Making it up as I go...

   The latest round of scans for pages I've been working on offers an eclectic assortment of images. Above is a quick one-pager in which sisters Beverly and Jeannie offer their comments on the modern art movement which was taking off in the 1950's. I'm not expert in this particular wave, so if it would actually be more suited to a 60's period I may move it over to one of the back-up pages for Swamp Mouse, a one-shot spin-off of Cartoon Cuties set in the mid 60's. Someone more versed in the scene will have to tell me which placement would be better, but I know the whole Beat scene was kicking off in the 50's, and it coincided with pretentious artists pushing their wares upon the rest of us. Below is the one-page bit I plan on using to introduce readers to the character of Yvette Pond in issue 3. Since I draw first and script later, there are sometimes pages where even I don't know what the dialog will be until I actually sit down to write it. Here's one such page. I have no idea what's going on here aside from the date and the scene telling me that Yvette is likely watching The Late, Late Show, and thus some very old movie.

   Up next is an interesting page, where Sugar Chestnut is commenting on a blow-up from one of her cartoons she made for another studio. The premise of the book is that the movie studio C.B. International Pictures has broken from tradition by allowing it's cartoon stars to basically play themselves instead of doing the usual forest creature thing. After I finished the art and script for Barefoot (now ready for coloring), in which I embraced the more traditional type of cartoon design, I found myself half wishing I'd used a similar aesthetic for Cartoon Cuties. I didn't, however, because the whole point of my book is to present cartoon characters as human as possible. A quick sketch to see what it would be like to draw a more typical cartoon rabbit gave me the base for this page which helps highlight how differently I approached my own characters. The complexity of the "other studio" Sugar is influenced mainly by old Disney cartoons. When Walt began pushing Technicolor for his animated shorts, he made the designs much more intricate in order to provide a wide variety of colors -to truly take advantage of the fact that they were doing color films. I think I read once that an early color Mickey Mouse cartoon included costuming for it's rodent star which required something like 30+ different colors! Anyway, this page comes from a short bit where Sugar is noting how different it is working for C.B.I.P. from other studios, and keeps this huge photo as a reminder that she has much to be thankful for.

   Up next is a piece I've juggled around quite a bit. It was originally intended to be the cover art for issue 4, I think. Then it was pushed back to issue 8, then 11 or so, then back up the line and down again. Then it was a back cover page, then back to front cover, etc. At the moment, I'm thinking it may go into a Cartoon Cuties coloring book we're mulling over. The scene prompted a story for issue 4 in which Roger and Crissy move to a bigger house, but it hasn't been paired with that story for quite some time now.

   Below are a couple of pages I recently repaired. You should see how much white-out has been slathered onto these pages! Both of these I've posted versions of previously. Daisy Poise has had her ears scaled down a tick and her face adjusted with better placement of the nose, bigger eyes, and rounder cheeks. The Yvette Pond page probably looks like I did a simple fix by just covering over her legs (which were too small). Actually, I tried to adjust her legs so she was standing and the water only came up to her calves. The thighs weren't round enough, though. By that point, however, I had used so much white-out (and my bottle wasn't fresh, either, so it was getting pretty gloppy) that the best way to salvage the good part of the drawing was to just make the water deeper. In a way, the end result looks a bit like a postcard. As always, full credit for any competency or cleverness which comes through in the final drawing goes wholly the the Holy Spirit! 

   Below is another page I haven't scripted yet, so I don't know what Wendy Marco is reading in that letter for this one-page gag. The pencils for this page were pushed back and forth from single page gag to part of a larger story and back again to single pager. I don't know what the joke will be, but I hope it'll be funny. Still, the most amusing thing to me is that I settled quickly on the name "Wendy Marco" but continued to think of her as being Polish in origin. My parents raised me well, I never once connected name to ethnicity until after I'd established the character as a blonde (actually, colorist Jim Ludwig can be credited with making Wendy a blonde, as I'd designed her to have light brown hair -but all along I thought of her as being Polish, for some reason).

