I'm old, so I remember when, in 2000, PBS Kids was trying out shows for its forthcoming new line up: The Bookworm Bunch. Among those shows was 'Marvin the Tap-dancing Horse' (MtTH).
MtTH was an uninspired series with a strange blend of cartoon aesthetics. The human cast had distinctively mid-century, comic-strip stylizations, whereas the animal cast were crudely shaped and lacking in detail (on a side note, Diamonds the Elephant bears resemblance to Horton, from Dr. Seuss's 'Horton Hears a Who!').
Judging by the designs of the human cast, I presumed MtTH was based on an old series of children's books (which would make sense given MtTH was intended for The Bookworm Bunch). I was wrong about the 'old' part.
MtTH does in fact have a literary incarnation, but it seems to be contemporary with the animated series (2001) ...which makes the mid-century design choices all the more bizarre.
Perhaps of some interest, the book version MtTH was written by Betty Paraskevas, the creator of 'The Ferocious Beast with the Polka-dot Hide', i.e., 'Maggie and the Ferocious Beast').
I experimented a bit with my drawing of Marvin here. I made the undersketch with a *9H Dixon 'El Dorado' pencil, and went over the lines via an Eberhard-Faber 'Noblot Ink Pencil' (705).
*yes, 'number 9' pencils exist. ^^
Anyway, I don't usually 'ink' my work, so this draw was a little worrisome (I really didn't want to draw Marvin more than once). I think the card turned out ok (just ok, and I'm cool with that). :3
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Published:
5 years, 10 months ago
11 Jul 2020 04:17 CEST
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