Christian Bale

Christian Bale did something pretty classy yesterday when he visited the victims of the Aurora, Colorado shooter. Here's a painting I did of him. I even managed to squeeze in a couple of hidden Bat logos.

Audrey Tatou

Here's my entry for this week's Caricaturama 3000 challenge on Facebook. This is French actress Audrey Tatou in her signature role from the movie Amelie.

Jack White Sketch

Today's warm-up sketch was of Jack White, formerly of the White Stripes and now carrying on one heck of a great solo career.

Bruce Campbell

Here's a painting I did of one of personal favorites, the great Bruce Campbell. If you haven't seen the Evil Dead films, especially Army of Darkness, then you really need to sign up for Netflix and get watching now. The reference for this illustration, incidentally, comes from Evil Dead 2, to be precise. Above is the final color version. Below I thought you'd like to see the black and white painting that lies beneath. I don't always work with this method, but sometimes you can create some great effects by painting entirely in grayscale first, then use a series of color, overlay and multiply layers in Photoshop to create some very cool effects. I thought the overall caricature ended up having a bit of a Graham Ingels Tales from the Crypt look. The wacky color scheme above shows the heavy influence of the great Basil Gogos, who painted most of the Famous Monsters of Filmland covers when I was growing up.

Tattoo You

This has to be one of the cooler tributes to my work that I can imagine. Tattoo artist Rich Pineda was asked to recreate my Bela Lugosi painting in
Ink. He did a fantastic job, and I'm really flattered.

New Store Open!

Recently, I've been getting requests for prints of my work, so I'm happy to announce the opening of my brand new Etsy store, where I will be selling signed, limited edition prints of my work.  Check it out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/MarkHammermeister

George Lucas Sketch

Sketching George Lucas. About 90 minutes in Photoshop.

R.I.P. Ray Bradbury

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so as long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away." - Fahrenheit 451

 I was sad to hear that Ray Bradbury died today. I had what could be described as a "troubled childhood". No need to get into details, but when things were rough one place I could always turn to in order to get away from my troubles were with books. One of my favorite authors back then was Ray Bradbury, who introduced me to Martians and monsters and book-burning firemen and evil carnivals and so much more. Thank you, Ray, for everything. Rest in peace.

Mitt Romney

Just finished a painting of Mitt Romney I've been working on an off on for a couple of weeks now. Painted in Photoshop.

Audrey Hepburn, for a Wittygraphy caricature contest.

Oregon Duck

This was an unusual, but fun, project I did a while back. I was hired to paint the University of Oregon Duck mascot in a portrait style for some merchandising.

NY Observer Cover

My newest NY Observer cover is on newsstands today. The article is about the new style of racism in the world, in which public figures (such as John Galliano, Taki Theodoracopoulus and Ashton Kutcher, seen here) say and do things that range from the racially insensitive to the morally reprehensible. This was another fun assignment. Thanks as always to Lauren Draper.

Hulk Sketch

This is a little sketch painting I did as a tribute to my favorite scene in The Avengers. If you've seen the movie, then you'll know what I'm talking about. If you're one of the two people who hasn't seen it yet, I won't spoil it.

The Commercial Observer

I painted the cover to this week's Commercial Observer "Power 100" issue. The Commercial Observer is one of the sister pubs to the New York Observer. The Power 100 is their annual listing of the top movers and shakers in New York's commercial real estate industry. The trick here was being able to include five figures in the space while giving them something to do; in this case, building the headline. Thanks to Scott and Jotham for a fun assignment.

ImagineFX Image of the Month

Very cool news. My Helena Bonham Carter caricature is the featured Image of the Month in the latest issue of ImagineFX magazine. A few years ago when I decided I wanted to learn how to paint digitally, I began seeking out tips and tutorials everywhere I could. ImagineFX was one of the sources I turned to monthly (still do, actually). Flash forward to today and one of my paintings won one of the weekly forum challenges (a caricature challenge, of course) and is now appearing in the pages of the magazine that helped me learn many of the skills I apply on a daily basis.

The Mortgage Observer

This was a fun little project. I was commissioned by Carl Gaines at The Mortgage Observer (sister publication of The New York Observer) to paint two portraits of a couple of the magazine's columnists. The trick here was to not get too sucked into painting lots of tiny details since these would ultimately print at only a couple of inches tall.

Jennifer Lawrence - Final

I really liked how the sketch I did of Jennifer Lawrence turned out, so I decided to take it to a more finished state.

Jennifer Lawrence Sketch

90 minute sketch of actress Jennifer Lawrence from The Hunger Games.

George Takei

This is a very last minute painting I did for an art fundraiser I just found out about in honor of George Takei's 75th birthday called Takei Back the Night. I knew I wanted to paint Sulu and I thought, why not let my geek hang all the way out and paint the Mirror Universe version, scar and all.

And then this happened...

So apparently Norman Reedus really liked my painting of him.