Alfie's Backyard!

ALFIE Sketch

2011-05-23T15:07:00.000-04:00

After I finished up my Phineas and Ferb work for a Monday deadline, I drew this Alfie sketch before I went to bed last night. It was done in about an hour and was easy to draw since Alfie was tired and curled up to sleep. He occassionally kept raising his head to wonder what I was doing while looking at him. It was drawn with the Micron Pens and I used a PITT Brush Marker for his back body hair.
I have not forgotten this blog for Alfie, just been busy with other work. I have been writting a story for Alfie as a children's book and have several versions I'm still playing with but it will come together soon and I'll have more to post!

ALFIE Comic Strip For DCM's January Issue!

2009-01-12T22:35:00.003-05:00

Here is the new strip for Alfie for January's issue of Delaware County Magazine!

ALFIE Comic Strip For DCM's December Issue!

2009-01-12T22:32:00.002-05:00

Here is the Alfie strip for the December issue of Delaware County Magazine! I forgot to post it here! Yikes, but it's sure been busy here!

Alfie's Thanksgiving Meal Maze!

2008-11-04T17:45:00.003-05:00

Here is the new Aflie cartoon for the month of November for DCM! I made it a maze this time to make it interactive! Help Alfie get to the table scraps for his Thanksgiving treat! And yes, he does have a small plate for himself as well. He LOVES Turkey...actually he likes a lot of people food! Enjoy!

ALFIE - My Original & Initial Concept Design!

2008-10-09T22:35:00.006-04:00

Here is the one of the first concepts I did for the Alfie cartoon. This original version was based more on his personality than his actual look and it was one that I was going to actually go with. He's basically a generic, cute-looking doggie who had appeal for me but there was missing something in the end. It was soon after this version that I would wind up basing the cartoon on the Yorkshire Terrier's actual look since that's what Alfie's breed is. By basing it on his actual look, it made the overall tone and feel completely personal for me and one that I could understand and deal with much more easily when coming up with ideas. I don't know why I just didn't do that in the beginning but design is a process. I like this cartoon version and as you can see, this version has Alfie walking on his back legs like a human. It had more of a Hanna-Barbera simple feel to it, which is nice. This also bothered me though in the end and when I switched my designing process over to drawing an actual Yorkie, I then decided to draw him walking and acting like a real dog would. I did try to have him walking on his back legs when I drew Alfie as you see him now, but for some reason it fell apart in the plausability of it all, so I made him more dog-like. I think this is one of the main reasons that Scooby-Doo was designed the way he was as well. Even though he acts human in certain scenes, he remains very dog-like in his anatomy.

New Alfie Comic Strip for October!

2008-09-30T18:44:00.006-04:00

Here's the new comic strip for Alfie this month for DCM magazine. I realize it's not an actual strip, but I got jammed up with Power Rangers and other work. Still a super cute drawing though...which I'll do something else with at some point. Enjoy!

New Alfie Comic Strip for September! Co-starring Penny, the Bassett Hound!

2008-09-01T20:03:00.006-04:00

Here is the new Alfie strip for the September issue of DCM magazine! This is the first strip featuring Penny, the Bassett Hound, who lives around the corner from Alfie. When I walk Alfie (in real life) and he sees her in her yard he will sneak under the fence to say Hi. This stuff is all true, people. I'll post some pics of them both together in real life soon! Enjoy!

More of Alfie's Doggie Dictionary!

2008-08-17T22:15:00.003-04:00

Here is the new Alfie strip that ran in the August issue of DCM magazine! I had to do another Doggie Dictionary filler piece due to the HUGE amount of work I have going on right now with the Power Rangers! I plan on having a normal comic strip for the September issue. Enjoy!

Some Days It's Hard To Find A Good Punchline...

2008-07-01T18:23:00.003-04:00

Here's the new Alfie cartoon for July's issue of DCM magazine! The top one is the one that's going to print, though the one on the bottom was the original punchline. I changed it late today as I was loading the other editorial to the printer's FTP. I asked a few people when I was having lunch what they thought and they suggested to go with the Scooby line. The problem is that the MacGyver line works better and is funnier, BUT...NO kids (or people under 30) will know who MacGyver was and get the gag unless you watched the show in the 1980's. So much for dated pop culture references...

The Scooby line does work as well in my mind, since it's a tip of the hat to Scooby since I draw that as well, but maybe it means that Alfie watches cartoons when the TV is left on and Scooby is his hero? Hey, it could happen...!

New Alfie Cartoon for June!

