Snyde Remarks

2Fer

2008-06-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

Just because it's Friday and I love you all...

And because I'm going out to partake in none too many a hearty barley-laden adult beverage and have a blast tonight. Maybe some of you will even join me there?

And because I found this on my HD and forgot how much I actually liked it.

And because the world would be a better place if we all lived every day as if it were St. Paddies day. Even the filthy terrorists. "Have another O-Schlitz on me Mr. Moe-Hamm-it."

And...

I got Nuthin!

Nasty Lil' Articohke

2008-06-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

Just finished this one up for fun and decided to post it here in the interest of keeping with up with the updates for the few of you who bother to stop by and see what I'm up to.

I'd love to make a vinyl or sculpt out of this guy one day. (*Hint Hint)

Character art done entirely in Flash. BG & everything else in PS. (*Please excuse the lazy Photo-manip.) But hey... I think it kinda worked well. But I'll let you guys be the judge.

The final art originated from this super-quick quick post-it drawing I whipped up one fine morning when my lady had an "out of body experience" after partaking in some hot spinach & artichoke dip. Her first... and probably LAST time eating artichokes after I recommended their tastiness.

Enjoy! and I'll be back with even more stuff real soon.

Gift Art

2008-05-24T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hi Folks!

See I'm not a filthy stinkin' liar!

I'm actually posting again and I DO plan to keep with it.

So... THERE!
(*And thanks for the comments too.)

Not much this time around. Just a quick piece of gift art I did up for a Birthday card for my good buddy Alan.

Ya know it's not as great a present as an i-Phone or a tricycle with a sidecar, but hey when ya got no job... gotta use other means to quench the insatiable thirst of the mighty Birthday Gift Gods.

I quite obviously need some new markers as these ones were crappin' out on me during the creation which made the results range from unexpectedly cool... to horrifying.

Luckily Alan Cummings isn't SO great a friend that I cared quite enough to completely re-do the piece.

And Hey! If you or anyone you know would like a piece of gift art (or decorations for the craphouse walls) I'm more than happy to take commissions, so go ahead and shoot me an e-mail and I'll whip up something nice and fancy for you or your (not-so) loved-ones.

So enjoy, and I'll be back with more random-ness real soon.

-Clarke

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!

2008-05-16T13:33:00.003-07:00

No it's not Mr. Kotter, just lil ol' me.

But it's been a long hiatus. Much too long for my liking and I know I've promised before, but... I'm a filthy liar, what can I say.

But this time I fully intend to get back to blogging and actually have a bit more free time then previously to do so. And I hope you realize that just because I haven't been posting doesn't mean I'm not drawing dear fiends... Ohhhh noooo.

Well enough blabber for now, here's some new-ish stuff to wet your voracious appetites for the moment while I scan and compile some new stuff for all three of you to enjoy. (Thanks Mom, Dad & Fido!)

Here's my humble rendition of Chuck Jones' "Sniffle's" character. A bit of gift art I did for a very special someone who's favorite cartoon character is none other than Chuck Jones' Sniffles. I like the way it turned out and share a great admiration for the character myself despite it not being some of what I consider to be Jones' best work. He was still trying to copy Disney too much at that point and hadn't found his voice yet. But enough animation history...

*Click any of these small wimpy images for bigger bolder full-bodied flavor any man, woman or child can appreciate.

And next up we have a batch of Post-it drawings I got in the habit of doing every day using 3 recurring themes. One of which was Elephants, which are always fun to draw. So much floppiness, girth and overlapping action opportunities. If anyone overhears this conversation we're having... Yikes! Anyways... I have taken to doing lots more of these guys and even came up with a concept and character design I think is really fun. For the time being I dub these Eli-Phants!

And you didn't think you'd be getting away visiting my blog and checking out new artwork without a healthy portion of Random-Ass drawings now did ya?

