COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG STYLE

I told ya a little about

style guides 

before

but ima explain it

differently this time:

Okay.

Let's say you own a

company that

makes 

Handmade

Artisanal

Taco

Wallets.

You know...

so your taco does't get all smashed

in your back pocket.

Anyway...

let's also say

you want to sell taco wallets with 

Courage The Cowardly Dog 

on them

because

AWESOME.

Well, 

first you're gonna have to pay

Cartoon Network

a licensing fee for permission to use the character

on taco wallets.

Other folks will pay similar fees to put

Courage on

t-shirts

pooper scoopers

and

packages of bacon.

You?

You get the taco wallets.

But if Cartoon Network is gonna let you

put Courage on your stuff

it better look tight like this:

NOT

like

this:

That's why you need a style guide:

Inside is a book and a disc:

The book has boat loads of info on

the design of Courage's world:

There's plenty of art:

Pretty backgrounds:

3-D character turnarounds:

Color palettes:

Patterns:

And product ideas:

The disc is stacked high with

 approved digital artwork

that you can use right out of the box

or as reference for your own 

artists to draw from.

 I love style guides.

They're great windows into the design sensibilities
of other people and productions.

A SKETCHBOOK FROM 2005

Yeesh...

I'm nowhere near finishing my latest 

sketchbook.

So maybe we oughta dust off an old

one in the meantime:

There's not a lot of drawing 

in this one.

Back in the mid 1990's I was

primarily using my sketchbooks to break down

Codename: Kids Next Door stories.

But there are some doodles 

here and there.

We were just starting 

season 6

around this time.

Here's an early rough outline for

OPERATION: RECESS:

and early work on

WHITEHOUSE

(nee WAKE-UP)

Operation: TRICYCLE:

Trying to break 

OPERATION: SPINACH:

Here are some Neilson ratings

from a night around that time.

Getting a 4 in those days

was considered pretty rockin'.

This comic by

Michael Kupperman

still makes me giggle:

I loved seeing the KND

in toy ads:

This is really cool!
When Mo was first telling me about his big idea
for a series of early reader books,
he sketched out a pic of what
ELEPHANT AND PIGGIE
were going to look like:

Speaking of artists,

here's a drawing a young

KND fan did for me while I was

vacationing in Aruba:

Some made the cut... some didn't;

Playing around with KND story ideas:

 And lastly,

the inked original of

a drawing I did for press stuff.

Not sure about that nose, tho:

Hopefully I'll have a

NEW

sketchbook 

finished for you soon!

A BELATED BON APPETIT!

 UGH!

Last November I had to miss another 

Disney TV Animation

Art Show

because

work

and

holidays

and

THIS

and 

you know...

REASONS!

Regrettably,

I missed out on a good one.

It was called

BON APPETIT:

THE FOOD SHOW

And I finally got a chance to snap some pics

of the works on display:

That's a 

Noah Z. Jones

there in the middle:

Sooper awesome

Phineas and Ferb

storyboard artist

Aliki Theofilopoulos Grafft

hung like 50

napkins she draws 

for her daughters lunches:

Way cool knit pumpkin:

Star and the Forces of Evil

creator

Daron Nefcy

done did this one:

I love seeing what people come up 

with for these 

shows.

Next time I'm in.

I swear.

(maybe)

SOOPER BONUS SECTION

There's some cool classic artwork

hanging around the

Sonora

TVA building