2008-06-03T18:31:00.003-04:00

Here is the new Alfie cartoon for June! This gag is based on all the times that Alfie has gotten wrapped around the tree in the backyard chasing the squirells or bunnies and then I have to go out to then untangle him. I have a several more ideas and gags of him being tied up which I'll work out as well into strips. He can sometimes untangle himself but there are times during the heat of the chase he forgets how many times he goes around the tree. The backyard shot is all based on the actual look of it which really does give it much more weight. The bunny's name is Rascal. He's a lazy bunny who likes to collect pinecones for some unknown reason and he has a big ball of string that he keeps adding to whenever he finds a new piece lying around somewhere. The squirrels are Pocket, Tricky and Scooter. I went a bit easier on the coloring with this one than the others I've done simply because of time. It can take me a while to color a strip and get it the way I want it, so while I'm happy with this strip, I may go into in and add more dimension to it with more color tones.

A Lazy Sunny Morning...Alfie Style!

2008-04-22T22:37:00.004-04:00

Here's Alfie getting up this morning! I was busy getting ready and he was just laying in bed waiting on me to get my act together so we could go out for his walk. It only takes him 30 seconds to get ready for the day! I love the look on his face in the first one. The weather has taken something out of him the last few days so he's been a bit tired and lazy, though he has gotten his normal walks. The last pic of him was him sitting up as he heard something make a noise outside and of course we had to go outside for his first walk to see what it was...

Alfie's Doggie Dictionary!

2008-04-22T22:31:00.003-04:00

Here's the Alfie strip for May's issue of DCM Magazine! Another filler strip but one that I will be using in the Alfie comic book to pepper the book up in-between the stories...Next month, I will have a new comic since now I have free time to breathe! I've finally finished the HUGE amount of Disney work I was doing! Whew!

Alfie's Property Rules! Final Color Strip!

2008-04-22T22:25:00.005-04:00

Here's the Alfie strip I did for April's issue of DCM! I was so jammed with other work and the Power Rangers I had to resort to a filler text joke instead of an actual comic to get it done in a real pinch. It still reads pretty good though! :)

New Alfie art coming soon!

2008-04-08T22:21:00.003-04:00

There will be some new Alfie stuff coming soon! If you've read my other blog you've seen all the stuff that's been going on in my life. I'll post some new stuff soon though as well as last month's Alfie cartoon that was printed!

Alfie Comic Strip...out in the neighborhood! Final Color!

2008-02-24T20:55:00.016-05:00

Here's the final cartoon! And for any Alfie fans out there, as a bonus, I'm including the final colored cartoon without the word balloons! Sometimes as an artist you spend a lot of time drawing and coloring something that in the end winds up getting covered over by something else such as a word balloon, credit box or whatever else would get dropped on top of it. The good thing that I like most about doing the lettering in the computer is that I can tweak the text at some point in the future or even rewrite the whole gag to make a new cartoon! Remember you can click on the images to see them bigger!

Alfie Comic Strip...out on the neighborhood! Rough Sketch

2008-02-24T20:31:00.007-05:00

Here's the new rough sketch for the new Alfie cartoon I did this weekend. These pencils are pretty tight so it was like tracing mostly when I actually inked it. A lot of my work seems like I do the art twice. The whole idea was based on walking Alfie around the same neighborhood for the last 4 years and how, for me, it's the same old, same old. For him, I wonder that it must be the same as well. There are certain bushes and plants and telephone poles that he always seems to stop at. There are loads of wonderful smells for dogs so I guess even though he's walked the same two blocks (twice a day) for the last four years there's always new and exciting smells and sights to see! The familiarity of the neighborhood is what I'm planning to use to help anchor the comic series for Alfie.

Here's a photo of Alfie out walking one morning and he stops by one of his favorite bushes. He usually puts his two paws up on the wood landscaping ties and sniffs the bush a few times. He looks kinda sleepy in this photo. I wanted to post this as well so that you can see that I try to incorporate actual landscapes and the look of the neighborhood as much as I can to base the Alfie cartoon in as much reality as I can. The smallest details can really get overlooked sometimes even when drawing a simple telephone pole so looking at a reference photo always helps. You can see the wood ties and bush in the corner of the new strip!

Next up the color and lettering....!

Alfie in the Snow! Final color version...

2008-01-27T17:34:00.000-05:00

Here is the color final art that I whipped out this morning in a rush since the print deadline was today at 5pm and it will be in print early this week! I like the color theory for the strip. I love the first panel and how he sits by the back door. Ha! Just like he does in real life! Enjoy!

Alfie in the Snow! The pencil sketches...