Anyone else find that Post-its are basically the most perfect yet worst thing to draw on.  I mean there's something special about the
quality of the paper and for me at least, being confined to such a small canvas
usually results in good things.  But then what to do with all the little
buggers and how to store or present them?  Any ideas folks?  I just hope
one day soon that the fine folks at 3M decide to realease the same formula paper
in a handy-dandy 8.5"X11" format without the "Sticky".

More of the Random-Ass Variety with a fun little colored character concept I'm toying with thrown in for good measure along with a preliminary Character design (green guy) for a d-list celebrity friends super-secret project. He didn't totally love it... what noive! And who DOESN'T love undead cupcakes... REEEALLY?

Okay folks this is just a mere taste of the smorgasboard that I hope to unleash upon you poor unfortunate souls in the days, weeks, months, years, and eons to come.

And FYI a big part of the reason I have more time and energy to blog is directly related to the employment to unemployment ratio in my life. So if you're a fellow artist out here in Sunny LA, please feel free to shoot any paying job leads my way. I'd love and appreciate hearing from ya. Just don't tell my mother... she still thinks I'm a lawyer.

More Recent Marker stuff

2007-03-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, at least now we're getting to some more recent stuff (for better or worse).

These are mostly studies I was doing while looking at golden books and trying to play around with marker and coloring techiniques using a very limited palette. I definitely think I learned a few things that I can now apply to my own work while doing these. They were also pretty fun and felt worthwhile at least which was a nice change. I plan to do more of this sort of thing and keep exploring on what seems to be a smaller simpler scale which seems to help when trying to break bad design habits and form newer better ones.

This last one is actually a somewhat old initial character design I came up with that I was pretty happy with and want to explore much more. A pretty rare thing these days.

And here's a few pages of of more recent randomness. mostly floating heads which I draw way too often. I was doing good for a while and was drawing full bodied characters. But when that becomes a bit of a struggle to do well, I all too often find myself slipping back into the trap of just drawing all kinds of random decapitations. I have to start making an extra effort to break that habit for good. But sometimes I guess it's hard to want to go further and invest time into a body design when I'm not really pleased with the head in the first place. I mean when's the last time you looked at a character and thought about how brilliantly the body was designed, but it had a real boring head? if the head and face aren't working a bodies definitely not gonna save it.

Well that's all I have scanned for the moment... But I do still have a stack of older and newer ballpoint pen sketches and doodles that I plan to scan and post soon too. Hopefully by the time I get those up I'll have another fresh batch of stuff that's shareworthy and I can be back to more regular updates.

Lookin at dirty magazines

2007-03-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite places to visit and spend what little free time I have since I moved to California is the ASIFA Animation Archive where there is never any shortage of interesting and inspiring artwork of all kinds. I try to get over there as much as possible to either volunteer or just to hang around and look at whatever new treasures Steve and others are kind enough to share.

Here's a few pages worth of study sketches done many motnhs back while formatting scans of some beautiful old Playboy cartoons. I think most of what's here was done while looking mostly at Sokol and maybe a little Dedini.

It always seems like when I am really starting to sink my teeth in and figure a few things out by doing studies like this that the time has flown by and I have to pack my things and head home.

I really wish I had more time to spend over at the archive to just sit, study, draw and try to learn as much as possible by studying the approach of such brilliant artists. Looking at this level of work makes me realize how little I learned in art school, and how much I still have to discover on my own.

I often wish I had access to a resource as great as the ASIFA Archive when I was younger and had much more freedom and free time to devote to the art of learning, instead of feeling like I'm frantically trying to make up for lost time and figure out things that I feel like I should already know at my age.

But I refuse to believe it's too late and will continue to keep working at getting there, even when the process is painful and slow at times.

Still more catching up to do... so expect more.

What Month Is It?

2007-03-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

Wow!... it really has been a long time since I updated this thing. Sorry about that. I've also been somewhat bad about keeping in touch and getting back to people in general over the past few months too, so apologies all around again.

