Happy Birthday Dad

Hi Dad, I hope you are having a fine birthday.

BTW, thanks for the boxes of vintage family photos, slides and negatives.

Here's a few choice items I've discovered:

1950s

Here's your Dad getting ready for the big one.
I guess military macho ran in the Kricfalusi family - at least until I popped out.

 

and here you are with Grandma who was as hardy as any of the Kricfalusi clan - and also the nicest person and my favorite cook. 

I remember the feasts she prepared in the basement with all her delicious Ukrainian dishes like holupchi, petoheh and my favorite - city chicken!

I always loved visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Windsor - except for the first minute when all the kissing started.

Grandpa's razor stubble tore my face to shreds. Grandma's 'stash was a bit softer but  tickled like crazy.

 

Mom and you on a cruise. Was this our trip to Germany? Or maybe the return to Canada.

50s in Germany

 

 I seem stunned by my first rubber whale toy.

 

 Me, Mom and you, The (almost) nuclear family.

Your other wife is pretty hot too.

And check out the "Googie's" wallpaper!

Here's the harem together, although the left wife seems worried about something.

Just when everything was going good an interloper horns in on the action.

Rest and relaxation:

Here's you and Hans admiring the frauleins strolling by. 

This might be a good time to show off your fancy plaid socks.

Even better to impress the ladies: "Do you mind if I take my shirt off?" 


Here's a pic of you sporting a nifty crew cut and dashing blazer. 

Those aren't moles and warts on your face and pants. I scanned the picture from a slide and I guess it had some dead bugs on it.

Hey whatever happened to blazers anyway? I loved all mine. The RCAF badge was especially cool. It helped me convince people I was a pilot.

Check out this glowing pic of Mom with baby Elizabeth.

Finally we have become a true nuclear family!

60s

Dad, you were a real photography bug in the good old days.

 Here's Elizabeth and I with impressive forced smiles while you take pictures of us with your shirt off.

70s

 Here's you, Mom and Jocko the Epileptic Pup. 

Dad contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

Here's you using moody underlighting to get us to think we were living in a classic Universal horror picture.

The Cottage

How I remember all those blissful days at the cottage on Wolf Lake. Fresh air, barbecues, rubbing frog bellies, outhouses, swimming, leeches and slicing our tender young feet open on clam shells.

Elizabeth (centered) and cousins "Tiddle" and Susan are getting ready for a cruise through glorious weed filled Wolf Lake.

 

I'll never forget that time Ted Kennedy came to Wolf Lake hoping to get away from all the turmoil and just enjoy a peaceful relaxing vacation.

He was having a real good time - right up until you made him climb our rickety ladder up to and earn his dinner reshingling the roof.

Many were the times I toppled off that ladder myself. 

Here's you admiring your woodpile in stylish high-water pants. 

Dad, you are the manliest person I know and my true hero. I wish to heck I could be more like you.

I used to practice imitating your ruggedness but it never quite worked.

There's only 1 real you.

Happy birthday!

love,
John

Merle from memory vs from photo ref

I watched a Merle Oberon movie Friday night. She's very pretty but not in a conventional way.

The next morning I tried drawing her from memory.

The thing that stood out most to me about her unique features was her high bulgy forehead. The 2nd most noticeable feature was that she had a very small mouth and chin.

I missed some other of her specific features though and the cartoon from memory didn't look like her.

I thought I'd look at some images online to see if I could better understand her details and draw a more accurate cartoon of her.

 Eyes

In the memory drawing I totally got her eyes wrong.

I studied her eyes to put into words what was unique about them.

They are kind of small.

They are wide apart.

They are almond shaped and slant upwards on the outsides.

Nose

She has a long thin nose that flares at the bottom. 

Mouth

Her mouth is small compared to her facial shape.

It is very close to the bottom of her nose-hardly any space between them.

Her lips are very shapely. 

 

Her upper lip is widest towards the outsides of her mouth.

 

Her lower lip recedes from her upper lip.

Forehead

Her forehead is much smaller visually in relation to her wide cheekbones, yet her hairline is very high.

She has a noticeable bulge in the middle of her forehead and wears her hair to accentuate it.

 

My first attempts to draw her from photos are hesitant and stiff as I concentrate on trying to turn my analysis into action.

By the time I finished breakfast they were getting a bit looser and more caricatured but I still have a ways to go. 

Vampire Gal 5 inked, Colored and Available

 I recently finished inking and coloring one of my Vampire Gal designs.

Here are some of the steps I take to draw and color it.

First I open Toonboom's Animate 3 and import my rough sketch.

 Then I start inking each body part on its own layer.

Next I duplicate all the ink layers and use the duplicates to fill the colors. 

It ends up being a lot of Goddamn layers let me tell you.

 

 Once all the inks and fills are done, I export them one at a time as pngs. (I haven't figured out if you can just export the all the Animate layers as separate pngs all at once.)

Or even better export them all at once into a PSD and keep the same folder/layer structure in the same order as they are in Animate.

Then I drag them all into a PSD and arrange them in the same order as the Animate layers.

 Once they are all imported into the psd, I create new layers that I can render each body part using the Photoshop brushes.

I end up with something like this.

 Some people said I needed to add a moon and bats then put it on a T-shirt. I obeyed.

Here's what they look like on real people like you:

 

 

I hope you will avail yourself to one of these fine shirts. 
You can find them in my Funstuff Cartoon Store. Just click the nice lady below and pick a shirt color and size.