More Happy Fat Man

Here is another Happy Fat Man designed as a fireman. This one never went into production.

I also dabbled in animated GIFs for the website. Click on this one.

Happy Fat Man

A few years ago a friend of mine, Jeff, came up with an idea "The Happy Fat Man". Jeff hoped to market shirts and other items with the HFM image emblazoned on it. Unfortunately, he couldn't draw so he asked me to design it. The original image was a jolly fellow based on Jeff himself.
We depicted him golfing....
playing softball....
and enjoying St. Patrick's Day.
As often happens in business, momentum was lost due to seperate events and the line died. It was an interesting experience designing for multiple sizes. I had to avoid all my usual feathering and shading and stick to a strong line. There was a website, www.happyfatman.com, that is no longer operational. There is still a Happy Fat Man page at cafepress.com with these images available on various items. I have no idea if the Fat Man is coming back.

IF - memories

This week's theme for Illustration Friday is memories. This picture is based on my great grandmother who lived to be 102. She lost a great deal of of her memories by the end of her life but she is still in mine. This is her second appearance in one of my pictures.

Thomas

I didn't do this painting. It was painted by my son, Thomas, for the Assemblies of God National Youth Fine Art Festival. He received the Award of Merit for 2 dimensional art - Kappa Tau Division (college age). So now as the proud father, I have to boast about it. His mother (my wife) is proud, too.
24"X20" Acrylic on canvas.

IF - Detach

My first drawing for illustrationfriday.com. The theme this week is "detach". Pen and Ink with lamp black watercolor wash and drybrush.

Baseball cap

A still life of my Yankee cap. It was a present for my son. 5" X 7" acrylic on hardboard.

The Withers

A few years ago my mother showed me an old photograph of my great-grandparents and my grandmother taken sometime around 1919 , the year they immigrated from England. The year is a guess based on the apparent age of my grandma in the picture. I took the picture home, scanned it and cleaned up all the scratches and stains. I was able to give a cleaned up copy in a frame to my mother along with the original. While I was cleaning up the image I became fascinated with my great-grandparents' apparent discomfort with getting their picture taken. We are used to getting our pictures taken all the time, but this was probably quite an event for them. The picture appears to be taken in front of a backdrop. They are wearing overcoats which leads me to guess that it was taken by a street photographer. My great-grandparents are leaning into each other awkwardly and staring at the camera. Grandma is standing between them with a hand on her hip calmly looking into the lens. She seems much more comfortable. Just like the young lead the way with new technology now.
After working on the photo I decided to do a painting of the picture. The colors are, of course, a guess. Great-grandpa was wearing a pin in the photo which I decided should be an American flag pin. And I changed the background to a ocean pier, symbolic of their immigrating.
I was very close to my grandma and great-grandma, but I never knew my great grandfather. This painting was a way to connect to the part of my family no longer with us.
I continue to be fascinated with the photograph. A copy is pinned on the memo board over my drawing table.