I've been really struggling to find some sense of balance ever since the move and unfortunately that has poured over into my artwork as well. I've been feeling like I'm stuck in a horrible creative rut for months now and frankly it terrifies me. That is the main reason for my not posting much, it's not for lack of drawing. But most of what I do is kind of in that awkward and painful stage of experimentation where everything seems like a miserable failure and I dont find myself feeling very strong or confident about much of anything that comes out of my pens and pencils lately. But I am still trying to suffer through and keep working at it by studying and copying older artists work that I admire and trying to push myself to learn new things and think differently about how to approach design and technique in the hope that the fog will soon lift and I will come out of it a stronger artist.

But I have decided to try and start posting semi-regularly again, even when it's not material I think is particularly strong. I have always found it hard as an artist to see much value in most anything I do... always thinking that no one could possibly be interested in seeing most of what I do, and only seeing what could be improved or done better. Perhaps by putting some of this stuff out there, some of you might see things I'm missing that actually are working that I'm incapable of noticing myself, and maybe... just maybe that might help me find a little more direction. I can sure use it!

Okay so obviously this first one is Reeeeal old!

Just some sketches for a Holiday card I never got around to finishing or sending out. Hey there's always Christmas in July I guess.

And here's a page of sketches I did trying to study some old Hank Ketcham from a book I have. I've always loved his sense of design and think he has one othe greatest line qualities I've ever seen. Obviously I need to study much more and much harder... and I plan to.

The next three pages are just random assorted phone doodles and other nonsensical tidbits that while nothing overly exciting to me, were at least good or had something in them that was interesting enough to save them from the trash.

I have several more catch-up posts like this in the works as we speak, and may even get them up later today.

It's About Time...

2006-11-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry it's been so long since the last update, just been pretty busy trying to get all settled in here and get my life in order. Here's some random assorted studies and sketches from the last month or so. Bye!...

All Settled in...

2006-10-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

So I figured it was time to update the blog with some new stuff. (I also disabled the comment moderation, so your comments should once again appear immediately)

Bye... for now.

2006-09-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Well the day is finally here... Tomorrow morning I'm leaving to drive cross-country and move out to the wide and wooly world of Los Angeles and expect to hit town on Saturday, September 23rd. So I hope to see a lot more of a lot of you crazy artist blogger type people in person real soon. I'll be returning to pester and annoy all of you once I am all settled in...I promise. hahaha But first here's one last update of my silly scribbles -Clarke

Even MORE Craptacular goodies

2006-08-30T21:19:00.000-07:00

Well a few... This is what happens when you do warm-up drawings while watching silly old Ub-Iwerks cartoons... And this... what ISSSS this? do you know? do you want to know? Cause I can totally tell you if you do... just ask me. And it wouldn't be a regular day of silly doodling if I didn't sketch up some weird manner of water fowl. Oh and as a special secret bonus... If you are my friend on MySpace, I have posted a little slice of heaven to my blog there that you should go and check out. I'd post it here, but It's just a bit too raunchy. hahaha So long pals... be back real soon I'm sure.

Wanna Play Scrapple?

2006-08-27T09:36:00.000-07:00

Well this isn't a huge update by any means... just no time for such things at the moment. But in the meantime please accept these meager scraps from the ever-growing sketchpile. This last little guy comes your way and mine thanks to that toy luvin fool Tiramisue! who has incedentally just started a whole new blog of amazing coolness called Toybox Safari! Check it out - it's all kinds of fantastical fun. Oh and unfortunately I had to enable comment moderation due to some aformentioned teenage drama that has reared it's ugly head.

Someone please Slap the Shite out of me already!

2006-08-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

To hell with all that filthy excuse filled rubbish that you saw here previously. I was being an idiot. Instead of sitting here and marinating in hate, frustration, and self-pity, I'm gonna get off my ass and make sure I post some new stuff very VERY SOON! So be on the lookout folks, I got plenty of PISS & FIRE in these veins and heart still to come. And FYI to all you California people and potential employers... I will be leaving Connecticut on September 16th to head out to L.A. and should hopefulyl be in town and somewhat settled by the beginning of October. So consider this a warning! Thanks for all the support and e-mails, -Clarke

less talk more art...

