A Couple of New Sketches

Here are a couple of recent sketches from the trusty 'ol sketchbook. The top one is media mogul Rupert Murdoch and below is Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Both are done in ballpoint pen on paper.

Vamp

Not a lot to say about this one. I was just sort of playing around. It started out as a straight portrait and over time it just sort of morphed into a vampire. This all Photoshop from start to finish.

Kristin Stewart Sketch

One thing I need to do all the time in order to keep up the artistic muscles is sketch. Either pencil on paper, or in this case, all done on my Mac in Sketchbook Pro and Photoshop. If I don't sketch constantly I grow rusty really fast and it makes it that much harder to get going when I have a client with a job. I keep a folder full of celebrity photos on my computer for whenever I have some down time between projects where I'll grab some reference pretty much at random and practice. This time it was "Twilight" actress Kristin Stewart (or "K-Stew" as the tabloids seem to be referring to her). She's got a great face for caricature because of her really prominent forehead and chin, which is what I chose to exaggerate here. This is after about two hours of work. I'm at that stage where I could turn it into a finished piece with a couple more hours of polishing and smoothing, but I think I'm going to leave it where it's at. It was just practice, after all, and I really like the roughness of it.

Bob Redux

 A couple things were bugging me about the likeness. I tweaked the nose and chin and I think it improves the likeness overall. 

Bob Dylan Sketch

 

I spent a couple hours tonight painting over a ballpoint pen sketch of a young Bob Dylan. Here's what I was able to accomplish.

Keith Richards

 

I'm not sure anyone should attempt to paint Keith Richards other than Sebastian Kreuger, but I tried anyway.

Sketchbook Dump

I finished up a new sketchbook. Here are a few of the better things in it.

 

Sherlock

I've been a big Sherlock Holmes fan ever since I was a kid. I've read all the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories and many, many of the pastiches that have been written over the years. I've seen dozens and dozens of movies and TV shows, including all the Basil Rathbone and (my favorite) Jeremy Brett movies. So when I heard the BBC had aired a new version set in the modern day I was, to say the least, skeptical. It turns out, Sherlock is pretty brilliant. It's funny, exciting, smart, and just plain fun. Here's my take on the two stars: Martin Freeman (Tim from the British Office) as Watson and the remarkably named Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes. BTW, if you haven't seen the show yet, I highly recommend it.

Painting Tutorial

For anyone who's interested, I wrote a digital painting tutorial to accompany the Clint Eastwood painting I posted below. It can be found over on the very excellent blog Illustration Pages. http://bit.ly/9Unl7Z

Clint

Finished this up tonight. I'm putting together a tutorial on how I painted this one. I'll post the how-to soon.

Clint Eastwood - WIP

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

Me and Stan Lee

 

Anyone who follows my work knows I paint a lot of famous people. This is the first time I ever was able to give one of my paintings directly to the person. What made today especially gratifying is that the person I painted just happened to be Stan "The Man" Lee, creator of Spider-Man, The Hulk, Iron Man and the vast majority of my childhood heroes. Today at the Detroit FanFare show I was honored to be able to present one of my signed prints to Stan Lee. Even better: he seemed pretty blown away by my work ("Brilliant," was the exact word he used). Today was a really good day.

Detroit FanFare 2010 Limited Edition Print

 

I'm excited to announce that the folks who running the Detroit FanFare Comic Convention this weekend, in honor of Stan "The Man" Lee attending, are going to be selling limited edition prints of my Stan Lee painting at the main convention table. Each print measures 9" x 12 1/2" and is printed on a very nice glossy stock. This is a limited edition of 300, and each one is signed and numbered by yours truly. In the words of the infomercials, but wait...there's more! This little beauty can be yours for a mere $15. So if you're planning on attending the show and you've got an extra fifteen bucks burning a hole in your pocket, please pick one up. Gracias.

ImagineFX

 

Another one of my illustrations is in the new issue of ImagineFX Magazine (issue #62, for those keeping score). A few months ago IFX announced they were having a zombie themed issue with a contest that involved painting their Editor-In-Chief Claire Howlett as one of the walking dead. I didn't win the contest, but I was among the four runners-up, which meant I got my illustration printed in the book. It's an honor being recognized, especially considering how fantastic so many of the entries were. And yes, if you look close you may notice for some reason they cut half of my last name off and printed it as Mark Hammer. Oh well, you win some...

They like me!

Check it out, my work is featured on the very cool website IllustrationPages.com. This site was listed as one of HOW Magazines Top 10 Websites for Designers in March 2010, so this is quite an honor. Please click over here to read more.

Nosferatu - Final

I tweaked a few more details, sharpened up some lines and added a few color tweaks. Here's the final. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I think I might try another monster or two in this style.

Nosferatu - Now With Color

Nosferatu WIP

I wanted to do at least one monster before Halloween. I'm still working on it, but here's still one of the coolest makeup jobs in film history, Nosferatu.

Ms. Marvel

After painting Stan Lee, I got on a bit of a comic book kick. Here's Marvel superheroine Ms. Marvel. This took about six hours in Photoshop.

Nashville City Paper

I had the opportunity to illustrate the cover of this week's Nashville City Paper. The article deals with Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and his choice to govern by surrounding himself with a series of "Task Forces" that consult on everything from public safety to the water department (read it here, if you're interested). City Paper Art Director Bret Pelizzari had a very clear vision of what he wanted to see. BTW, the model for the shadowy figures in the back are all me. I had my wife shoot a whole lot of reference photos of me trying to look tough. This is painted in Photoshop over a pencil sketch.