It’s been really sad times.

There’s no nice way of saying this, but I lost my little brother on the 1st May. It is by far the hardest thing I’ve had to deal with for a very long time. In fact, I don’t think I’m ‘Dealing’ with it very well at all. It’s mid-July now and I still feel like he’s still there ready to take a phone call at any minute. But he’s gone. He was only 49. He was a great bloke and growing up, was a great kid, we grew up very close. His funeral was special, lots of family and friends came to say goodbye. RIP Nat xxx

Drawing to keep my mind occupied…

Sort of following on from my Hannah Barbera character poster/series, I decided to ‘Zombify’ the Flintstones, which went well, I think, you can be the judge of that….

Then came June*… Re-drawing some old art from 1995 to 1998

(*and the first couple of weeks of July)

Going Through Old Sketchpads

Like you do.
Well, I’m sorting out a couple of cupboards and I had about 6 big boxes full of old sketchpads, a huge pile of loose drawings, doodles and finished art and a load of poetry notepads. Whilst sorting these out, I came across a pile of Warner Bros Looney Tunes characters that I drew back in 1996 and 1998 and decided to re-draw them digitally.
They’ve been fun to revisit, re-draw and colour digitally, but I’m not sure whether they deserve their own page or not.

Anyhow, here they all are:

Bugs Bunny redraw 2026 — Bugs Bunny 1995 / 2026

That’s All Folks! …. or is it?

NO! Of course it isn’t!
I’ve also been redrawing some of my drawings too, Nana (Nar-nah) and his fruity friends…

What else you been drawing Dean?

Well, Scooby Doo and Fangface, thank you for asking! In the style of Mandelas, they are striking in both black and white AND coloured…

So, that’s about all I’ve been drawing over the couple of months or so. I’ve just been trying to keep my mind from thinking too much and getting too low about my brother, I miss him SO much. Here’s to you little bro, xxx

WOOHOO! My Hanna Barbera ‘Trading Cards’ are now finished!

It’s been a HUGE project, with tons of research, tons of analysing, recording and noting, with so many characters!
What started out as just a bit of ‘Fan-Fun’, has become such an EPIC project that I’m STILL working on bits of it to make it as perfect as I can, mainly out of respect for William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, but also for others to enjoy.

I tink that’s how and why the ‘trading cards’ idea came to be. I’d seen others create card-like copies of Hanna Barbera characters whilst drawing all the characters for my poster and thought it would be a shame to have all these drawings just sitting on my hard drive, when they could be out there, on the internet for everyone to enjoy and remember, or learn about!

So I rustled up a simple but stylish design, featuring a different colour scheme per decade of first release, then after each character features on their own individual card, a ‘Group’ card follows, featuring all of the characters from that cartoon together on that ‘Group’ card. Every card has the year of first release, the name of the character and the title of the cartoon series that the character originated from. I’m in the process of adding all 1532 cards to Pinterest – 1532 Hanna Barbera Characters so be sure to pop there to see them appear! Here’s a sneak preview of some of them;

Heard of ‘Red Bus Russ’?

I drew a portrait of him during a bit of down-time

And it was really well-received! Woo and Yay!

Whilst checking and re-checking my Hanna Barbera piece, before it goes to print, I fancied something different, so started doodling different stuff, whilst doing so, I finished a portrait of an awesome content creator that I follow. His content is mainly about how awesome it is to be a Brit. (He’s not a Brit, but he found love with a Brit and has moved to the UK and his content is a funny look at the differences he finds between the US of A and the UK. He’s been great for me during tough times, to see the funny side of life. Here’s a link to his page on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/RedBusRussVlogs

and here’s the portrait;

It’s not one of my most detailed pieces, but I’m happy with it and it was great fun to draw (even despite that much beard-hair!)

Anyhoo, I emailed it over to Russ and was delighted to get a lovely reply –

“Hi Dean,
Thank you so much for the art, I absolutely love it! I wonder if I could have permission to use it on my social media accounts and post about it with credit to you?”

I absolutely love getting positive feedback on my art, so this has made my day and hopefully it might bring some much needed new folks over to follow me on my socials!

Personal Hanna-Barbera Mission Complete*

*Well, almost complete. 99% there, I’ve just got to get the poster or canvas printed and it’ll be 100% finished.
I’m excited though I’ve been digitally drawing like a machine for 7 months, over 6 months on my Hanna Barbera project! If you like cartoons, you’ll definitely see one of your favourite Hanna Barbera cartoons in it! Click on the link below or visit my projects section to see how it all went:

https://pickledpizzaart.wordpress.com/projects/projects-pickle-draws-hanna-barbera

And as soon as it’s printed, I’ll get a photo of me with it, and post it here (and on that page!)

OOOOoooOOOooh!

It’s Halloween … again?

Well Hello again,

It’s been another weird year, most of which saw me throw a small, sulky hissy-fit, giving up on all drawing, partially because hours and hours (weeks, actually) of designing, re-working and drawing two sets of cards for Upper Deck on behalf of Marvel saw all the designs shipped off to California, for both sets of cards being decided to not even be sold. Which means, because of a contract and legal reasons, I am unable to show ANY of the designs anywhere. This is the biggest frustration of them all really, all that excitement but nothing to prove the hard work.
This wouldn’t have been enough to stop me drawing though, that came later, as less and less enthusiasm for my art became a bit of a problem for me to deal with. Mainly mentally, which is something I’ve always struggled with, but this time, after dealing with Ocean’s scoliosis, then heart problems, and Vikki’s breast cancer, which has been especially hard to deal with for the past 2 years (she’s still receiving aftercare treatment) add to that having my own disability issues etc etc I guess my brain just shut down and I couldn’t see the point in working hard for little or no rewards anymore, even getting new followers seems impossible, hey-ho.

But I’m drawing again! Woo-hoo!

Back in August, as the end of the school summer hols, I started feeling a bit better about things, so I fired up the laptop and my drawing screen (XP-Pen 16) and started drawing some old classics, starting with Spongebob Squarepants, for no particuar reason, but rather than the slog of recording me drawing it all, editing it into a video etc, I just enjoyed drawing each character individually, drawing a new background, then saving them all as transparent PNGs, I culd make a video at a later date, showing each character individually, so more ‘post-work’ than ‘me creating the work’, just to take some of the thinking out of it, so I could enjoy the process a bit more.
I’ve drawn quite a few since then, posting them mainly on Facebook, but adding a few to Instagram and Tik-Tok when I’ve had the time or the energy.

I’ll be adding them all to my recents gallery soon, but this week has been taken up with the dentist, spending several days bed-bound, and trying to finish colouring books to hand out to all the trick-or-treaters for Halloween night.