2006-08-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd share some random sketchbook goodies which were mostly done at random points during my Califorina excursion and afterwards. This little crazy ugly guy actually lives outside of my window here and we have become friends. he is truly hideous and yet strangely and hypnotically fascinating at times. I can't help but say hello to him/her every time I leave the house. Aint nature intoxicatingly grotesque?

Welcome to La La Land!

2006-07-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang, I'm here in Burbank right now at the Holiday Inn until next Sunday or so, so if any of you folks wanna call me to try and hang out & draw or ridicule pedestrians or whatever other sort of fun stuff you might have in mind just give me a ring. So far I have no plans any day at night really, so I'll likely just be hanging out in my greta big swank but lonely hotel room drawing and crap to dull the boredom while I wait for some of you cool californians to call. Hope to hear from ya soon, -Clarke

Shameless Whoring

2006-07-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

Well I managed to throw together a sketchbook for this weeks San Diego Comic-Con at the last minute (As usual - big surprise!) here goes... 38 pages B&W W/cardstock cover No table or anything just me wnadering the hall with my bag of goodies along with agent helix, monkeyking, & Drugs. Stop me if ya see me. And if you don't catch me in San Diego, you can always try to get a hold of me in L.A. the following week, and if nothing else, shoot me an e-mail request and we'll work something out. Only making like 75 or so of these and Mostly looking to do trades with people, but if you really want one I guess I can be persuaded to take cash also. see ya in a few days people!

Wuh-Wha-Whattt... Could it be...Another Update?

2006-07-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

YES it is! So I am still slaving away day and night on this whole new portfolio thing in preparation for my trip to L.A. in a few mere weeks. While I have made a LOT of progress and feel like I have put together my strongest batch of samples ot date, I still often times wonder if I will be able to accomplish all that I have planned - Such is the plight of the hare-brained procrastinatin artiste. Lately as I near closer and closer to finishing up, I find I need to take a break from what it is I am SUPPOSED to be drawing and just do some sort of thing for the sake of nothing more than just to do it - or whatever. I have actually filled up two entire sketchbooks and assorted other lonely scraps of copy paper over the past month or so and thus have LOADS of new stuff to share with you guys. So much so that I really would like to try and put together at least a small half-assed attempt at a sketchbook for San Diego to trade and hand out to folks who are there. Time will tell though if I will be able to fit that in somewhere. I'll let ya know. Enough blabbering already, time for some artwork. This batch of images are all somewhat related in that they are sketches that I whipped up with the idea in the back of my cloudy rotten mind that I will turn them into paintings sometime soon after I get back from California. First up is a little something extra Girlie that I whipped up for my niece's 5th birthday that I hope to have painted for her in time. next batch is a couple of loose ideas that still need work for possible entries in next years I am 8-bit show. This one is just some sort of cartoony & cute sea lion type character that I thought I might like to try and paint just for the hell of it. And here is the latest in a long line of one of my favorite subjects - Ducks! (birds in general) I like this little guy a lot and just think he needs like a topless mermaiden towards the left hanging out on some rocks calling him hither with her witchy-woman charms and then it might be a WINNER! And here we have something that I won't say much about, but if anyone out there can tell guess correctly as to roughly what it is, I'll do up a sketch for you of whatever you like as a special booby prize.

A couple more new things

2006-06-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

Here's a few more new sketches and stuff as promised... bears have been popping up in my sketches all over the place letely... I also found an interesting new way to help me when I'm feeling at a creative "loss" I take a highlighter to some copy paper and try to make an interesting and fun shape Then I add more shapes to the main shape until I think it has formed some sort of creature or character worth pursuing (which only happens after a lot of trial and error) Then I just go in and add all sorts of details and linework and smaller interior shapes to make it a little more interesting - and VOILA! or something like that ... i think?

long overdue new schtuffs

2006-06-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

well while technically these are all varying degrees of "new".. but they're new to all of you out there at least, and I couldn't bear to just leave so many words with so few images on this blog for much longer. enjoy these and - I'll be back with more weird crap later today or tomorrow.

