WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character illustration, created by David Helton.

If you grew up in Cleveland in the late 1970’s or early 1980’s, you saw the WMMS Buzzard mascot cartoon character everywhere. Or maybe just if you were just a young art geek like myself…

The WMMS buzzard mascot and all the related artwork was a huge influence on me as a young artist. I loved the style, the line work, the attitude of the character. I found myself drawing it over and over to unlock the secrets of it’s design.

David Helton is the illustrator/artist who created that iconic image. I was thinking about this recently and found an article by the Cleveland Plain Dealer regarding the origins of the creation of the WMMS Buzzard, an excerpt from the book The Buzzard: Inside the Glory Days of WMMS and Cleveland Rock Radio.

Regarding the actual drawing and concept for the logo, Helton recalls:

Helton brought up Looney Tunes, with Porky Pig saying, “Thatha- tha-that’s all, folks” at the end of a cartoon, and sketched the Buzzard in a Looney Tunes-style target. But it resembled a dartboard- ammunition for our rivals. He drafted more conceptions, first drawing the Buzzard’s head, then sketching a backdrop. He tried circles, triangles, and finally the “Star Buzzard” logo, the most familiar of all Buzzard designs. We never used consultants, outside agencies, staff meetings, focus groups, or test marketing for it or any Buzzard campaign.

It’s interesting to note that the character was developed solely by the illustrator. A great mascot character can have immense marketing potential for the right type of client.The WMMS Buzzard  was a mascot character that Helton executed masterfully. Helton goes on to explain how the resulting marketing and branding campaign was developed around the artist’s creation:

With the Buzzard our official logo, we coveted the idea of going where no station had gone before. How we could exploit the identity, how could we make WMMS greater than the combined respective peaks of WIXY, KYW, and WHK? How could we build the Buzzard into the most recognized logo in Cleveland since Chief Wahoo? Going beyond the obvious T-shirts and sweatshirts, I felt we could market key chains, belt buckles, roach clips, even Buzzard comic books, and we did. Air talent Denny Sanders warned against letting the logo become too corporate, and he had a point. One of the most difficult things was knowing where to stop. Even though the Buzzard was created for promotional, commercial purposes, I wanted to keep it as a sort of icon and avoid crossing a vague line into exploitation.

Again I find it interesting that not only was Helton looking to utilize the marketing and licensing potential of this iconic mascot artwork, but also had the foresight to pull in the reigns where that commercialization might go beyond a great brand and into the venue of cliché.

It’s worth noting again that the entire WMMS Buzzard marketing campaign—which was hugely successful—was developed not with a character as part of the campaign, but rather around the mascot character. The impact a great mascot can have—for the right type of client and the right demographic—is something that should never be overlooked when considering a marketing or branding campaign. And as Helton has shown, it can even be the center of the campaign.

I was surprised to find, on visiting Helton’s illustration portfolio site, that most of his work actually was nothing like the character he developed for the WMMS Buzzard, which I found extremely odd. The Buzzard mascot has such a signature feel to it, I just assumed I would find more work in the same vein, but instead I found a much more whimsical, children’s book style to Helton’s work.

Until Helton’s Buzzard mascot art resurfaced in my consciousness, I hadn’t realized how much that Buzzard cartoon character had influenced the style of artwork I produce today as a professional illustrator. The bold, expressive, minimalist, thick line art, the flat color, the method of tapering his lines. Looking back at Helton’s work I can see all of this influencing my work now—with of course a heavy dash of my favorite MAD Magazine artists such as Don Martin, Mort Drucker and Jack Davis.

**UPDATE**: I changed up the buzzard image on this post after being contacted by David Helton, who  informed me that I had included a newer updated Buzzard that he did not work on. Sorry about that David!

by George Coghill -
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WMMS Buzzard Logo: Mascot Character Art Origins is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Artwork created by & © Enoch Bolles

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via Graphic Exchange

Artwork created by & © Rubens LP

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A fun post over at Dark Roasted Blend: Ladies & Robots: a collection of 1950’s era photos and illustration of pinup-style girls with sci-fi robots! Great stuff and a must-visit link.

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“Suburban Swami” illustration. Artwork created by & © Steve Scott.

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So much good stuff on this guy’s site, I just went with Spidey since he’s my favorite. Be sure to check out his blog for tons of awesome character design.