2008-01-27T17:19:00.000-05:00

Here is the new pencil drawing for the new Alfie strip I just did this weekend for DCM! The whole gag for this cartoon was based on the last panel which was a sketch (seen below) I drew sometime early on in Alfie's development as a cartoon. It was a moment of Alfie's life that I wanted to capture on paper and I decided that this sketch could be the punch line for the new strip this month.
This whole gag pretty much actually happened as I showed it. Alfie was close to one-year old and he saw his first snow storm and wanted to see snow close up. He was at the back door and he was hesitant to go out and I knew he had to go to the bathroom so I gave him a soft boot out the door. He jumped and landed tail end in the snow and sank like it was quicksand! It was pretty funny. It was a deeper snow than I though it was. Alfie was only 1 pound and 9 ounces at that time so he just tried to swim in the snow to get back inside since it was cold. I bundled him in a towel and then went outside and shoveled him a whole blocked out area that he could roam around in the snow. He then went out and enjoyed the snow which I'll be showing in the future!

Shhh! He's sleeping...

2008-01-15T20:50:00.000-05:00

No, I haven't been slacking on producing Alfie since my last post. I've been drawing Scooby stuff since New Year's Day so that has taken a lot of my time. I am drawing the new Alfie strip for the February issue of DCM and I'll have the pencils for you to see soon! Keep checking back!

The Greatest Comic Series Ever Made!

2007-12-30T21:52:00.000-05:00

That's a big and bold statement for my header but this Marvel comic series that started in 1974 (when I was 4 years old) was THE reason I started reading comics and started reading in general. There are many reasons for me liking this series and I'll go into them later on as a podcast or on other posts. THIS comic cover that is shown IS my very first comic I ever saw and owned in 1975. Most people remember the first record they bought, but I remember my first comic! Spider-Man became my favorite character, which has lasted to this day, and my interest in the Lizard character which stayed with me as well. The Lizard was a great villain of sorts for the webslinger. There's something about a human lizard in the white lab coat that attracted my eye visually and made me want to read this comic and see what it was all about! The way artist John Romita drew Spider-Man on the cover (and his art was on other countless toys, comics, and other comic-related things I grew up on) remains THE definitive version of Spidey to me. Spidey and the Lizard were such a visual fascination for me that in 1982 when I saw a comic cover (Marvel Tales #143) with the Lizard fighting Spidey, I was hooked once again! I was in a local 7-11 after school and soon after I bought the comic for 60 cents and read it at home, it started my comic book collecting hobby which has lasted to this day.

This comic series started in 1974 and lasted for 57 issues. John Romita's beautiful artwork graced many of the covers in this series early on. The series was an innovative and educational effort between Marvel Comics and The Children’s Television Workshop, Spidey Super Stories was the first nationally distributed comic book created specifically to be an “easy to read” comic series in the early 1970s and featured Marvel Comics’ flagship character, The Amazing Spider-Man.

Here are some pages from the inside to give you an idea of the format and how little dialogue and word balloons are used as opposed to the normal comic book. The guidelines for the comic were based upon the Children’s Television Workshop research and eye-movement studies conducted by Dr. Kenneth O’Bryan at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. As a result, Spidey Super Stories used an average of fewer frames per page, fewer balloons per frame, and fewer words per balloon than other comic books. The stories are written in a controlled vocabulary, and speech balloons are strategically placed to capture the eye of the reader.

This comic series was such a hit with me in my early years that I decided to use the comic as a model or template for my own comic book series starring Alfie. There are very few comics made for the little ones in today's world, so it's my attempt to use this format hoping to attract young readers who will want to pick up and read The Adventures of Alfie and see the many adventures that this little dog can get into. Spidey Super Stories succeeded and The Adventures of Alfie will attempt to follow suit by making reading a positive and exciting experience to young readers and to get them excited about reading comics and the thrill of the sequential art of storytelling!

The Alfie DCM Coloring Page Prize Print!

2007-12-28T23:58:00.000-05:00

Here is the first Alfie print I made. Full of energy and charging through the backyard! I'll be giving this design out as the prize for the coloring contest page you saw previously posted that appeared in DCM. They will be signed and personalized for the two winners which will be given out the end of next month once we pick the winners.

Out on the town...er, neighborhood...

2007-12-28T23:52:00.000-05:00

After a quick comb through on his hair we're out on the street. Each day is filled with new sounds and smells...I've studied Alfie's movement and shot some video to get his exact stance and how he looks when he runs so that my cartoon captures as much of his essence as possible.

Waking up is hard to do...

2007-12-28T23:44:00.001-05:00

It's a dog's life all right. He gets a prime sleeping spot on the bed. Took this shot one morning as I was getting ready for the day...