   Next is a simple pinup, which is usually the way I start to develop a character. This mousette may eventually get a name and appear in some stories of her own, or at least become a background extra. That's all possible, but the ink sheet itself I think will go into the coloring book. I do need to go back and re-do her hand, I think, since it looks a little large compared to her feet. Looking at it again, her right leg seems a little short, too. It's an on-going process in many cases.

   Shifting gears slightly, we end on an ink sheet for what, God willing, will be the third issue of Della, All-American Dream-girl. This more Archie-like series I planned for two issues. I spun Fraulein Gretta, a fairly tale spoof anthology, off of a story written for the first issue. Since Gretta first appears in Della's book, however, I decided what I should really do is fold Gretta back into Della to provide a full three issues. The lesser pages yanked, this left enough room to feature the regular characters and tie everything together. This page is from a prolog which sets in place the Gretta material.

All art and characters (c) 2019 Rock Baker

Cover art for a future issue of Cartoon Cuties

Colored by Mr. Steve Shipley.

   I also got this reaction to issue 1 from a reader. "My wife read it before I could and commented that it was adorable and she was happy for finding something current that was such sweet, innocent fun." I really couldn't ask for a better reaction!

Issue 1 is on sale through Amazon!

Even more CARTOON CUTIES material...

   A few more Cartoon Cuties ink sheets passed through the scanner. Above is a cuddly shot of Crissy Carrots (although I'm certain I will go back and maker her bottom half larger, as her legs look really tiny here). The main goal of the book is to make people smile. I don't always use cheesecake to do that, either. Directly below are a couple of pages featuring sisters Beverly and Jeannie, that last panel hopefully a warm and fuzzy depiction of sisterly love. When it came time to ink the top page, I was very cross with myself for having set the scene in a library!

   Of course, the girls have their cheesecakey moments as well. Here's a pinup shot of Jeannie... (one where her head looks rather large, I may need to tweak it a little...)

   Jeannie looks a bit better proportioned (if still in an animated way) in the next ink sheet. If I thought I made a mistake setting a story in a library, I discovered it was still far better than choosing to draw a tennis game. Those rackets in particular are challenging when you draw everything but straight lines and perfect circles freehand!

   Finally, we have a potential cover ink sheet which features Bev and Jean. I find I draw Beverly in states of frustration quite a bit. That's really only because she's so expressive, so putting her in situations where she's able to be expressive obviously makes sense. By nature, Jeannie is a bit more graceful and thus more prone to wearing a happy face.

   Yvette Pond (named by colorist/letterer Jim Ludwig) has proven a fun character to draw. She has several short episodes lined up for future issues. Here's a sample of her work... (Her head also seems a bit large in most of these pages. Sometimes it's useful for me to scan a few pages as I seem to notice what needs to be fixed more quickly after seeing a scan than from just looking at the art itself. The downside of that means sharing my mistakes with you rather than presenting my best work!) 

   Simone Grace hasn't commanded as many pages as I expected her to, she being the local weather girl with dreams of stardom. Here are a couple of pages from a solo story which features her. What issue exactly this episode will appear in, I can't say just yet. Simone was one of my earliest characters because I was commissioned to create her shortly after I developed Crissy Carrots. She proved difficult to build a book around for some reason, so I never really did anything with her. Even her appearances in Cartoon Cuties are peripheral. At least they have been so far. I'm sure she'll have her turn, though.

   A couple of new faces now. The first appears only fleetingly in a story I recently finished the inks for. Here's the main page where she's featured, during a photoshoot at the movie studio where most of the book is set, or at least centered around. Not sure yet who she is, what her name is, or even if she's going to be a return character. She came out cute, though, so I may try to find more for her to do. (UPDATE - I go back and alter this page after posting, when I noticed just how long her right arm is.)

   This next character I've been hesitant to show off, since in black and white she looks a lot like Minerva Mink. The similarities go even farther, since this character is Maxine Mink. Max is a local TV personality, the spokesmodel for prominent fur seller Marco's Minks. I've got a couple of stories lined up for her (and even a joke about her really being a racoon who dyed her hair). The similarities to Minerva Mink will be gone once the pages are colored, but it's hard not to see them here. Granted, most cartoon characters (Minerva Mink, Mickey Mouse, Alvin, etc) have very similar faces. That's something I discovered when I began drawing "femanimals" for Cartoon Cuties. Even so, her long hair and tail and similar name make Max look like a copy of sorts. Again, though, once colored that will be negated.