Good News or Bad News?

2006-06-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a little while now since I last updated my blog with anything of real value or interest, but thats all about to change, and here's why... As of this past Wednesday, I got laid off from my day job which is bad news since I won't have a steady paycheck coming in, but is also good news since I really hated the job and was becoming more and more depressed, frustrated and angry with each new day there. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders as I can now devote much more time to working on my portfolio and getting off my arse and actually making the whole move to L.A. thing a reality. But at the same time, I'm also going to be sweating at times because of cashflow issues and all sorts of other fun real life crap. But I really can't complain since I have been lucky enough to land a couple of good freelance gigs recently and am working extra hard at finding even more to keep me busy and motivated. Long story short, starting next week, expect to see much more frequent and interesting blog updates with loads of new artwork, insight, and maybe even a rant or two for good measure. -Clarke

Goofy & Girlie

2006-04-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Here's that update of "regular" type work that I promised to post for those of you who are bored to tears with watchingme try to learn construction. *Disclaimer: all of the sketches contained in this post were done before I started being concerned with construction-so if you're one fo the fine folks who has been offering me help, please don't think that I have regressed, I'm just posting these for fun.

Random Doodle Week

2006-04-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hooray! This week has been set aside by no one in particular as a national holiday known as random doodle week, where bored artists with blogs post a bunch of old, unrelated and generally non-sensical doodles in the spirit of celebration. Don't forget to post yours...

More Satyr Stuff

2006-04-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

About a month or so ago I was working some more on my whole Satyr Cartoon idea thing, and here's some more sketches that arose from that time for you while I work hard on learning more about construction and other important crap.

Hogwash!

2006-03-27T19:17:00.001-08:00

First off I am sorry for not updating in over a week with any new images for the few of you out there who check my blog regularly, but I was just on overload last week. A while back me and some of my internet cronies thought we had a brilliant and foolproof plan for a comic compilation project and gathered an amazingly talented bunch of artists together only to fall flat on our faces so to speak. I take majority share of the blame for the project's ultimate and unfortunate demise, but it was a worthy learning experience for sure which forced me to push one of my ideas further than I ever would have if left to my own slacker-ish devices. Anyway, long story short... here's some "P.T. Hogwash" artwork of mine from that ill-fated project that I don't think anyone who wasn't involved in the above mentioned project has ever laid eyes on. These sketches are all over the place and range from concept sketches to rough inks and all points in-between. A lot of the look, feel, story and concept behind what you see here is directly related to the stuff I have been posting on my other blog - The Inspiration Grab-Bag, even though I started working on this project long before I even knew what the hell a Blog was. I really still am in love with this concept and the characters, and hope to re-visit them and push the whole idea forward in the near future, so perhaps this isn't the last you should expect to see of these guys. And to all my ToyBox bretheren... Thanks for all of the hard work, memories and inspiration fellas. I only wish things would have turned out different in the end. Oh to think what might have been ..."SIGH"

The ASIFA Archive Needs Your Help

2006-03-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to take a minute here on my blog to point out an invaluable resource that everyone cartoon fan needs to know about, and that is the ASIFA Animation Archive run by Steve Worth. Steve and his ragtag crew of volunteers and animation fans have created a one of a kind resource that is unfortuantely not recieveing all of the credit and help it so rightly deserves as a top notch center for the research and preservation of all things related to animation and cartoons. While I haven't had the pleasure of visiting the archive in person just yet, I have made contact with Steve and all of the scans from various books and comic strips here will eventually become part of the archive for all to enjoy in high resolution versions. I strongly encourage any of you out there who also have similar treasures that relate to animation and cartoons to conrtact Steve and offer up your wares for the bnefit of the archive and cartoon fans everywhere. Click on these links to see just a few examples of all the great inspirational material Steve and his helpers have made available for anyone interested just by visitng the archive. ASIFA Winter Cartoon Roundup ASIFA Winter Animation Art Roundup Also please include a link to the archive blog on your website or in your blog links area to show your support for such a worthy cause. Thanks.