Art of the Cow

Art of the Cow

artdirectorryan

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[Apr. 17th, 2007|05:31 pm]

Here I am, I still exist! Phew doggie the Dinosaur Issue of MCFC was ferocious. It took an extra long time and a lot of work (as usual) but it is now at the printer and it promises to be maybe the best issue yet! Lots of great stuff coming your way. Great stuff with big claws and teeth.

I want to talk about a lot of things I’ve been itching to share with you all while I was finishing the issue, but I’ll take it slow.

This time I am just going to say

HOLY COW IT’S GETTING WET AROUND HERE!

We’ve had lots of flooding and extreme rain in the last few days (just like much of the northeast) and this is what the brook, or what is normally a nice little brook, behind our house looks like. Yikes. We’re high up the hill though, so the Yurt is safe.

As soon as I finished the Dino issue, I jumped into a little project with a friend Eric who does posters for shows he sets up here in Peterborough, NH. He’s gotten into screen-printing his posters and I’ve been wanting to do an illustration for one. An upcoming show features the experimental jazz saxophonist Paul Flaherty and I jumped at the chance to do that one. So, I drew the picture and the designs and Eric did the lettering and printing.

I’m pretty happy with the way it came out. It’s nice to step away from MCFC and do something really different every once in awhile.

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This Valentine's Day I LOVE SNOW!	[Feb. 14th, 2007\|08:13 pm]
Finally, we have had our first official snow storm here in New Hampshire! Me and the gang used that as an excuse to take a little time off and have some snow day fun here at the MCFC headquarters. Here's MCFC HQ under the snow. This is when it was only 10" deep, but that was hours ago and it's still snowing like crazy. How are we supposed to work when even the MCFC boardroom got blanketed? Here's editorbecky out on patrol looking for any of us workers playing hookey. I was trying to pose for a picture when that rat Ramses got me with a snowball. I got him back later. Man, I love the snow! Well, until tomorrow morning when I'll have to shovel it all. Go check out editorbecky's blog to see some other fun junk we got up to on this great snowy valentine's day.
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(no subject)	[Jan. 14th, 2007\|11:58 pm]
So, ages ago (a few entries back) I showed you an illustration for the upcoming Australia issue. Then around that same time editorbecky talked about doing layout. Well I would like to expand on both of those things and give a little more insight into doing layout. Here's my insight. IT'S A PAIN! Well, actually it can be a lot of fun, but sometimes it is very frustrating. As Becky had mentioned we have the actual written article and then 3 or 4 illustrations to go along with it, and we have to put them together on the page. As easy as that may sound we have the ability to make it difficult. Mostly because we like to do creative layouts that don't all look the same. After all, we do pride ourselves on being a fun magazine so we don't want it to look like boring newspaper layouts. The funny thing is, one of the hardest layouts we did this issue was an article we were trying to make look like a collection of old newspaper clippings! One of our star writers, Erick Chase, wrote an article about Australia's famous Kelly Gang as a series of newspaper articles. Then we had the excellent Mark McMurray do some monotone illustrations like you would find in newspapers from the 1800s. And because both of them did such a great job we had to follow through with our layout and make it really come together. A layout like this takes a lot of time and a lot of elements. For instance I have to scan in all the different styles of paper texture and create different ripped edges and aging effects. Then there is fitting all that text into the little spaces we've created by making them separate clippings, and they have to still be easily readable! Anyway there are a lot of things to consider. But not all articles are like that. Some just fall into place because the illustration dictates the way the words will go. This usually happens when you have a full page illustration which is easy from a design point of view (if the illustration is done right), but much harder from the illustrators point of view. Neither style of page design is necessarily better than the other, just different as far as who's responsibility it becomes to make the article work as a whole. We will always use both and, since I'm Art Director and illustrator, I will continue to pull my hair out over both. See, I told you it can be fun.
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Dancing in the New Year

