Not that long ago I posted a retro looking Evel Knievel picture I did on my phone while I was spending time in Syracuse. Eagle-eyed viewers may notice the early workings of an animated take on Evel that were done in my sketchbook too. After working on the Six Million Dollar Man piece, I started thinking about other people that never got the Saturday morning cartoon treatment, so I circled back to this. I had an idea of what I wanted to do. While I looked at my old drawings, I didn't stay with them. I didn't even look at photos either, which is very odd for me. I actually nailed down what I wanted in my drawing VERY quickly! The only change I decided to make was that I figured he should be holding the helmet rather than just placing it at his feet. I then started thinking about other characters that would be on a cartoon show with Evel and figured he needed a mechanic. And then thought it should be an attractive girl! I called her "Speed". But you can't stop at just one extra character either, and since almost every adult character on Saturday morning cartoons had a pet or kid sidekick. I went with the kid. I named him "Scooter". He started out as a skinny kid with glasses, and a helmet too. He then became a fat kid. I then thought that the mechanic should have the glasses so I had the weird idea that he should have an eye patch. I went with it. It was in the coloring stage that I got the idea that "Speed" should be black. Once I made the change I kind of liked how she reminded me of Halle Berry when she had short hair. I also that she would be cool for the voice too, and if I had Halle Berry for a voice then I could have Nicolas Cage as Evel and Cory Feldman as Scooter! Ha!
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| I didn't keep the red hair. |
This part was a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. Plus, I don't like drawing motorcycles. I should have started with this one and got it out of the way. I did toy with the idea of coloring Evel's suit blue for this pose and then changed my mind back. I figured cartoon characters on Saturday mornings almost never changed their clothes and it might also make people think that it was an additional character.
To make matters worse than not doing the motorcycle first, I also failed to get the drawing of the Scramble Van out of the way too. In fact, I had gone with my wife to Epcot that morning to meet a Disney artist I admire (Steve Thompson), we chatted for a bit, and we even discussed our mutual dislike for drawing vehicles. I went home that afternoon, sat down and then realized that I needed to draw the van! If you don't know, the Evel Knievel Scramble Van was a toy sold in the 1970's to go along with Evel and his stunt bike. I never had one and I don't remember any of my friends having one either.
So, while I was working on the sketches, I also started to find reference for cartoon ads that ran in comic books and wanted to evoke that. I clipped pieces and then "frankensteined" the pieces into a file to work out the composition.
I initially started out simply re-creating the logo I found in comic book ads, but once I had it open in Illustrator, I thought why not experiment and freshen up the fonts a bit. I didn't change it too much.
Once the logo was done, it was fairly simple to recreate the rest of the type that I had clipped from the comic books and voila! As a bit of fun, I also pasted it into an old comic book.
Here is a bonus for visiting my site rather than social media, a coloring page you can print and enjoy!
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