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The internet can be such a wonderful place sometimes (as long as Congress doesn’t get its hands on it). It holds all sorts of treasures for nostalgia-driven fanatics like myself who see a search bar as nothing more than a fancy version of One-Eyed Willie’s treasure map from The Goonies. A recent “expedition” into cyberspace yielded an especially good find: rare, previously never-before-seen concept artwork for the original Thundercats cartoon by illustrator and voice actor Jim Meskimen. If someone had told 10-year-old me that seeing something like this would be possible I probably would have guffawed and continued eating my Mr. T cereal… but it’s true!

Revealed (presumably) for the first time last July in the Thundercats.ws forums, keen-eyed fans of the series can spot several lesser-known (but equally and fondly remembered) supporting characters in addition to a few that never actually made it on the show. Check out a select few below and for the entire gallery, be sure to visit the Thudnercats.ws forums.

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Illustration-a-Day is an irregularly updated art blog by Minnesota-based illustrator and designer Matt Kaufenberg’s (aka skutterfly). Despite the irony of the name the site features a series of work inspired by a toy catalog in which Kaufenberg illustrates a completely random and obscure toy. Among the entries are an “Alien Astronaut” from Fisher-Price, a G.I. Joe and Kid Vid – the “uber cool” mascot for Burger King Kid’s Club back in early 90s.

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I have been an illustrator for many years and one of my earliest and greatest influences was movie posters. I loved them all. The mighty and magnificent pieces of glossy paper that jumped from the glittering lights of my local movie theater and grabbed me by my neck and said, “Here is what you will be seeing this evening,” and once those brilliant multicolored pieces of art left the theater they would then line the walls of my Friday night haunting ground (Dee’s Video Rental).

I would spend countless hours just walking around looking at the posters and the cover art for the new video cassettes that had just arrived. I would then rush home with my parents and go and grab my trusty art pad and pencil and imitate the styles of those beautiful slices of movie advertising heaven. I would waste away the hours drawing all that I could remember or think of from the great posters of Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, and Star Wars all created by the talented Drew Struzan. Those posters made me the artist I am today. They called to me and my emerging talent… I needed to draw. I needed to be a poster artist.

Then something weird happened. In my late twenties I started to notice that something was wrong. I found myself looking over the varied assortment of posters cascading along the outer walls of the local theater and I became a little disheartened by the images that I saw there. It seemed the the hand-drawn art of earlier posters was now being replaced with a more graphic design quality. It was a new era and a different breed of poster was emerging, ushered in by computer programs like Photoshop that quickly became prominent tools in creating a new style of advertising.

These programs allowed the “new age” artist the freedom to use pictures and images to create their work. It allowed them the ability to manipulate anything to create, among many things, movie posters. While a part of me missed the grandiose, hand drawn nature of posters in years past I tried to look at this new style for what it was; progress. It was change but it didn’t mean it had to be the tragic end of what I loved. So I learned the varied and complicated programs and found that I could still create and emulate the posters I had so loved as a kid. I could still be the artist I always wanted to be, just with a different medium. Instead of staring at the blank landscape of a sheet of paper I was now staring at the soft glow of a computer screen.

Sure, I still bring out my pencil and design graphite creations, but I also find that sometimes I can just fire up the ol’ computer and create something just as easily without all the smudge marks. So while the purists in me may lament the loss of the “magical” posters I grew up with, I still find that there are occasions where modern poster design astounds me – helping me to remember why I loved movie posters in the first place. It proves that no matter how the posters are created it is all still art and that gives me hope and puts a smile on my face.

GUEST CONTRIBUTOR – JEREMY TIDWELL
Jeremy Tidwell has been an illustrator for more than 15 years working on various projects including poster design, movie sets, logo design, tattoos, and private shows. He is also a filmmaker with one feature film, The Hatchet Sisters, to his credit and he is currently co-writing and co-directing his new feature film entitled The Deadbeats. To see more of his work or inquire about commissioned work he can be contacted on his website www.jeremytidwell.com.

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Here at Fuel Your Illustration not only are we major fans of illustration, but we’re also pretty big gamers as well. That’s why when I saw this time lapse video for Kid NES’ latest mural, GAME OVER, I knew it’d make for a perfect addition to our Mural Mondays column.

The piece shown in the video above, featuring a scene from the Mega Man versus Guts Dozer Boss Battle in Mega Man 2, currently resides in Dallas, TX and was painted completely with Sabotaz paint products.

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Have you checked out our Fuel Your Illustration flickr group? Come join us, we’ve got lots of awesome artists sharing their work. Want to be included in the next Five Flickr Friday? Tweet us on twitter with the #FFF hashtag!

Enjoy!