   I've come to grips with the fact that Crissy Carrots is more or less my mascot. Here are some Carrots drawings. The first was planned as a sales piece, but it may find it's way into the book instead. Below that is a page from a story I just did final clean-up on.

   Lastly, we have an illustration which may not be an actual page for Cartoon Cuties. I actually saw it more fit for T shirts or something of that nature, which is why it doesn't have typical panel boarders. It'll also mean more after a few issues have been released, but to my eyes it perfectly sums up the series itself. I said the book's purpose was to make the reader smile, and here's a drawing that should do just that once one is familiar with the characters.  

Cartoon Cuties, all art and characters (c) 2019 Rock Baker

CARTOON CUTIES stuff...

    Seeing issue 1 of Cartoon Cuties finally hit print (now for sale on Amazon) has really energized work on further issues. Here're some materials new and old. The top image is a tweaked pinup of Doris Flowers, who turns up in the second issue. Directly below is the ink sheet for another Flowers pinup, God willing to be used as the back cover of issue 3. I'm actually really pleased with this pinup, as everything seemed to come together perfectly. Still unsure what the planned dialog balloon should be, but I can easily picture as a running theme for back covers scenes from the studio dressing room like this.

   Now we have new characters to show off. So far, I've used sisters Beverly and Jeannie mostly for short single or two-page gags. These help me figure out the characters and their dynamic. Eventually, I'd like to give them longer stories (but with the materials already assembled, we'd possibly be looking at issue 11 or 12 before they could take center stage in any meaningful way). The basic idea here is a fairly old one. Beverly is something of a free spirit but more grounded than she usually appears -shallow but sweet, her sister Jeannie (the one with the pigtails) is intelligent but can be a bit scatterbrained. The solo page of Beverly (just below) may be published in issue 4 or 5. I'm looking forward to writing for these characters.

   Below are some materials I've had prepared for a while now. First up is a pinup I had planned for the first issue when it was to be a one-shot graphic novel about Crissy Carrots. The idea was to fill out the remainder of the book with pinup poses of the characters present, until it became a continuing series and I drew up "Stick Together" as a back-up story. Mala Winston is one of the heavies of the first issue. After drawing this pinup directly below, I saw that she had potential as a reformed character. She has a solo story in issue 2 regarding just that, and will become a major supporting player in the issues beyond. I'm looking forward to sharing those episodes with you.

   Daisy Poise, directly below, was my first "femanimal" character and I consider her one of the pillar characters of the franchise alongside Crissy Carrots and Minerva Mallen. This early pinup of the character captured a cute pose, though I've done better faces. Her ears are particularly huge here. I've since shrunk and stream-lined them a bit to make them easier to draw in the average panel. I'm not crazy about much of the earlier work I did on the series, but color certainly helps.

   Below are a couple of cats, because I figured there needed to be cats since one of my earlier commissions was to create a feline character akin to the work I'd done with Crissy Carrots. The result was Simone Grace, who is slated to appear in issue 2. Also appearing in issue 2 is Trudy Kitten, seen directly below. I don't really have a lot of material for Trudy as of yet. At this point she's more of a background character. Below her is Dixie North, who shows up quickly in issue 1. Dixie proved more difficult to draw than I expected, so she hasn't been utilized as much I originally thought she might be. She is slated to appear in future issues, however. Dixie is part of a comedy team with regular human being Trixie Hope, who has become one of my main characters.

   Lois Teppert I wrote about in a previous post, the character who became a star playing "Chickie Little" in a series of cartoon shorts. It seemed fitting to include a bird in the stable, given the volume of classic cartoons which feature birds (though their use as glamor characters has been few and far between, but there have been a couple so I figured I should include one). She pops up in issue 2 and then takes the spotlight in issue 3. She typically wears her hair pulled back. This is one of the few times I rendered her with her hair loose.