[Jan. 1st, 2007|01:35 am]

[

Tags

dance, new year, ramses

]

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

In honor of the New Year Ramses has an excellent new dance he wanted to share with you all. Honestly I'm not sure if this is a good or bad way to ring in the New Year. With Ramses it's usually a little of both. [Unknown LJ tag]

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Foamlies 2 Contest Results!	[Dec. 1st, 2006\|11:59 am]
The results are in on the Foamlies 2 contest and we have a winner! (contest rules). Your in for a treat, we received some great entries this time. But, unfortunately most of them were from people who are directly associated with the MCFC and therefore can't win. So the competition part wasn't too heated. It doesn't really matter because a good drawing is a good drawing, and they're all fun to look at. Ramses and F.W. even decided to enter this time. Which seems to explain the dried out markers I found laying around the other day. And here I thought they were only using them to draw mustaches on the people on the covers of all my magazines again. Anyway, enough jibber jabber, on to the drawings! Here's the Foamlie I saw He likes Ice Cream - By Ryan W. Now here are the entries Quack - By Becky A. The Ghost Who Likes To Smell Good - By F.W. Goblin - By Len A. Lazer Face (he shoots lazers out of his face!) - By Ramses And The Winner Is Blue Feathered Softie - By Wade M. Kind of creepy, but excellently done! Good work Wade, you can expect to see a T-shirt coming your way very soon (please let me know if you want blue or white and what size). If anyone ever decides to catch and draw a foamlie on their own please send it in. I'll always be happy to put your drawing up on my blog. After all it's the least we can do to acknowledge these strange and rare creatures.
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Australian Outlaws	[Nov. 24th, 2006\|10:48 am]
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We're still cleaning up. Man, the gang eats like a bunch of animals! I just wanted to remind you all about the Foamlies contest that ends this Sunday night (see last entry). If you need to mail your entry in just tell me it's on its way and I'll wait for it. We've been getting some illustrations in for the Australia issue and they're looking great! I'll share some with you in the upcoming week. Here is one from our article about Australia's most famous armor-clad outlaw, Ned Kelly. This looks pretty exciting doesn't it? Makes you want to find out what's going on in this article, right? Well, good that means you'll be sure to pick up the Australia issue of Moo-Cow when it comes out. Thanks to Mark McMurray for the great illustrations for this Kelly Gang article! I'll post some more Australia illustrations throughout the week.
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Drawing Game 2: More Foamlies!	[Nov. 17th, 2006\|08:47 pm]
Finally! The next Drawing Game! It's Foamlies again because you requested it. Well, one of you did at least. If you missed the drawing game last time check out the results of the first one to get an idea of what this is all about. Here we go. CONTEST Below I have posted a picture of an untouched Foamlie and I am giving you a week to take this and show the world what you see when you look at it. You can do this however you would like. You can draw over the Foamlie in a computer drawing program or print it out and draw on it by hand. Then e-mail an image of it to me (ryan AT moocowfanclub.com), or post it on the internet and send me the link, or mail it to me right away. Remember, show us whatever you see. I imagine foamlies come in all shapes & sizes so don't hold back! RULES -All Foamlies must be in by 10pm Sunday Nov. 26th -Please include your name, age and a title with your entry -Try to e-mail your picture to me, but if you can't you can mail them to PO BOX 165 Peterborough, NH 03458 Since these drawings are all going to be from your point of view none of them can be more correct than any other. So, to choose a winner we will show Willy T. (our gallery curator) all of the entries and whichever one he picks to hang in the gallery we will declare the winner. I will post all of the entries on our website after the contest is over so you can see what everyone else saw. PRIZE An official Moo-Cow Fan Club T-Shirt in white or blue! Here is your Foamlie. Quick what do you see?
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Moo-Cow on Chronicle	[Nov. 7th, 2006\|07:42 pm]
Here it is, the Moo-Cow Fan Club's first TV appearance! We've cut out the show's opening where they said some nice things about us and made some bad cow puns, but you're getting the main piece. Enjoy.
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Games!

