~ Auto Buzz ~: Toon Up! The automotive art of Mark Ervin

“High Flyin’ Moon Shot” by Mark Ervin. All images courtesy of Mark Ervin and Art-N-Motion.

What might an animator’s dream job be? To work for Pixar or Disney? Maybe Marvel? How ’bout getting to scribble away on the longest-running television show-animated or otherwise-in American history? Such was artist Mark Ervin’s lot for 23 years. In that time, he worked variously as animator, storyboard artist, assistant director and director on The Simpsons as well as on Rugrats, Rocko’s Modern Life and Futurama, this last, by the way, inspired by the futuristic world imagined by GM midcentury. But where does a creative fellow go from there? Why, back to the drawing board, of course!

Mark’s been drawing since he could hold a pencil, and because he’s been a car guy for just about as long, that means he’s pretty darn good at doodling our favorite subject. “I no longer have the tongue out, making rev-rev engine noises,” he laughs, “I’m more thinking about the technical aspects of the cars.” In the June 2015 issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines, we get into Mark’s backstory, but here, in the wide-open spaces of the Internet, where there’s no such thing as page counts, and everything is in full, luminescent color, we get to dive into his automotive art.

This is how all of Mark’s full-color art starts: as a quick “blue-line” sketch, rendered wholly from his imagination and usually in less than an hour. Blessed with what is very nearly a photographic memory, he’s able to release the unique essence and energy of each vehicle he draws. ”My challenge at the blue-line point,” he explains, “is to get all the energy, to get everything out of the drawing as fast as I can… I just keep going fast. I take a breath maybe every 10 minutes.”

Though the next phases in the process of rendering a finished full-color work of art are done using an electronic pen and a computer instead of their traditional counterparts in the physical world, the procedure of experimenting with color and line are no less inspired, artistic or arduous, than they were when humans began painting on cave walls in France 30 millennia ago.

Mark explains that, for years, employing a computer to draw cartoons had been looked down upon, and when people first started using them in that way, he asserted that he would never render on a computer. “It’s too fake. It’s too easy of a tool. And at that time, I didn’t know anything about it.” Though he admits now that he had seen, “a glimmer of possibility.”

Then, while Mark was working on The Simpsons, technology developed sufficiently enough where it became possible to create images that looked hand drawn and colored, and, what’s more, it allowed animators to experiment in ways that their tight time constraints would never have permitted before.

“When we started using the computer, you could manipulate the positions of the vehicles more easily, and when we were doing the storyboards using the computer, I got good at it… I don’t want my drawings to look like Vector drawings [drawings made using a piece of graphic software]. I still want them to look like they were done with traditional media.”

As you can see in the three images above, a cartoon image—both when created in the traditional way or using computer software—is comprised of several transparent layers, or “cels.” The quick blue-line sketch, gets traced over in black on another cel, incorporating corrections and refinements informed by studying reference photos or one of his 100-plus models, while an underlying layer is “blocked” ["painted"] with color.

The final, full-color rendering is the sum of countless changes made across they various layers. Even with a computer, this is labor intensive, taking between 40 and 60 hours to complete. Think about it: A single piece of art could take one-and-a-half 40-hour work weeks to finish!

This colorful piece is titled “Henry J’s Dream” and is part of Mark’s Dreamer Series. It depicts, parked in a used-car lot beneath the familiar glow of an “OK USED CARS” sign, one of the short-run Henry Js manufactured by Kaiser in the early Fifties. Despite having to share the stage with showier, more formidable automobiles, this Henry J isn’t downhearted, not by a long shot. Rather, he’s dreaming big.

Mark shares the thinking behind the rendering: “So, it’s sitting on a car lot, dreaming of being an all-balls drag car. It hits a specific genre: the middle of the gasser time, right as it was going into the Seventies, where those light bodies were getting used less, but the paint was getting more flamboyant… I thought it would be fun to do it from the perspective of this little plain-jane dude on a used car lot…”

As a professional animator and director creating successful cartoons for television, Mark got very good at being able to tell stories visually. In this blue-line drawing of another work in his Dreamers series—this one, entitled “Wendell’s Car”—Mark very economically plants the seeds for an entire narrative:

The greaser, a likable car guy that many of us can probably see ourselves in, has just written a check. He beams as he daydreams about how he will customize his 1949 Merc and cruise it around with pride, showing it off to the guys, maybe taking his best girl to a movie in it.

While the original owner, a kindly old lady, rests her hand gently on its fender—her face, that unique mix of happiness and sadness that comes from thinking about sweet times in the past spent with loved ones… Maybe her husband (the “Wendell” of the title) of many years who would normally have been the one to do the business of selling the car but who has since passed… Perhaps children, and, later, grandchildren, kicking the back of the seats in the two-door, as they all rode along the town’s tree-lined streets to ballgames, church, amusement parks, graduations, weddings, funerals, births…

See Mark’s rare gift? From this one, spare sketch, an entire world—complete with characters, plot, a future and a past—stretches out, and even touches the heart of the audience on this side of the canvas.

There are few car guys who are as omnivorous in their appreciation for motorized wheeled vehicles as Mark, and his galleries prove it. From American muscle cars, station wagons, hot rods and trucks, to sports cars, coupes, sedans and even microcars from all over the world, he loves and draws them all. In doing so, he uses the unique techniques of the cartoon to not only bring out the individual character of a car, but in commissions, to even echo elements of the character of the owner him- or herself in their car.

This isn’t quite caricature, but it’s related, and Mark takes inspiration for drawing his vehicles and people from a variety of artists ranging from Michelangelo, whose sketches exhibit a flowing energy also present in Mark’s blue lines, to pinup artists of the ’40s and ’50s, like Bill Medcalf and those whose work featured in and Sports Afield and Field & Stream, to Disney cartoonist Fred Moore (who was also known for his style in drawing pretty girls) and Chuck Jones, of Looney Toons fame. The influence of these artists is especially evident in Mark’s female characters as in the above picture titled “’62 Beetle.” He thinks “She may be one of the more appealing models I’ve drawn.”

Springing from his own childhood dream of designing cars, Mark’s reverence for those who had the vision and the talent to create exceptional automobiles is always present, and few cars can be considered more exceptionally beautiful than the 1931 Cadillac V-12, with its semi-custom body, seen in the early commissioned piece above.

Mark doesn’t just appreciate automobiles; he’s rather fond of people, too. And with a Midwestern personality that is as easy-going as it is hardworking, Mark seems to have managed to hold onto a childlike wonder and sense of humor. When these traits combine with his sensitivity and life experience, the result is artwork like the one above, called “Norm’s Send-Off.”

Norm Grabowski, known to many as the “Father of the T-bucket” for his Kookie Car and his influence on the world of 1950s hot rodding, passed away on October 12, 2012. “I did the original sketch,” Mark remembers, “the day news was released of his death… After posting it on the HAMB, Norm’s niece Mary contacted me and commissioned a finished version … for a show board and his memorial gathering.”

Below you’ll find a gallery containing some of Mark’s work. Just imagine that the Sunday funnies—or “edumacation” as my dad calls them—came a few days late, and spend some of your Tuesday smiling at them. And to prove that great art can be affordable, we’re going to actually list the prices right here: Prints begin at around $20.00 for 14 inches x 17 inches, $35-50 for larger prints and $140-150 for limited-edition, signed Giclèe prints. Commissions begin at around $150.00 for pencil renderings, $550-$1500 for full-color digital renderings.

To see more or to purchase, visit Mark’s website by clicking here. You may also contact him by calling 402-887-2280.