   Next we have Wendy Marco, who shows up in issue 1. Mostly, she serves as a sidekick to Minerva Mallen, both on and off the screen. She usually manages to be close to the action and has considerable coverage in most issues. The drawing below is supposed to be a candid snapshot which was printed in the local newspaper. This got her noticed by the studio brass and secured her a contract. Quite a bit of the series centers around Wendy, it turns out. She's a constant studio presence, Minerva's close friend, and her uncle is a fur salesman who sponsors programming on the local TV station. It points to how little I consider ethnicity that I made her a blonde of European descent and then gave her a Spanish Sir name! When her uncle pops up in issue 3, I drew him more swarthy to justify the name I gave her.

   One of the more interesting characters I came up with for the series is Louise Beaumont, who we meet in issue 2. Louise was inspired by an aging actress of the same name in an old episode of ALF. My Louise Beaumont brings in a bit of Hollywood history to the series, as she's been written as a classic starlet seeking to re-energize her faded career. Back in the 20's, she was the top female annie starlet (thus, her physical inspiration is as a cartoon version of Clara Bow/Louise Brooks). Her fame was eclipsed in the early 30's by the arrival of Betty Boop, who was only pen and ink (the concept being that some cartoon stars were flesh and blood and others strictly the invention of studio cartoonists). Since the real-life 1950's saw a renewed interest in 1920's film stars, the comic book finds Louise taking advantage of that and making efforts to re-establish herself as one of Creek Bend's stable of animated glamor starlets. Since annies don't age as normal people do, this means the projection of a youthful image like she once played to in her old cartoons. Below is a pinup shot which pushes Beaumont's status as a, as Mr. Moody once said of Lucy Carmichael, "teen-aged senior citizen." Louise is a bit opportunistic, and like many a starlet seems desperate to hold onto her youth and it's glory. Makes for some interesting story ideas. Another connection to Wendy Marco, Louise Beaumont is Wendy's grandmother. I need to tweak this drawing a little. Her hair needs to be bigger and rounder. The pose comes from an early 60's issue of Playboy, I think. It seemed to capture Louise perfectly.

   As noted last time, Sugar Chestnut is another rabbit who ties more closely to the movie studio than does Crissy Carrots. She's introduced in issue 2 and grabs the spotlight in issue 3. This pinup shot was based on a shot of 60's model and Playmate Lori Winston. The more human anatomy seems to offer the right look in suggesting that these characters live in the real world alongside the rest of us. There's also the fact that I began as a pinup cartoonist, so human anatomy is just more comfortable for me to draw. I never set out to draw cheesecake animals (in fact, given some of the weird communities that have risen in the internet age, I wanted to stay pretty far away from the theme). It seems a good fit for my particular skill set, however.

All art and characters (c) 2019 Rock Baker.

More CARTOON CUTIES materials

Cover inks for issue 4. Minerva (right) will have a balloon reading "You better cool it down, girls, the lifeguard just swallowed his whistle!"

   For those interested, a few more bits and bobbles from my development of Cartoon Cuties as a continuing series now that the first issue is on sale through Amazon. We'll start with a few odds and ends...

Crissy doing housework around issue 10 or so.

A more finished ink sheet which was shown in-progress in an earlier post.

A Doris Flowers pinup, from early on in trying to find her character. The body is okay, but I think her head needs some work.

   Since this all began with Crissy Carrots, most of the supporting characters I developed early on were also rabbits. I also dabbled a bit on developing a larger backstory for Crissy, for which I drew the first image below. As the series took shape, however, Crissy's rather subdued previous life hasn't had much chance to take center stage. I did figure she might've been a cheerleader in her school days, though. In fact, I originally planned a prequel book which would do a sort of Archie aesthetic with my femanimal characters as high-schoolers. I thought better of it, though, and realized further adventures were more interesting than earlier ones.

A yearbook shot of Crissy?