[Oct. 18th, 2006|05:36 am]

Sorry, I kind of fibbed last entry when I said I would do another Foamlies Game this time. That will have to wait. But, I will talk about games!

In every issue of MCFC we have a game that somehow relates to the topic we are covering. Sometimes these games are based on traditional games and sometimes they are completely made up. Sometimes they are games you can play by yourself, right there on the page, and sometimes they take a friend and a little more preparation. I like to mix it up from issue to issue so that you always get something really different. My goal is to someday be able to make a really awesome Moo-Cow Fan Club game book that is compilation of all of our games. As you can see I get really into the game and I love when I have time to really do a lot with it. It's technically Ramses' article, but he's too lazy to do it all himself. Which means I do most of the hard stuff and he takes all the credit. But he did come up with something pretty cool for the latest game.
C The next issue (Pioneers out Nov. 1st)has a good board game in it that is based on an ancient board game known as fox and geese. Since we like to try all the games out before we print them Ramses suggested playing a large live-action version of what he decided to call "Ramses' Spectacular Buffalo vs. Settlers Showdown!" It worked out great and inspired me to make our first game with game pieces. The pieces for the board game are based on the crew of costumed friends Ramses invited over for the live-action version. Check out the Pioneers issue to see the final game, but here is a peek at the game pieces.

I also thought I would share with you some of the various kinds of games we've had in past issues. Click on the link to see them.

( Games )

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Computer Age Comics - Digital Moo	[Oct. 5th, 2006\|01:20 pm]
Sorry it's been awhile, we've been pretty busy here at MCFC HQ. Keby needed everyone's help to get her all of her vegetables picked before we got our first frost and Rhetorical needed my help fixing his bed, since he plans on sleeping a lot over the next few months. Anyway, as promised, here's the second installment of my 2 part series on how comics are made for MCFC. This installment is about how I personally do comics. It is a somewhat complicated process but I'll try to simplify it. I start my comic process by doing a really really really rough sketch of the comic just to get an idea of how it will flow and what the words will be. Then I sketch out how the characters will look in this comic if they are not wearing their normal duds. Sometimes when these sketches come out well, I'll use them in the comic. Like these images were used in the first panel. Once I get the look down I print out some light gray comic boxes from the computer. I print one row on a piece of paper so I won't have to draw tiny little pictures. I draw my pencil sketches in the boxes and try to get the comic down as closely as I can to how it will finally be. For instance this row is pretty close to how it ended up in the final comic. But that's not always the case! Look at how much this row changed! All those changes were not made on the page though. They were made on the computer. Because after I do my pencil sketches I scan everything into the computer and generally tweak, stretch, squish, cut, paste, and all around manipulate it until it gets close to what I want to see. Once it gets to that point I can start inking it . Well, actually first I put all the words in to make sure they fit and then I start inking. I ink the comics using a electronic pen and tablet that hook right up to the computer. This kind of tablet has become a much loved tool by artists these days. From illustrators to painters, the art world is largely going digital. Since I can easily erase the "ink" I can make many more changes at this stage. Then once everything is inked I get rid of all my pencil layers and have just the final black lines. But that's not the end, in fact it's far from it. Coloring actually ends up taking longer than all of these other steps put together. You would think that since I can only use 2 colors each issue, and I'm doing it on a computer, that it would be extra easy. But, because it's two color and on a computer it's extra hard and I won't bother boring you with the details. Let's just say I color it and presto! A comic! This is just page 1 of the comic. To see the rest you'll have to check out the Pioneers issue of Moo-Cow Fan Club which will be out the first week of November. You can find it at many stores or ahem subscribe to get it delivered to your door. I hope you've learned a little something about our comics process, and more importantly enjoyed it. Check back soon for the Drawing Game2: More Foamlies.
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