting wool into cute, fiber sculptures.

She was finishing up this commission recently — a client’s pets — and I figured I’d catch some of her process on video and talk to her about it. What else have I got to do besides pester her while she works?

While the video shows some of the basic steps of needling a feltie into shape, it also focuses on her choice of plastic/glass eyes for these particular sculptures. So we had a little fun talking about all the different ways you could use materials other than wool in your wool felties.

If you’ve ever thought about trying out needle felting, you might pick up some tips or tricks in the video. If nothing else, it’s six minutes of two doofuses discussing an art form we have fun with:

Fairy Commission (inspired by my Morels Game Art)

A few years ago I did the card/box art for a card game called Morels. It’s a 2-player game wherein you ‘forage’ for mushrooms and your score depends on the type of mushrooms you find in the forest. A fan of the game contacted me about doing a commission inspired by my game art. It a little bit “Shiitake Night Card” and “Fairy Ring Night Card” and it was a lot of fun to work on.

This was an actual ink-on-paper commission and the face of the fairy was small and delicate, so I pulled out the ol’ magnifying glass while I was inking so I wouldn’t muck it up too much.

I also used a masking fluid to mask off the full moon behind the fairy while I ink washed the night sky. I go over my whole process with my friend  RunRedRun in this week’s YouTube process video.

The link to the video is down below. And, honestly, if you’re into two-player card games of strategy that don’t take all night to play, look into Morels. It’s got a pretty strong following of supporters.

Happy Star Wars Day! Here’s a video of me inking a Baby Yoda.

Yes, I finally caved. Inked a Baby Yoda at a client’s request. My first one. I have nothing against the little guy. I was just kind of seeing how long I could keep the streak going.

I also thought it’d be a nice opportunity to hone my ink wash skills. I’m told the Baby Yoda commission was a gift and the gift recipient liked it, so I guess I didn’t screw it up too terribly.

And, side benefit, the gig got me to finally pull the trigger on that Disney Plus free trial (so I could watch the Mandalorian and see what this baby was all about). And I watched a few other fun things on there too. But I cancelled the trial before I had to start paying for it. What? I’m not made of money. Anyway, here’s the video. Happy Star Wars Day and May the 4th Be With You! -v

 

Kickstarter Commissions Rolling Right Along

Hey everybody. Just a quick one this time. Along with everything else that’s going on, I’m diligently working on the commissions that certain backers of my Kickstarter get. I want to get them finished in time to ship them with the books (which should arrive in the next couple months). So, While I don’t have a lot of time to make process posts, here’s a quick rundown of the latest one I did.

It’s Scout. One of the stars of my book. And, as usual, he’s nervous about something. The fact that he’s quick-to-panic is a big part of his personality and character. And that’s exactly what this particular backer wanted. A good, old-fashioned, scared Scout.

So here we go. Pencils on Bristol Board.

I’m using those Sakura Pigma brush pens I’ve been fiddling around with lately. Really like the control and variable-width line I get with those.

All done inking. Time for color.

He may seem white, surrounded by all that color in the comic, but Scout’s not white. He’s kind of a very light cream color with warm brown markings. I’m using a Utrecht marker I like for the base color, but most of this will be finished with Copic Markers.

So there’s Scout’s markings and shadows, done with Copic Sketch Markers. I like those brush tips. Not much left to do here….color in the mouth area, text, and grass.

Not sure my phone camera captures color very accurately, but here’s Scout — all finished and ready to run from trouble. When I start sending out Untold Tales of Bigfoot: Crossing Paths to backers in a couple months, he’ll be packed into the envelope with the book. So. Another one down. But I have more to go. Better get to work. -v

Untold Tales of Bigfoot/Star Wars Mash-Up Commision

Just finished up a commission for a client who wanted me to mix Star Wars with some characters from my Untold Tales of Bigfoot comic – and I had a blast! Here’s the basic brief: B/W illustration, Princess Leia’s escaping from Jabba’s palace with Chewbacca and Han Solo. But in this case, Chewbacca’s being played by my Bigfoot character, and Han is Scout… and he’s frozen in carbonite. A brilliant idea and I was happy to work on it.

Aside from the idea being crazy fun, another reason I was excited to work on this was because I wanted to try out some new brushes I recently picked up. Of course I used my Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens. They’re an old stand-by that are part of my regular workflow. But I also tried these Sakura Pigma Professional Brush Pens. I saw them in an art store recently and thought I’d give ’em a try.

But before we get to the inking, I had to come up with a composition. I sketched this pretty quickly (the scene kind of writes itself) and got approval.

Luckily, the client trusted me even though all I’d sent him was this chicken scratch. And when I had a chance to take a second look at it, I thought it might be a stronger piece if I centered the whole composition. So I lightboxed the doodle and penciled something a little more polished.

The sketch line’s a little light right now and hard to see, but it’ll all be much clearer when I slap some ink down on it. Time to get out those new pens!

You can see these Pigma’s come in 3 sizes, Fine, Medium, and Bold. The tips are flexible and have a great feel to them. The ink is supposed to be archival and waterproof. And – as you’ll see later in the post – they held up very well to toning with Copic Markers and I didn’t even have to wait overnight to make sure the ink was dry.

In this image where I’m inking Leia’s leg, I’m using the Fine tip Pigma. I wasn’t sure what kind of line it would lay down (this being my first time using the brushes), and I was nervous about making it too thick. As it turns out, I went back over the fine line with the Medium Pigma and got a good weight with a nice variation.

One of the things you can tell up close is that I never learned to hold a pencil correctly. Busted. But you can also see that I’m using the Medium Pigma for some medium detail work. I think I switched to the Bold Pigma soon after this when I felt more confident with the way the ink was laying down. All three brush tips have great control and a nice, bouncy feel.

The inks aren’t finished yet in this image above (still have to add Bigfoot’s hatching) but you get a pretty good idea of the line weights achievable with these three Pigma brushes. Because Leia’s face was pretty tiny (about the size of a nickel on the paper) I wasn’t sure I could ink her features with the fine brush without screwing it up, so I opted for one of the Pitt tech pens. It gives you a slightly less organic line, but it’s better than a giant black smudge where her nose should be.

The original commission was for linework only. Just black inks. But as I was working on it, I saw some opportunity to drop in some accents with grey Copic Markers. Nothing crazy, just a little toning here and there. I checked with the client and got the okay. Scans really show the difference between the cool greys of the stone wall and the warm greys in the skin.

And like I said, I went in with the Copics no more than an hour after I’d finished the last ink line and I didn’t get a single smudge or smear. So Sakura Pigma, as far as I can tell, delivers on their promise to be waterproof. Are they archival? Only time will tell. But if you’re looking to experiment with a new brush pen, I’d definitely give the Pigmas a try. -v