From the Walking Dead, Michonne...[Completed]

And she is DONE! To be honest this isn't exactly how I thought this would turn out. I like it, but I can see that I've dug myself a rut with my color palette choices. Need to make a conscious effort to pull away from that. That being said, it was fun. I did make a copy of the line work,  so maybe I'll revisit it later. Ideas, anyone? I would love to get some feedback,  and please don't go easy on me. In the meantime,  enjoy!

Michonne from Walking Dead [Work in Progress]

Hey guys, sorry about the long delay. I've been procrastinating...not a good reason, that. I think I was hoping to do something non-caricature but that hasn't happened yet...so we cross another celeb off the list instead. I'm not entirly sure how but I got myself roped into the Walking Dead Cult. And Michonne is so badass! Got the linework finished tonight. We'll see if I can't get this done in another day or so.

Machete!

Hey people, feels good to be writing a new post again. I've been wanting to do a Danny Trejo caricature for a while, so I'm glad I finally pulled myself out of the mini artist-block I've had for the past month and did it. It doesn't feel as adventurous colorwise as I might have liked but what a fun face to draw! I give you Machete!

Danny Trejo 

With my mind on my money and my money on my mind...

Finally got this Snoop caricature done! Can't lie, I'm pretty stoked about how this turned out [especially since the likeness feels pretty solid]. I'm still planning one with him doing the mean mug thing, but this satisfies nicely in the meantime.

If you guys have any comments/ suggestions or critiques, please send them my way. Later.

Big Snoop Dogg: Round 2 [Work in Progress]

You guys might remember I posted the line work for a Snoop caricature a little over a week ago. I was planning on posting the finished piece today, but somewhere along the way I  succeeded in losing the likeness. I feel like it's a good drawing and I'm happy with the rendering, but the primary directive as a caricature artist is likeness. I'll let you guys judge.

Anyway, I went back to the drawing board and came up with a different composition.  It lacks Snoop's trademark scowl, but all in all I just like it better. Hopefully I can get it done by tomorrow night. Wish me luck!

#snoopdoggcaricature2

Today was a good day...

It's February! Finally, I can put this up! I'm trying to spread out my posts a bit, but I'm kinda impatient by nature, so I struggle with that. Anyways, after doing the Tupac and Biggie caricatures a while back I started thinking of doing a series of all the rap/hip hop icons from my youth. I was toying with the idea a few days ago and started working on this as a warm up. Four hours later my co-worker Jay looked over my shoulder and said with a chuckle "Good thing that's only a warm up!"

Ice Cube [01/22/14]

I have to admit, I am pretty proud of this one. I'm glad my decision to play with the lighting worked out, and I'm really happy about my development as an artist,  especially when I compare it to the caricature below. I did That one in August of last year. Both were done from the same reference photo, and with the same tools. Just goes to show there is no substitute for practice...

Ice Cube 08/15/13

Big Snoop Dogg [Work in Progress]

In complete contradiction to my needs and wishes, it's ANOTHER slow day at the booth! And by slow, I mean no pulse,  period! Lately the only way to cheer myself up when this sort of thing happens is to start working on a project I've had on the back burner, so I decided to cross yet another rap icon off of my list. I'm toying with the idea of doing a golden-era-of-hiphop[A.K.A the 90s] series and this fits right in. Just finished the linework on this puppy,  will finish it off tomorrow. Maybe. Hopefully I'll be slammed with business and it'll be a week or two before I get around to it...

for the applause, applause applause...

I donated these pieces for auction at a charity benefit concert that was held last night at the Artifice. I couldn't go, so I'm not sure how well they did, but figured I'd share them with you guys.

This piece [named 'Green Eyes in the Grass'] is the only print of a painting I did a few years back. The original is acrylic on canvas, and is about 24x36 inches.

The Gaga piece I put together this week. Not ecstatic about it, probably because it feels more portrait-like than caricature-like to me, but I thought the likeness was solid. 

Before I sign off here, I'd like to let anyone reading these posts  to know that I would really like some feedback [good or bad] on the work I'm showing . I think part of improving as an artist means learning to take criticisim, and I would really welcome any and all suggestions. If you think I need to work on something, please let me know. Feel free to hit me up here or on Facebook. Till next time ya'll...