An early Crissy pinup

   Crissy, I was originally concerned, might be mistaken by some as a play on Lola Bunny, a character who boasts a bit of a following despite being generally under-used by her owners. When I saw SPACE JAM again, I saw I had nothing to worry about (in truth, Crissy owes a lot more to the similarly under-used Minerva Mink, and in fact boasts similar coloring in acknowledgement of that). Sugar Chestnut was a rabbit character who I felt could offer some differences from Crissy -chiefly in that Sugar would be an established annie starlet and live closer to town, where as Crissy really wasn't interested in a film career and preferred her privacy. When I designed Sugar, I did notice some similarities to Lola Bunny (mostly in her short hair and huge bangs). My original plans to make her a blonde were subsequently changed to make her a brunette. It was in designing this character, though, that I noticed every character in the series likely draws inspiration and influence from some established character I might've seen at some time or other. The fact is, there are so many cartoon characters that some similarities are going to be inevitable. Of course, the Cuties depart pretty radically from most of the characters who might've inspired them -having skin instead of fur and a full compliment of fingers, so when all was said and done, Sugar here bore little resemblance to Lola. What makes Sugar interesting is the domestic situations she offers, being married to a rabbit who is a star in his own right. This allows for the sort of industry inside talk that I've always enjoyed. This spot illustration will likely be used either as a back cover, or as a bug on the copyright information/contents page which opens a future issue.

Sugar Chestnut

   Crissy's Irish cousin Rosie plays a fair part in issue 1, but since she was only on vacation to the States I haven't had a lot of chances to bring her back for more stories. These pinup pages should keep her visible until I find an excuse to move her to the States. Of course, I don't know yet if readers are even keen on Rosie. Feedback from readers will be instrumental in telling me what directions I should go in and what characters to take with me.

   Below is an early pinup of Minerva Mallen. It will likely be used as a spot illustration for the contents page of issue 2. Although one of the featured players, I did find she didn't command as much of my attention as I expected her to. I thought she'd be my main focus in the book, what with her being one of the more original characters (or so I'd think, as I don't immediately recall a lot of pulchritudinous cartoon skunks). Indeed, as I've found enjoyment in creating more and more characters and expanding the run of the series, my 'main' characters aren't the ones I've been tinkering with as much as I figured would be the case. Still, she plays a fairly large role in the first few issues.

   Now we get to some new characters previously unmentioned, and at this point still without names. During the early development of Cartoon Cuties, I made a conscious decision not to do any female duck characters lest readers think I'm making reference to Daisy Duck. When the design for this duck came to me, though, I decided to go ahead and use it because I wanted another bird-based character who didn't look just like Chickie Little. (When it came to crowd scenes, I found I used a lot of male duck characters to represent the annies working at the movie studio, so including a female duck seemed an obvious choice.) I'm not sure yet what the dialog for these two pages are, but I've slated them for issue 2, God willing. There's something vaguely familiar about this design, though I can't place it. Did I draw an original, or was I influenced by some obscure character I've forgotten?

   Finally, a character who is my latest, and God willing subject to a special future issue (in a story I was so fond of I moved her spotlight from issue 11 up to issue 6). As yet unnamed -though I'm leaning toward something like Tina Pebble, the character has been developed with animation in mind rather than a comic book (but that's sort of fitting, since the comic book is about starlets of animation). Hence, the focus on music. She's a singer who has come to feel trapped in her role as "the Rock And Roll Teenager" in a string of one-reel cartoons. Unlike the other characters in the book, she actually has more cartoon qualities like being very short and sporting a squeaky, high-pitched voice. Her efforts to escape her child-like type-casting makes for a fresh scenario in the series, and the idea is to feature her up front and center in the sixth issue. Below are the planned cover inks and an interior page showing the same scene.

   This spot illo below shows her in character from her cartoons.

   Lastly, we have what was actually my first drawing of the character. I did try to make her look shorter than most of the other characters of my book, which was a challenge since several of the characters are already pretty short. I hadn't yet the hang of it when I drew this, and in subsequent pages her nose has gotten even shorter and her curls bigger. Still, this gave me an idea of who the character was and how she would work. The resulting storyline I have in place is actually one of my favorites so far (and finally clears up the mystery of the annies). I look forward to sharing it with you.