Spider-Man illustration by artist Sean Galloway. Art created by & © Sean Galloway.

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I am a big fan of illusionist Derren Brown. For those not in the know, he’s a magician / mentalist in the UK with a pretty big following over there. His television series Mind Control has aired in the U.S. on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Derren’s main celebrity is based on his television and stage performances which revolve around a blend of magic, hypnotism and mentalism (or NLP). His shows are very interactive with the audience and great fun. Brown is a bit of a smart-ass and doesn’t take himself too seriously, which I think adds to his appeal.

Brown also likes to do James Randi style exposés on psychics, faith healers and the like (his UK Channel 4 special “Messiah” is amazing). It’s very interesting to me to see how he is able to replicate these so-called paranormal effects using his blend of psychology, misdirection, NLP, hypnosis and other techniques.

But did you know he was a talented caricature artist as well?

I have recently been reading his book Tricks Of The Mind which is fascinating so far. It goes into some of the background on how he does his illusions (to some degree). Right now I am really enjoying his mnemonic techniques for memory enhancement.

In the chapter on memorization techniques, he off-handedly made a mention about his being a caricature artist; this was something I was not aware of. I headed over to his website and sure enough, he had an “Artwork” section which I had assumed was poster art from his performances or something.

Upon entering the portfolio, I was amazed to find that Brown is a very talented caricaturist and painter. While the image I chose to include with this post is a caricature of a lesser-known actor (James Mardsen from the X-Men films), I loved the sense of lighting, exaggeration and detail in this artwork and decided to include it to demonstrate his artistic talents. There are plenty of über-famous celebrities in his full gallery.

At this point in time Brown only paints celebrity caricatures, his reasoning being the caricatured aspect of celebrity — how the public is shown this distorted version of celebrities, filtered through marketing and PR to create a “brand” for the actor. In his mind, it’s a caricature of who the real person actually is.

If you are a fan of Derren Brown but weren’t aware of his painting prowess, be sure to visit his website and check out his art. If you aren’t a fan, you can enjoy Brown’s art without knowing who he is. I would however suggest doing a YouTube search for Derren Brown and checking out some of the television bits he’s done, if you’ve never seen him before.

Personally I am a bit more open to the idea that some of these paranormal talents may in fact be real in some people (I have had some personal experiences that I can’t explain), but I would have to agree with Brown, Randi and the rest of the skeptics that most likely a big percentage of those claming otherworldy skills are either misrepresenting or deluding themselves as to the real cause. Brown’s demonstrations are pretty mind-blowing and present a strong case for mundane explanations. He shows how these so-called paranormal events could in fact be replicated with readily available tools and techniques.

I am a big fan of learning about both sides of any argument, and giving each side it’s time to defend their stance. While I may have a healthy curiosity in the paranormal, I also make sure I spend time with the skeptics and the debunkers. Derren Brown has a clever blend of debunking (by performing the feats himself) while at the same time allowing you to enjoy the effects of “believing” in them — at least for a short while.

by George Coghill -
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Derren Brown: Caricatures is a post from: Cartooning & Illustration Blog: Coghillustration

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Cartoonist and illustrator extraordinaire Tom Richmond has an excellent in-depth guide to drawing hands over on his blog. As per usual with Tom’s instructional articles/blog posts, he goes into far more detail and insight than one could possibly imagine he would have time for, even down to supplying illustrated diagrams explaining everything.

Here’s a quote demonstrating the level of insight you’ll find:

Many people think the knuckle of the finger rests directly behind the crease that represents the base of the finger right under the bottom finger pad. Now turn your hand around. That main knuckle is SIGNIFICANTLY lower on the hand. In fact it’s below the upper pad of the palm that curve below all the fingers. A lot more of your finger resides inside the palm/body than you might think. Understanding that is a big part of figuring out hands.

At some point I can see Tom collating all these posts into a book of some sort. His blog tutorials are better than any book on cartooning I’ve ever seen, and this one is no different.

Probably one of the more difficult parts of the human body to draw, and Tom is a master at the cartoon hand. Head over there and learn from the best.

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via otomano. Artwork created by & © Vince Locke

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Love this sexy pinup-ish woman illustration. The way the artist drew the eyes is excellent. Lots of other great work on his website.

via illustrator Thierry Labrosse. Artwork created by & © Thierry Labrosse

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