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.

Peter Dinklage WIP

I started painting over a ballpoint pen sketch I did of actor Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister on one of my favorite shows, Game of Thrones. My man Peter just won an Emmy for his role, so now seemed like as good a time as any. This is my result after about 90 minutes. I think I might polish it up some more and take it to a more finished piece.

Elvis WIP

 

I know, the world needs another Elvis caricature like I need another hole in my head, but here's what I'm working on right now.

Brigitte Bardot - WIP

Here's a painting I'm working on for the Caricaturama Showdown 3000 competition over on FaceBook. It's a weekly competition open to caricature artists far and wide in which every week a new subject is named and the winner is voted on by the group, and he or she gets bragging rights and also names the next week's subject. This week is French sexpot Brigitte Bardot. Here's my work in progress. I've still got a way to go.

Clint Eastwood - WIP

Working on a Clint Eastwood painting for a tutorial I'm putting together.

Stan Lee - WIP

I'm still working my way through this, but here's a sneak preview of a painting I'm doing of Stan "The Man" Lee, creator of Spiderman, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and much of the rest of my childhood. I've been doing this jumping back and forth between Photoshop and Painter.

Tilda Swinton WIP

I started this one as a personal challenge. Tilda Swinton has quite unique features, but she's definitely proven to be one of the trickier caricatures I've done. After sketching her over and over again numerous, I finally like where this one is going thus far.

Eminem WIP

Thought I'd try painting my fellow Detroit native. Still working on it.

Leonardo Dicaprio - WIP

I saw Inception over the weekend and liked it a lot. I couldn't help but notice while watching it how much Leo Dicaprio has a face that's just made for caricature. I'm still working on this one, but here's a part of this work in progress.

John Locke WIP

Here's where I'm at after a couple of hours painting. You can see here some of the decisions I made along the way to raise the cheekbones and drastically lower the top of the cranium. I think the result is a much stronger likeness overall. I'll continue to tweak the painting as I go along, tightening up the details as I go along.

Joker Preview

 

Teaser for a painting I'm doing of my favorite comic book villain, the Joker.

Work in Progress - ImagineFX cover

The Fantasy and Sci-Fi digital painting magazine has a really awesome contest going on right now for a chance to create a cover for an upcoming issue. Here's a sneak peak at my entry-in-progress. Obviously, I've still got a ways to go. I started painting in black and white, because that makes it so much easier to establish the overall tones of the painting. I would argue that getting your tones right is the most essential part of any painting. Tone is what gives your image the look of being a real object in three dimensional space. Once I have this image fully rendered in black and white, I can go over it with pretty much any color scheme and it will still look good.