And once he hears my keys jangle as they go into my pocket, he's up and ready to go! "Yes, Alfie, we are going for your morning walk." It doesn't take much for Alfie to get ready in the morning. A few bulldozers on the bed or carpet and he's ready!

Alfie's First Coloring Contest!

2007-12-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

This is another page from the new Delaware County Magazine issue for January '08. I run a coloring contest every month for some kind of giveaway or prize and this is the first one ever featuring Alfie. It was thrown together at the last minute as well since the mag's deadline was kinda tight and it hit me late that, "Hey! Why don't I do one for Alfie?!" You'll be seeing this image in other spots probably as well. I'll get the most out of it in my style guide for Alfie. I have some color prints of Alfie that I'll be signing and mailing away to the winners of the contest!

Also below is an ad for Hollywood Hal & Rhinestone Al that I co-created. I run an ad for the boys every month as well. You can see them at www.halandal.com! It's a Pre-K winner for your young ones at home!

Alfie first newspaper strip for January 2008!

2007-12-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

Here is a first new strip I did for Alfie, It's a verbal gag but one that most small dog owners can relate to. There will be a new Alfie strip printed in Delaware County Magazine each month, which is a magazine that is in my area that I edit, design and write for. The publisher wanted a comic page and I thought Alfie would be perfect to get some exposure. So Alfie is starting off with a 120,000 copies a month run! This cartoon is in the January '08 issue which was printed this week! One of the Christmas strips ran in the December issue. His strip will also be on the magazine's website, but I'll post them here as well of course since this is also Alfie's Backyard!

Alfie's comic adventures will be on Sugary Serials which is located at www.sugaryserials.com! A great site for all kid-friendly and all ages comics! There will also be other downloadable Alfie stuff there soon. I got a lot planned! This blog will post the behind the scenes stuff and the working process to it all. A diary with art if you will!

Even though the action is static in this first cartoon, there is movement in each panel by the wag of both Alfie's tail and Pocket's tail. Even though I did not name him in the strip, the squirrel's name is Pocket and he is one of three squirrels that perplex Alfie. These other characters will all be revealed soon as I go along. There's a whole neighborhood that will be in here. Still debating if humans will be shown though...

Also, in the strip and comic book, I figure Alfie to be around 1 and a half or two years old at the most. I wanted to keep him younger since most of the stories are based on stuff from his perspective at that age that he had in real life. Which will be explained in future stories. He is also meant for younger readers so it helps to be around their age range.

The original intent for Alfie was for it to model a young reader book and be for beginning readers to help them learn to read, which is why I use larger word balloons and a more limited vocabulary. Anything I create for Alfie I want to all be consistant with what I originally set out to do and who my demographic would be. More on this later...

Merry Christmas from Alfie!

2007-12-24T16:57:00.000-05:00

Here's the front of Alfie's first Christmas card I made this week! It came out really cute! I did the background which was all painted in Photoshop and added digital snow. The beauty of working in the computer is that if you aren't happy with something you can always fix it!

Merry Christmas from Alfie and me!

An Alfie Christmas! Final art!

2007-12-24T16:55:00.000-05:00

And here's the final cartoon strip! Enjoy!

Another Alfie Christmas! Work in progress...

2007-12-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

Here's another Alfie Christmas strip based on an actual incident when Alfie was young. This is when he was around 2 years old. He's now 4 and 3/4 years old. The cookies were too low and Yorkies are like mountain goats so he was able to get the cookies.

Here is the pencil version of the strip. I loosely put in the word balloons in some spots. A lot of planning went into the drawing.

An Alfie Christmas! Part 2! The final strip!

2007-12-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

Here's the final strip! Enjoy!

An Alfie Christmas! Part 1! The pencil stage!

2007-12-24T16:33:00.000-05:00

Here's an Alfie strip for Christmas at the pencil stage. I usually letter it first in the computer to get the accurate size for the final art. Also so that all my word balloons will fit in the strip and comic book naturally and not seem like they were jammed in with a crowbar.

After the pencil work is done and is something I'm happy with, then I ink it, scan it and then color the strip and then drop the lettering right on top. Here is one that I inked roughy so it's not in pencil. I try to get the idea down as completely as I can.

The Alfie Sketchbook Preview!

2007-12-24T16:25:00.000-05:00

Here is a preview of Alfie so everyone can get an idea of what I want to do with my character based on my real doggie! Click on each image to enlarge so you can read them.

Welcome To The Backyard!

2007-12-24T16:19:00.000-05:00

Welcome To
The Adventures of Alfie

by artist Scott Neely!