Another blog post, now with 100% more Mike!

In the almost two years since I got into caricature I have drawn my boy Mike here

 more times than I can count. When you are having a slow day at the booth it sometimes helps to draw a coworker [if you are lucky enough to have one around] to attract curious but suspicious onlookers. I honestly cringe when I see some of my earlier attempts, they were SO BAD!

  Cringe!!

Cringe again!!

Thankfully a little time and lots of practice will fix just about anything eventually. I'm happy to say I think I've improved a bit, if I say so myself.. The following are a few of my favorites so far, in chronological from mid April 2013 to yesterday, 01-20-2014.

Mike, thanks for being an awesome guinea pig, but more importantly a true friend.

If anyone is interested in the technical details, all of these were drawn live, in Chartpak Marker and Prismacolor Artstix, a premium brand of woodless colored pencil. Hitman Mike is the exception, in that it was drawn live but all the rendering [in marker mostly] happened later. There are a few places where I use white acrylic paint to place high lights and art markers to add intensity to certain areas.

Jay-Z Revealed!

Jay's done!  As you can see from the pic below, this is also a second attempt. I used markers and Prismacolor artstix to create both, and a white out marker for the highlights in the new one. Interesting how different it is, style wise. Might have overworked it slightly, but all in all I like it. Funny thing is, I was done with it for all of ten minutes before someone walking through the mall bought it off of me. Given how dead the day was I'm glad it put a few bucks in my pocket.  #jay-z #caricature #drawing 

   

Jay-Z [version 1] 06/14/2013

Jay-Z [second attempt] 01/16/2014

Jay-Z: Work in Progress

I had intended to do Beyoncé and Jay-z piece but no matter what I do I can't seem to come up with an acceptable Beyoncé!  Either I just don't have the chops yet or the extreme symmetry of her features simply defies caricature!  I'm no quitter, but I think I'm going to put her back on the shelf for a few months. Jay here was an entirely different matter. Finished up the line work this morning at work at the caricature stand at the Miracle Mile. I get a decent amount of downtime at the booth especially in the off season,  and sometimes these personal projects will attract some business. Anyways,  I'm about to throw some color on this thing. Wish me luck! #jay-z #caricature #drawing #wip

Working out the bugs...

If any of you get a repost of 'Kicking things off' , my apologies.  I was doing some editing [apparently I wrote that I was going to 'christian' my blog as opposed to 'christen' it (thanks Mike Wagner)] and it went out a second time.  Still new to this, so thanks for the patience. I'll try to have something fun up in the next couple of days to make up for it. In the meantime if any of you want to offer critiques and/or suggestions,  please feel free.

And it's not even my birthday...

A while back I did a Rihanna caricature and at the time I was really happy with it. Of course [as often happens] it didn't look as good to me a year and some change later after I had leveled up a few times. So I'm revisiting RihRih here. Don't be surprised if I come back to her in another year or two...#Rihannacaricature

[Old RihRih Caricature]

[Second Attempt]

Rick Ross Caricature

After a few days trying to put together something for the wall at work, I came up with this. I can't really say I'm a fan of Rick here, but I had a lot of fun working on him. Particularly proud of the sunglasses...

Rick Ross

Kicking things off

So to christen this blog I'm posting a few of my favorite caricatures I've done over the past year. All of these are studio pieces of celebs. [Katey Sagal as Gemma from Sons of Anarchy, Vin deisel as Riddick, Kim Coates as Tig, also from Sons of Anarchy, Biggie and Pac, Sam Jackson as Nick fury of the Avengers and lastly, Zoe Saldana as Uhura from the new Star trek movie.]  

I'm starting a blog!

It's a new year and as the title states, I'm starting a blog. This isn't going to be one of those blogs where I wax philosophical about the meaning of life or anything. I'm way too inconsistent for that. I think I just want a forum to post a few pictures of my artwork  and get some feedback, without all the cacophony like on Facebook. All of this assumes that I can keep this up, of course. Wish me luck!