This weekend (May 18-19) is the 25th Anniversary of SpringCon, Minnesota’s largest comic book convention. Come check it out at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand and join in the fun. I’ll have a table along with over one hundred of the most talented artists and creators  in Minnesota and the surrounding Midwest region. There will also be door prizes, portfolio reviews, sketching, and the first 500 attendees will get a special free grab bag at the door. A complete list of guest creators can be found here.

If you come by my table I’ll also be selling some tools specially designed for character designers, cartoonists, and other artists who love storytelling, as well as possibly launching a Kickstarter project. More info coming soon.

A popular exercise for cartoonists and character designers is to randomly pick from a list of characteristics (occupations, personality types, animal types, emotions, etc.) and then sketch a cartoon character based on them. Some artists, such as Chris Ayers, actually keep a Ziploc bag full of little slips of paper with such traits written on them. They pull out a few and then sketch a character that matches whatever combo they get. After reading one of Chris Ayers’ books I created my own ziploc bag, which I blogged about here.

Stephen Silver recently released a terrific iOS app called “Character Design Shuffle” (iTunes link), which takes this concept into the digital age. Simply select from a group of categories, hit the “Shuffle” button, and then draw the results that pop up. It’s a terrific tool and in hindsight its amazing someone didn’t come up with this idea sooner.

I’ve had the app on my phone for a few weeks but have been so slammed with work that I didn’t get a chance to try it out until this morning. The app gave me this description: “Female, Weasel, Doctor, Scurrying, Devastated”. The above warm-up sketch is the result.

Last November I attended the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank, CA, where I gave a lecture on business tips for self-employed artists. Towards the end of the conference I attended a late-night gesture drawing workshop hosted by Dave Pimentel. For about an hour or so a costumed model (the terrific John Tucker dressed as a hobo) struck some wonderful one-to-five-minute poses while we sketched furiously and listened to Mr. Pimentel walk around the room sharing his pearls of drawing wisdom. It was all very inspiring. One of the downsides of living so far away from California is that I rarely get the opportunity to attend a life drawing session that puts the emphasis on character and acting rather than anatomy and realism.

I was thumbing through one of my sketchbooks and came across my drawings and notes from that night (Sorry for the poor scans, blue pencil is not scanner-friendly). I had jotted down several notes from Mr. Pimentel’s comments as I drew and thought I’d pass them along. There’s some great advice for any cartoonist or character designer to keep in mind while he draws:

• Think *shape* with your gestures.
• Focus on four things: acting, expression, character, and movement.
• Push the poses!
• Draw from your shoulders, not your wrist.
• Center lines are a crutch. You don’t need them.
• Contour lines are OK as long as you are defining a shape and not just contour for contour’s sake.
• Don’t draw the model. Draw a *character*.
• Never draw the straight, literal pose. Push the angles!
• Stare at the pose for ten seconds, study it, and then draw until you need to look again.
• Think about squash-and-stretch as you draw.
• Think in giant swoops from chest to toe.
• Find all the angles you can squash and stretch.
• Think about adjectives as you draw.
• When indicating hair, sketch in the direction of the haircut.

And finally, my favorite tip….

• Put the “life” back in life drawing!

Volume 11 has just been released. It covers the book of Acts, explaining what happened after Jesus ascended back into Heaven and how His followers travelled the known world telling others about Him. There are lots of stories including miracles, persecution, imprisonments, and even martyrdom.

Perhaps the most well-known character is Saul, an angry Pharisee who took special delight in chasing down Christians and throwing them in jail. That is, until the day when Jesus appeared to him face-to-face. Saul became a new man, changed his name to Paul, and spent the rest of his life traveling thousands of miles to spread the good news about Jesus. Along the way he also wrote about two-thirds of the New Testament.

My job was to design Paul. Besides looking like he belonged in the same world as the other characters he had to have a face that could look like an intimidating villain at the beginning of the story and a kindly, likable friend by the end of the story. So it was a bit of a challenge. The client also requested that he have a slender build, dark eyebrows, and a goatie.

I started by doing a bunch of thumbnails, searching for the right look:

Eventually we settled on the following design:

Here’s the trailer for Episode 11:

Watch this video on YouTube.

And here’s a clip showing Saul’s conversion:

Watch this video on YouTube.

You can order “What’s In The Bible?” volume 11 either as a DVD or as a digital download at whatsinthebible.com. I don’t get any royalties or kickback if you buy, I just really believe in the project.

