John Pound's
1991 Wacky Packages art process

Shown below are the main steps of how John Pound made his paintings for the 1991 Wacky Packages. Other artists on the series may have worked differently (such as painting directly on their pencil art).
Pencil, color rough, and final artwork image size is about 5" x 7" on 8.5" x 11" paper.

Topps' idea roughs
were created by various artists (I don't know who did this one). Topps selected which ideas to use, and then Topps art director Mark Newgarden sent me some of the roughs to use as guides in creating the final artwork.

On other projects (Garbage Pail Kids, Meanie Babies, etc.), I usually created my own idea sketches.
My pencil art
was done at 5" x 7" (twice printed size) on plain paper, using blue pencil first to layout the main forms. Sometimes, as above, all my pencilling was on one piece of paper. Other times (more recently), I've traced on tracing paper over my rough layout, to make a cleaner image. I faxed a copy of my pencil art to the art director, for any possible revisions.

I did my color rough
on a copy of my pencil art, to choose my colors, locate the light and shadow areas, and see how the overall painting would look, before I started the final art. It is easier to make any changes at this stage.
My final artwork
was done on heavier card stock paper, on another copy of my pencil art. I used acrylics. Sometimes I used airbrush, to shade the larger forms more smoothly. I did my lettering by hand (not press-on type).

Topps' idea roughs were created by various artists (I don't know who did this one). Topps selected which ideas to use, and then Topps art director Mark Newgarden sent me some of the roughs to use as guides in creating the final artwork. On other projects (Garbage Pail Kids, Meanie Babies, etc.), I usually created my own idea sketches.	My pencil art was done at 5" x 7" (twice printed size) on plain paper, using blue pencil first to layout the main forms. Sometimes, as above, all my pencilling was on one piece of paper. Other times (more recently), I've traced on tracing paper over my rough layout, to make a cleaner image. I faxed a copy of my pencil art to the art director, for any possible revisions.
I did my color rough on a copy of my pencil art, to choose my colors, locate the light and shadow areas, and see how the overall painting would look, before I started the final art. It is easier to make any changes at this stage.	My final artwork was done on heavier card stock paper, on another copy of my pencil art. I used acrylics. Sometimes I used airbrush, to shade the larger forms more smoothly. I did my lettering by hand (not press-on type).