Princess Leia

One of my very favorite apps for the Mac is Autodesk's Sketchbook Pro. I use it all the time for sketching because it's digital pencils feel just about as close to the real thing as you can get. I use the pencils so much I've kind of neglected the other great tools the program has. Last night I tried to rectify that by playing with the digital markers and brushes. The result is this sketch of Princess Leia.

New York Observer

It was my turn for another NY Observer cover this week. This week's cover story was about the current outrage over the SOPA and PIPA bills that were getting rammed through Congress before public outcry as well as several very visible protests by several major websites put those bills on hold. The article focuses in particular on the fact that most of the Congressionsl leaders (such as Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, seen here) don't have a clue about how the Internet actually works. Thanks to Lauren and Scott at the NYO for another fun job.

Martin Luther King sketch

Today is Martin Luther King Day, so in honor I did a sketch of the great man over lunch. Ballpoint pen in the ol' sketchbook.

Final Helena Bonham Carter

I'm calling this one done. I wasn't digging the original color scheme, but I think it all came together when I decided to use green as my focal color. The hair was particularly fun to paint, and probably took nearly as long as the entire rest of the image. Her hair is actually more brown, but I darkened it here in order to blend in better with the background.

NEW! I just heard a very cool development. This caricature won the weekly MYFX challenge over on the forums for one of my very favorite magazines ImagineFX. There were a bunch of great entries so I'm flattered that I won the most votes. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

HBC- wip 3

I have the main structure worked out o. HBC. Now it's all about working out the fine details, such as the hair from here.

Helena Bonham Carter - Progress

More progress on HBC. Once I'm happy with the overall structure, I start zooming in very tight and begin working with a progression of smaller and smaller brushes to tighten up details.

Helena Bonham Carter - WIP

This is the very early stage of a painting I'm doing of Helena Bonham Carter in full Bellatrix Lestrange garb. This is the block-in stage, and I'll be the first to admit it looks pretty ugly right now. For those interested in such things, what I've done thus far in Photoshop is do my sketch on a separate layer, then on another layer below and one above the sketch layer, I've begun laying in rough color with a basic hard round Photoshop brush I've made a few tweaks to. From here I'll continue tightening up details and moving on to using a couple of other custom brushes as well.