Locke - Final

I think I'm pretty much finished here. I'm sure I could always go back and tweak a detail here or there, but sooner or later you always reach that point where you throw up your hands and say, "looks good to me." Well, here I am.

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.

John Locke Sketch

Ballpoint pen sketch of John Locke from my favorite TV show Lost. I might develop this into a painting.

Painting John Malkovich

I've been extraordinarily busy lately, but I still wanted to take the time to paint this. This is Photoshop over the ballpoint pen sketch seen below. You'll notice I made a number of adjustments as I went along.

Sketchbook Dump

Busy, busy, busy lately. But I still make sure I find the time to draw every day. Here are a couple of recent sketches from my sketchbook. Both done in ballpoint pen. I'm hoping it's pretty evident who they are.

Han Solo sketch

Sketching in front of the TV. Ballpoint pen and Pentel brush pen.

Rush Limbaugh

I had a job years ago where every day my boss, a die-hard Republican, would crank up Rush Limbaugh's radio show every day right at lunchtime. Having to listen to this obnoxious loudmouth every day did as much as anything to turn me into a Democrat. This was about three hours in Photoshop.

Luke Skywalker

I actually started painting this one a few weeks ago before I got sidetracked with other projects. I finally got back to it and wrapped it up. This is Photoshop over a pencil sketch.

Marty Feldman - Finished!

This is about as far as I feel like taking this one. Really, it's more or less a glorified sketch. But it was fun.

Marty Feldman

Here's a quickie painting I did of the late great Marty Feldman as Igor from Young Frankenstein. This was about two and a half hours in Photoshop.

Joker - Nearly Done

 

I'm pretty close to being done with this one. I think I need to take a step back from it for a day or so, then check back in and decide what else I need to do to complete it.

Joker Preview

 

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

Wonder Woman - Final

It's never easy to figure out if I'm truly done with a painting or not. I'm constantly tempted to go back in and tweak it here and there. But for now, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.

Wonder Woman - Work in Progress

 

Trying something a little different here. I'm using a new set of Photoshop brushes, as well as trying a few other new techniques. I still have quite a ways to go, but I'm liking my progress thus far.

Indiana Jones

I painted Indiana Jones, just for the fun of it. This is about five hours in Photoshop.

Harry Reid

There's a new tell-all book out called Game Change that spills all sorts of behind the scenes gossip surrounding the campaign trail for the 2008 election. One of the more controversial stories that came out of the book surrounded some racially insensitive comments Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly said regarding then candidate Barack Obama. This is Photoshop, over a pencil sketch. I think it demonstrates the influence the great Mort Drucker has had on my work.

Robert B. Parker

Robert B. Parker has been one of my favorite writers ever since I was a kid. I've read nearly every book he's written (and that's a lot of books). For those who don't know, his most famous creation is the fictional detective Spenser, but throughout his life he wrote many, many other novels as well, mostly in the mystery genre, but also westerns, historical fiction, love stories and even kid lit. He died today.  He  reportedly died at his desk while he was working on his latest novel. In honor, here's a speed painting I did of the man. About 90 minutes in Photoshop.

Barack Revised

I made some subtle revisions to this image to correct the overall symmetry. In reality, faces are not symmetrical, but ever still, there were areas on this portrait that needed tweaking in order to improve the overall likeness. One thing you can, and should, do as a digital painter is to periodically flip your entire image horizontally every so often. This will invariably show you parts of your image that don't look right. I did so here, and realized I needed to move one of the ears up and nudge the mouth over a bit to bring it more in line with the horizontal and vertical axes. I also went in and smoothed out the suit texture and added a bit of subtle texture to the skin to give it a punch of reality.

Barack Obama

There comes a time in every caricaturist's life when they decide to paint the President in office. Here's Barack Obama in glorious black and white. This took about four hours in Photoshop. I'll probably go back some time soon and add color, which is considerably easier to do once I have the black and white tones established, as you can see here.

ImagineFX Entry

One of my favorite magazines, ImagineFX, is having a competition to get a shot at having an illustration appear on an upcoming cover. I thought I'd give it a shot. After a couple of false starts, I decided to go back to the classics and do a take on Little Red Riding Hood.  Wish me luck.