Saposaraso

Lauren Peppiatt

Jeffrey Timmins

Sarah Swanton

Daniel Mackie

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I confess. While I wasn’t the girliest of little girls, I did love to collect horses. And My Little Pony fell close enough into the “Horse” category that I was all over them. I loved Gusty the most. She was sarcastic, boyish, a prankster, and not afraid to tell you like it was. I haven’t watched My Little Pony since the early 90s, but you’d have to be living under a rock to not know that these cute little Hasbro ponies are making a large comeback. They were first created in 1982, but they have lost none of their charm. A few friends of mine have started creating some of their own original MLP designs (you can see whole slew of custom MLPs on deviantart) and I’ve recently found myself doodling little Applejacks in the corners of my notebook. Oh how I love nostalgia.

The real reason for this post is to share with you a recent project called the Pony Creator, created by DeviantArtist GeneralZoi. I have her to thank for spending way too many hours on this thing, creating my own custom pony. GeneralZoi has given the user a multitude of options to customize every pony – including a bajillion hairstyles, colors, eye shapes, accessories, and even developed a way to allow the happy little My-Little-Pony-lover to post their pony in whatever position.

I’m serious. This thing is badass. And will take ALL of your productivity away within minutes. I’m warning you now. While she probably spent a lot of time making this awesome customzier, I have probably spent even more time making ponies. But I’m willing to sacrifice my Pony time in order to share with you this find. Because I’m nice like that. Now it’s your turn.

What does your My Litlte Pony look like?

Enjoy! Thank you GeneralZoi for making my life a little more My-Little-Pony-ish.

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An officially commissioned mural for the walls of Foxx Equipment Inc.’s Kansas City facility, “Jet Foxx” was illustrated by D. Ross “Scribe” (scribeswalk.com) with video and editing by Phil Koenig Photography.

Ross, who also does sculpture, has previously been an Artist in Residence at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City and his work has been shown in galleries like Gallery1988 (Los Angeles) and Third Eye Gallery (Kansas City).

According to Foxx’s website, this mural and those like it are all part of an effort to “support the arts in our community and provide a little joy to [their] employees and all who view them.” It’s actually nice to see such a large company taking a more creative approach to boosting morale. Now, if only we could convince the White House to do the same thing…

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This week’s mural features Glasgow-based graffiti artist Sam Bates, working on a awesome piece depicting Johnny Depp in his role as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean. A member of the Graffiti KiNGS, Bates specialty seems to be photo-realistic street art that is just as beautiful indoors as it is outdoors.

It’s pretty amazing to see Bates’ process take shape with a level of detail that is awe-inspiring for any medium, but particularly aerosol. In 2009 Bates also assisted Glasgow’s City Council in promoting a more “positive” form of graffiti to encourage less vandalism on the streets. During an interview with the Scottish Sun, Sam admits:

I got into street art through skateboarding when I was a kid. I was putting up my little tag, writing my name everywhere, and the police turned up… If I hadn’t got caught and got into that trouble I’d probably still be doing the mischievous things that I was doing back then.

He goes on to say:

A lot of the negative views are down to vandalism and stuff that is unpleasant to the eye… but if councils had some sort of legal area where kids could express themselves then you wouldn’t see it elsewhere and you’d end up turning cities and towns into a free art gallery. That way graffiti artists could develop their skills and then the work that you see would be of a much higher standard.

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While everyone else was cooling down from SDCC last month, Dave Crosland was busy warming up for his next attack… his next Alphabet Attack! that is. As the third series in the AA! format, Crosland recently launched his first new piece called Almost Anonymous inspired by “bodies jumbled like a word puzzle in some Caligula tribute, with everyone wearing creepy masks a la Eyes Wide Shut.”

As an added bonus, the artist is also revealing his entire process for the piece with updates on Monday, Wednesday and the final reveal of the completed painting scheduled for later today. It’s an insightful sneak peak into one of the indie scene’s brightest talents and definitely worth a look for those wondering how Crosland manages to incorporate so much texture into every piece.

Be sure to check out http://alphabetattack.blogspot.com/ for all of Crosland’s latest additions to the AA! series.

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Not to isolate the male comic book artists out there, but as a geeky girl with an intense attraction to visual storytelling, I absolutely love learning about female artists and how they’ve managed to infiltrate the primarily male-dominated field. I’m going to focus today’s Webcomic Wednesday, not on webcomics (gasp!), but on their printed counterpart, and showcase a phenomenal Kickstarter project that is celebrating the work of 140 talented female comic book artists: Womanthology, a 300 page anthology already in production that is finally giving women recognition for their amazing comics. It’s the first of its kind and I’m already hoping for another one in the future.

The Massive All Female Comic Anthology!

