Although the concept is named 'Mad Tom's Farm', it was never started as a vehicle based around Tom. When we started the original newspaper strip our idea was to focus mainly on Rufus who we envisioned as a young man who sumbles across the Farm. We were aiming for a more adult market (believe it or not, we were trying for the Daily Sport! Naturally we didn't sell it to them but later managed to sell our other strip 'Flasher Mac') in a way we were lucky that we didn't get the strip into the Sport as it would have been a very different story now!
Anyway, we knew that we needed to have a partner for Rufus so Dalton was born. I think Cool Bob eventully appeared a bit later into the series as an antedote to Rufus and Daltons madness and craziness. So as much as I love the character of our Cool Bob, and all the other characters, Rufus and Dalton almost feel like my children to me. (Bizarre!)
Whilst going through my old paintings of the gang, it dawned on me that I drew Dalton the most, even more than Rufus. I reckon if the end of the world was going to come and I could only save one charcter from a fiery end it'd have to be Dalton.
This illo was just done on the spur of the moment, it's obviously Dalton but I was messing around a bit more with his normal set colours. Take note students!! His fur is a lot darker than it should be (Burnt Sienna instead of Yellow Ochre, Windsor and Newton fans) and shock horror.....his hair is red instead of green!! Don't know why I picked green, I guess just to make him that bit more human, I mean, most rabbits have brown hair don't they (apart from the old rabbit who lives in my local woodland, that one has a lovely permed blue rinse) so in conclusion, I actually prefer him with his original colours but you've gotta try eh?
I still use this image as a logo for my letterheads and other business related nonsense.
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