Nick Cave(man)

Here's another painting I did for this week's Caricaturam 3000 contest over on FaceBook. The subject this week was singer Nick Cave. There are ton of fantastic entries over there, so I decided to do something a little different. I was pretty much raised on a steady diet of Mad Magazine, and Mort Drucker and Jack Davis are gods to me. I think this shows their influence.

Scott Walker sketch

 

I did a little sketching to unwind before I go to sleep. Here's a speed painting of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who, as you probably know, is doing his darndest to take away the rights of state workers right now under the guise of fiscal responsibility. Yeah right. This was one hour in Photoshop.

One more Bardot

I found so many great reference photos I couldn't resist trying one more. Here's a value painting I did of Brigitte Bardot in Photoshop. Now I'm tired. Markie need sleep.

Bardot

Here's what I'm thinking will be my final submission for the Caricaturama contest. I'm tempted to tweak it a bit more here and there, but I've got other projects in the pipeline I have to get to.

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.

Cee Lo Green

Cee Lo Green's album "The Lady Killer"has been in heavy rotation on my IPhone lately. I spent a few hours tonight painting the man himself. He has a really unique shaped head that made for a fun caricature. I chose to do this in black and white in order to focus on the capturing the values. This was done in Photoshop over a ballpoint pen sketch.

Private Commission

Here's a private commission I just did of Stefan Mumaw, the incredibly talented Creative Director of Reign, a Kansas City ad agency. Stefan has authored five books on design and the creative process (I highly recommend Caffeine for the Creative Mind). I'm incredibly gratified he chose me to paint his new profile portrait. Extra thanks to the mighty Von Glitschka, who steered Stefan my way via Twitter.

Emma Stone Sketch

I did a little digital sketching tonight. This time I used a pic of actress Emma Stone (Zombieland, Easy A). This is after about two hours of painting in Photoshop.

Rupert Murdoch

I began painting the sketch I did a few days ago of media mogul Rupert Murdoch. All those wrinkles turned out to be a lot of fun to paint. I simplified my painting method a bit this time around, and I think the result came out pretty well. This was all done painting with two basic Photoshop brushes on a single layer.

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.