Roy Raymonde

I was sorry to read about the recent passing of cartoonist Roy Raymonde. In my opinion Raymonde was the most underrated of the Playboy cartoonists. His style might not be as flashy or artsy as Cole, Sokol or Kiraz, but he was a fantastic cartoonist with great life, appeal and personality in his drawings.












Obit here.

Universitetsavisen

In his peculiar, at once naïve and Skipper Skræksk elastic right ugly and - we think - very touching bar, get Ron Rege Jr. air to talk about really much. As a comic artist he has a great palette.

WTWTA

Bil Baird 2: The Sound of Music

These are great to draw from- the big, blocky shapes really help you to see the form and perspective.

Bil Baird

I picked up an old vhs tape at Goodwill recently called "Davey Jones' Locker", featuring Bil Baird's marionettes and I can't believe how awesome the designs of the puppets are. They look like they were designed by Roy Nelson and Vernon Grant, which may not be a coincidence since Baird attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts around the same time as both and they clearly share a similar design sensibility.
I couldn't find any clips online and because It's a vhs tape I can't make any frame grabs, but I'm attaching a few Baird images found online (there isn't much) to hopefully motivate you to check out more.
I wish the current cgi movies had this variety in design. I can't figure out why all the girls in cgi movies have the exact same round head- the girls in Bolt, Monsters vs Aliens, and Cloudy Meatballs all seem like the same design, and the neck never attaches to the head right. Maybe it's a limitation of the technology, because the best character designers in the world worked on those movies.
You can buy a dvd of some of Baird's early films here. I recommend it highly.
S.