David Letterman sketch

Here's a digital sketch of Letterman I was messing around with. I'm not sure if I'm going to clean it up or not. It's still pretty rough, but I think the likeness is there.

How to Use Vector Objects in Your Digital Paintings

I have a confession to make: I've only been digital painting for a couple of years now, and for many more years before then I did all my illustration work in vector programs like Adobe Illustrator and Flash. So even though I love digital painting with Photoshop, I still find opportunities to speed up my workflow by returning to my old vectory ways. Such was the case when I was hired to do my second cover for The New York Observer. It's a real honor getting to work for the Observer, considering the amazing array of talented illustrators that have done covers for them, and Design Director Ivy Simones is awesome to work with. But being a weekly newspaper, the deadlines are extremely tight so in order to meet my deadline I have to use every trick I know in order to produce good work in the most efficient and timely manner possible. In this particular instance, by the time I received the okay to paint my original sketch, I had a little bit over one day to do the final illustration. I used to work a few years ago as an art director for a monthly magazine so I know how important it is for me as an illustrator to do everything in my power to make the AD's life easier on deadline day. The editors were pretty specific in their request for not only doing a caricature of author Martin Amis and three other New York scribblers, but also they wanted a typical NY brownstone apartment building, a fence and even the Brooklyn Bridge in the final image. Whenever I have complex objects like buildings to illustrate, I find it's easier for me to first build the underlying structure of the object in vectors, then paint over those shapes. I used Adobe Illustrator to build the foundation of my background objects, but Photoshop's pen and shape tools can be used pretty much the same way as Illustrator.

I started building the fence first. I used the pen tool to draw a simple shape for the one of the slats.

Next, I wanted to give the object a little dimension, so I selected Copy (Command + C, or Control + C on a PC), then Paste in Back (Command + B). With the background object still selected I used the arrow keys to nudge it over to the right a little bit until it looked like this:

 

There I had my first fence slat. I copied the object several times. In Illustrator you can do this quickly by selecting the object, then by holding down the Option and Shift keys while dragging the object to the right to create an exact duplicate of the fence. I did this several times, then added a long skinny rectangular cross-beam on top until the finished piece looked like this:

 I continued this process of creating simple shapes and setting them each up on individual layers until I ultimately had the barebones version of my background.

Then, piece by piece, I selected the individual elements from my vector background and pasted them into my Photoshop document as Smart Objects (you won't need to do this step if you build your pieces in Photoshop to begin with).

 I went back to work on my fence again. I used the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop to select the top and bottom section of my first fence slat like so:

 Then, because I knew time was short, I chose to add a real wood texture from a photograph. I dug up a cheap stock photo of some wood planks. Then used the Marquee Tool to select one of the planks. I selected Copy (Command + C), then returning to the selection I made in my vector object I chose the Paste Into command (Command + Shift + V). This actually auto-generates an editable mask around the texture and placing it on a new layer that fits perfectly.

And it looks like this:

I repeated this process for each of the wood slats until I had the entire fence built. After that, I went back in and reduced the transparency on each of my wood texture shapes. Then I used some custom brushes I've put together over the years, and painted over the wood textures so that they blended into the rest of the illustration. Lastly, I painted some shadows I on a Multiply layer. The complete fence looked like this:

I did much the same thing by pasting in some brick textures into the main structure of the brownstone. This saved me a ton of time I would have otherwise had to spend paintstakingly rendering each individual brick. If I'd had more time I probably would have done just that, but time was at a premium and even by taking these shortcuts, I still ended up finishing the illustration with literally minutes to spare before my deadline. Ivy was happy, which of course made me a happy boy as well.

New York Observer

My second New York Observer cover is on the newsstands today. Thanks again to Super Design Director Ivy Simones, who is all around awesome to work with. They were pretty specific this time around what they wanted. The cover article deals with the famous British author Martin Amis moving to Brooklyn. They interviewed several other New York authors and asked them what they thought of this move (hint: most of them don't like him). Behind the fence, from left to right are authors Jonathan Ames, Jonathan Safran Foer and Jennifer Egan. Here's a bigger version of the illustration.

