Moth Girl experiments

 

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.

Fraulein Gretta

   The idea is simple enough, that of a number of comic cheesecake updates of classic fairytales hosted by the daughter of Mother Goose, one Gretta Goose. It's proven rather more difficult to assemble than I imagined, though. Still, it's close to being drawn. Here's a look.

First panel needs tweaking. Sometimes I haven't been able to see what's really amiss until I see it posted!

It's called BAREFOOT...

   That's the title I chose for my new project, a Don Bluth inspired science fiction adventure in which man has mysteriously vanished from the planet and mice have become the dominant species. When one young mouse finds herself transformed into a human being, she holds the key to an incredible revelation...
(c) 2019 Rock Baker
 

Something different... (UPDATE)

cover inks

    The newest project I'm working on is a departure from my usual cheesecake comedy work. While I don't yet have a title for it, my new project is a science fiction adventure story in tribute to Don Bluth. Bluth's THE SECRET OF NIMH is quickly becoming one of my favorite animated films, and it inspires me to produce an animated film of my own. Of course, getting a traditionally animated movie made these days is problematic even for those with the right connections. The industry is geared almost completely toward computer animation today. An independent producer could make a traditional animation feature, of course, but at the hire of an army of technicians and artists. Some passionate fans indeed follow this course -much as Don Bluth and his partners did after leaving Disney in the late 70's. Unfortunately, many of them stall out early in production, as financing becomes tight and the enormous technical requirements begin to replace their initial vigor. Worse, those few traditionally animated films which do make it to completion and actually into release have an unfortunate recent history of financial failure. This virtual lack of returns further stymies most producers who might dabble in the field.

   So, were I to chose the animated film route, it would demand the right production facilities, investment capital, and army of animators required. What I can do instead is draw a comic book. This move admittedly gives me more creative control over the resulting product, though it is a different animal altogether. Still, it should be fun. Rather than my usual femanimal characters (which remain totally human despite cartoon features), I this time embrace the more traditional variety of cartoon mice that come in small size, have fuzzy cheeks, and sport only four digits on their hands. Even at this, my tendency for more human anatomy remains, so I should still offer a somewhat unique visual style despite my efforts to pay tribute to an established hero of animation.

   The story is set in a world in which mice have become the dominant species in the absence of man. The human race mysteriously vanished years ago, a condition the mice would barely recall if not for the re-purposing of much of man's objects to build the miniature world of the rodents. One spunky young lady mouse may hold the key to the mystery, however... 

   This is a new approach for me, obviously, but then I couldn't write anything if not for the influence of the Holy Spirit so I'm looking forward to seeing what develops. I hope you'll join me for this adventure, sure to be one of the most unusual in all the realms of fiction!

A look at my heroine, and her mother.

Here the Bluth influence is strongest, a monster cat.

This page displays my cheesecake roots, though this project is aimed more squarely at kid/family audiences than my previous works.

A glimpse of the mouse world.

Our heroine is mysteriously transformed into a human being!

And that makes for some interesting complications...

All images (c) 2019 Rock Baker

Della pinup

Swamp Mouse cover!

Colored by Rusty Gilligan

Swamp Mouse in progress work