The creator of the project is Renae De Liz, a professional comic book artist and illustrator of the graphic novel version of The Last Unicorn (which I own and love to pieces – her style of drawing suits the emotion of the tale perfectly). She undertook this incredible anthology project when she began to notice a lack of female artists being published and had an idea that quickly took off.

The goal of the Kickstarter project was originally a small $25,000 to publish 1500 books. Now, with 11 days to go, the project has received $67,000 in donations from art lovers the world over, and they’ve raised their goal to $100,000 and are hoping that with this goal, they’ll be able to do a whole lot more. Even with the project deadline approaching, I have a feeling Renae will reach her goal and some. Why not help her out?

More Womanthology Links

• Official Kickstarter Page
• Womanthology Blog
• Full List of Contributing Artists
• Womanthology Twitter
• Womanthology Facebook Page

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Even though this is more of an interview/documentary, there’s some really awe-inspiring pieces by LA-based street artists El Mac and Retna as they discuss some of the misconceptions and true nature of street murals. As the video’s descriptions points out:

“Armed with a vision and their cans of spray paint, El Mac and Retna will transform a forgotten wall into a piece of art. They combine their artistic forces in a specific way: El Mac creates huge lifelike portraits and Retna, calligraphic brushwork and decoration. The result is striking imagery that is unique and recognizable as theirs.”

The video is one is a series of video portraits spotlighting various forms of art in the Los Angeles community created and filmed by Joris Debeij under the banner I Am Los Angeles. According to his website, “Joris aims to document the real city of Los Angeles through portraits of its supporting actors – those who find a certain romance in having found a niche for themselves the dynamic city of LA.”

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Comics and aerosol can collide in this week’s edition of Mural Mondays featuring a series of murals commissioned back in 2009 by Paramount for the UK premiere of Watchmen, based on the comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. While I won’t delve too deep into what I thought of the film itself, I will say that these murals by End of the Line artists Bleach, Probs, Busk and Zadok is impressive.

End of the Line itself is a project-based initiative that was “set up to house the professional graffiti skills of the finest painters the UK has to offer.” Although it was initially limited to East London using the an abandoned train line in the area to form art studios and legal walls it would seem that the crew is still very active and has even made its way into France. They’ve also continued doing sponsored designs, as indicated in this awesome Tron: Legacy piece.

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Ever heard of the phrase: “worth one’s salt?” It’s an old phrase that refers to someone being worth whatever payment or compensation they receive for their work. In the case of Bashir Sultani, however, the meaning is quite literal. Sultani, who currently hails from Toronto, started his “Art With Salt” series only a few months ago as a pet project and has quickly earned over 5,000 subscribers on YouTube thanks to his unique illustration tool: salt.

According to Sultani, he has no formal art training and each piece takes roughly 40-50 min to complete (that’s a lunch break for most). Check out his YouTube channel for portraits on stars like Eminem, Tupac, Gandhi, Michael Jackson, and (yes) even Charlie Sheen.

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Some of you may have noticed a subtle new feature on the sidebar this week, it’s a poll asking whether or not you currently use or are interested in using an iPad or tablet device as a sketchpad or even for finished illustrations. Though it’s mostly there for our curiosity, you’re responses will also help us better tailor the content of the site if enough of you are interested in this technology. As an illustrator myself, I have yet to explore the capabilities that are available to artists on mobile devices, but there are others who have.

Case in point, illustrator Kyle Lambert received a fair bit of buzz this time last year for his series of celebrity portraiture… all done using a iPad app called Brushes. He’s also done similar works of art on the iPhone, see Jennifer Aniston Speed Painting. It’s pretty impressive, not to mention fun to watch (see above) and really got me thinking of mobile devices as a viable tool for illustrators and artists who are always on the go.

My artwork combines traditional painting techniques with cutting edge technology to produce rich, realistic portraits and character based concepts and designs. The iPad expands the possibilities for artists like myself to take digital artwork creation away from the computer and out into the world.”

How about you– do you currently use an iPad or tablet device to sketch or draw? Cast your vote and let your voice be heard!

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It’s another Monday morning and this week we’ve got yet another awesome mural set to the soundtrack of some smooth, upbeat music by GRAFFITI 6. The mural itself is the collaboration of several individuals who collectively make up the graffiti group, PIRATES (Alfa, Jamie Brown, Jiggery Pokery, Jimi Crayon, Mr P and Stika) which appeared for a short time at the Village Underground in Shoreditch (London). The concept for the piece is credited to Jimi Crayon, Ben Cox and Alicja McCarthy with creative direction by Crayon. The video itself was filmed and produced by Stereofarms Dave Graham at SPRING 69.

Although I’m not a big fan of the end result, the piece in general has some really nice color to it and shows off a variety of illustrative styles. Turn it up, tune everything else out for a few minutes, and enjoy.