In order to follow anyone on Tumblr I had to create an account, so I slapped together a page and uploaded a couple of sketches. At the moment I’m swamped with client work but once things slow down I’ll give it a closer look and see what I think. If I like it I might kick in for the long haul.

If you also Tumble, you can follow me at http://cedrichohnstadt.tumblr.com.

EDIT: Some artists are actually shutting down their blogs and replacing them with their Tumblr pages. For the time being my blog will be staying right here as part of my website and I plan to keep posting as always.

(Click images to enlarge.)

Because even though it was a terrible day for Jesus it was a very good day for you and me. Over the course of my career I’ve been able to work on several projects that help explain that message, and every Good Friday I like to take a moment to share them:

Here’s an 8-page cartoon Gospel tract I illustrated several years ago for the ministry of Living Waters. To date over five million copies have been printed in English and it has been translated into over twenty languages. You can download it for free in multiple languages at www.FreeCartoonTract.com, or you can purchase printed copies from the ministry of Living Waters.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Based on the tract’s success, Living Waters also hired me to produce an animated version, which I supervised with the help of two terrific animators (Michael Foster and Chance Dodd). To date it has received over 450,000 views on YouTube and has been subtitled into 19 other languages. If you like the video you can download a free HD version to use however you’d like.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Finally, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer has been releasing a series of videos called “What’s In The Bible?”. I’ve had the privilege of working on a few of them. Here’s the trailer for Volume 10, which covers the life and ministry of Jesus including his death and resurrection. In this episode I designed a few of the characters and did a smidgen of animation.

EDIT: Here’s a full-length clip from the episode explaining the meaning of Easter:

Watch this video on YouTube.

You can order DVDs or digital downloads from the series at www.whatsinthebible.com. Also, if you subscribe to JellyTelly.com you can stream all episodes of “What’s In The Bible?” to any computer or mobile device.

I don’t make any money or royalties off of these items, I just believe in them and want to share. Thanks for indulging me. Here’s wishing you a very happy Easter filled with peeps and jelly beans!

Lately I’ve been enjoying A&E’s hit show Duck Dynasty. We “cut the cord” and dropped cable a couple of years ago but I recently caught some episodes in a hotel room and watched a few more on the show’s website. I think I’m hooked, and might have to pick up a season on DVD.

Normally I’m not much of a fan of “reality” TV shows but this one is different. I recently read an article that described Duck Dynasty as a reality show that feels almost like a sitcom, and I have to agree. There are colorful characters, sitcom-y storylines, and lots of funny zingers, all wrapped up in a wholesome family-friendly package. The main difference is that the characters appear to be real people more or less playing themselves. Despite their scruffy beards and redneck ways, for the most part you laugh with them rather than at them.

I know that “reality” TV is often an illusion, with lots of writers and producers orchestrating things behind the scenes. This is the first time, at least that I’ve noticed, that the two formulas of “reality TV” and “sitcom” have been blended so successfully.

The most popular character seems to be the eccentric, cranky-but-loveable Uncle Si. He never goes anywhere without his plastic tea glass, which was given to him by his mother when he left to serve in Vietnam. He is constantly saying “Hey!” and calling everybody Jack. How can you resist drawing a guy like that?

I’ve noticed Si is one of those people who “talks with his hands”, but often while keeping his elbows in. So I tried to incorporate that into the pose.

Last year I did some work on the new VeggieTales DVD that’s just now hitting the shelves, called “The Little House That Stood” (Amazon link). My comp copy came in the mail today. It features two stories: The first combines the Three Little Pig with the biblical parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders. The second story is a goofy retelling of Humpty Dumpty.

I was hired to do a smattering of concept art for this episode: I roughed out some early costume concepts; illustrated a few pieces of texture art for some signage and misc. props; and designed a cartoon goose that Larry calls “Mother”.

First, here’s the turnarounds for the goose I designed and a screen shot of the final animation:

In the first story Larry, Bob, and Mr. Lunt appear as construction workers. Here’s some quick, rough thumbnails I whipped up of possible costume ideas:

Finally, I created several pieces of texture art for the show. Here’s two of them: A backdrop for a weather forecast, and a fold-out map for use as a prop. (I slipped in a reference to the original “Superman” movie on the map. See if you can spot it.):

(Click to enlarge.)

You can order the DVD “The Little House That Stood” from Amazon or from your favorite Christian retailer.