by Bob Al-Greene
AL-GREENE: “I wish I had some sketches of the mushroom cloud cartoon, because that went through a lot of stages before I settled on one specific idea. I wish I had more sketches in general, but I honestly don’t do a lot of sketching other than dinky little thumbnails. I do, however, have the page of Bush sketches I went through before getting it right. His hairstyle is kind of tough for me to render for some reason, which is why I tried the disastrous hat at the bottom right. The note at bottom left points to a head I drew before going out for the evening. It’s a note to myself reading “I think this one – what do you think?” Because my perceptions always change after walking away from a piece for a while.
That’s another step in my process on a final cartoon – taking a small break when I don’t need to just to get away from the piece, because if I don’t see anything but my cartoon for long enough, it starts to look good no matter what.
The headless face on the far right was based on Tom Tomorrow’s rendition of Bush, which he of course never varies. It looks better in his style, so I eventually went with the head on the far left.”