Natalie Portman

Here's a digital painting I did of Natalie Portman for the latest Caricaturama challenge over on FaceBook. The reference shot I used is from the movie "Closer", which I've never actually seen (although I probably should, considering she plays a stripper). I really loved the colors from the photo and thought it would be cool to try to capture them here.

Obama and Paul Ryan

Here's a self-promotional image I've been working on of President Obama and Representative Paul Ryan, who each released competing budget plans within the last couple weeks. I got the idea of depicting the two of them in a tussle after hearing the President invited Ryan to sit in the front row while he unveiled his own plan, simultaneously trashing Ryan's plan for destroying Medicare as we know it and giving big more tax breaks to the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else.

David Hasselhoff

I took my little boy to see the movie Hop this weekend and it was completely horrible. It did contain an extended cameo from The Hoff, and as I watched him on the giant screen I started to formulate how I would do his caricature. Here's the result.

Daniel Day Lewis

Here's a painting of Daniel Day Lewis I did for this week's Caricaturama challenge over on Facebook. The reference for this one comes from one of my favorite movies I've seen Lewis in, There Will Be Blood. I intentionally kept the brushstrokes blocky and I was certainly channeling my inner J.C. Leyendecker here.

Michelle Bachman sketch

Quickie digital sketch of crazy-eyed Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman. About 20 minutes in Photoshop.

New York Observer cover

I was extremely honored to be able to a cover recently for The New York Observer. For years, The Observer has published covers by some of the finest illustrators in the world. It's like the Justice League of Illustration: Drew Friedman! Victor Juhasz! Philip Burke! Edel Rodriguez! Robert Grossman! Barry Blitt! Jason Seiler! Dale Stephanos! And the list goes on and on. I'm humbled to be in such company (although I think it makes me more the Gleek the purple monkey of this particular group of Superfriends). Design Director Ivy Simones was awesome to work with (as well as being one heckuva designer). The cover is of SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. The article is highly critical of the job Ms. Schapiro's been doing, but the thing that struck me about the article was despite the growing criticism, everyone seems to still like her. That made me think there must be something about this Mary woman, which led me to doing this parody of the poster for the movie "There's Something About Mary".

Sharon Stone Sketch

Digital sketch of Sharon Stone for a Caricaturama challenge over on FaceBook. Painted in Photoshop.

Liz Sketch

Lunchtime sketch of Liz Taylor. Drawn in ballpoint pen.

Guy Fieri Sketch

Doing some sketching in Photoshop. This is celebrity chef and TV host Guy Fieri. About 90 minutes in Photoshop.

Prints for Sale

I just started a new venture with my new bud, the great British illustrator and comic book artist Des Taylor. Des has begun an artist's collective known as "The Lost 20" of which he asked me to join. You can purchase limited edition prints of my or any of the other great artists in the collective on the site. Check it out here:

http://despop.co.uk/?page_id=4&category=11

Reality Queens for Playboy

I was extremely honored to be able to do my first spot illustrations for Playboy. Senior Art Director Bruce Hansen was a pleasure to work with. The column by comedian Lisa Lampanelli deals with the trouble involved with dating today's reality TV stars. Here's Kate Gosselin, Kim Kardashian and everybody's darling Snooki.

Elvis Presley

 

And here's the final. Uh-huh-huh!

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.

Paul Giamatti sketch

Here's a digital sketch of actor Paul Giamatti I did tonight. This is about 90 minutes in Photoshop.

Muammar Gadaffi

Here's a digital painting I did of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadaffi. This started as a simple sketch in Sketchbook Pro, then kept developing into a final piece.

Another caricature commission

Here's a new commission I did of a marketing professional and cool dude named Blain Skinner.

Charlie Sheen sketch

Here's a rough sketch I painted today of the current Jerk-of-the-Moment Charlie Sheen. This about an hour and a half in Photoshop.