José Manuel Barosso

The president of The European Commission looking as though he's lending a conspiratorial ear to someone just out of view.

Original Artwork For Sale

Just to let you know that original art is now for sale! If you've seen original artwork by me on the net somewhere then there's a good chance it can be exchanged for hard currency. At present I'm not considering art exchanges - but maybe in the future...

If you want to know a bit more then click on the tab at the top of this blog marked 'Original Art For Sale'.

Vincent Price

 Acrylic paint on  watercolour card - 41.5cm x 29.5cm

"...The midnight hour is close at hand", heh, heh! Been away from the paints too long so I've had good fun (for the most part) wacking down some real colours to try and capture the great face of Vincent Price - who's looking suitably horrified at the impudence of this caricature artist. The reference image was quite low-res - without any discernable fine details - and so forced me to keep the brush marks real loose.Close up, the result is pretty impressionistic but that's no bad thing.

Progress...

Above are some progress shots - 'pologies about the bad quality; they were lit only by one angel-poise lamp - but it gives an idea of how it built up. Some details changed, like the bow tie, but I kept pretty faithful to the original sketch with this one. And yes, his 'tache really was that wonky.

Above is the original sketch, done digitally with Sketchbook Pro.

On the painting table...

Darkness falls across the land...

Pelé - revisited

Created the main image of Pelé a while ago and uploaded with a different setting...which I never really liked; but couldn't come up with anything better at the time. Seeing as all eyes are on Brazil for the 2014 soccer world cup, I thought it would be a good time to revise it and reload it! I much prefer these colours.

Jackie Chan

Tools: Photoshop

I've have had this doodle knocking round the hard drive since digital-time began and have now finally admitted to myself that it wasn't going anywhere, despite liking the feel of it. Somehow couldn't find inspiration to develop a bigger peice for it to occupy. All the same, he looks happy enough.

John Waters

Sketchbook Pro

Mondo Trasho!

Stephen smacks it to ya one more time!

Do not give your work away for free, friends. Repeat: DO NOT GIVE YOUR WORK AWAY FOR FREE!

I would write my own post on this, but for now here's the great illustrator Stephen Silver giving you what you need to hear. He directs it towards art students - and that's understandable because they're often new to the commercial world - but we all need the reminder because we can all be tempted to let our standards slip. I know I previously linked another of Stephen's videos where he gives similar advice - but it bears repeating because so many of us are intent on learning the hard way. Heed that man!

(Just saying - slightly earthy language, if you're easily offended by such stuff.)

Gil Scott Heron

The revolution will not be caricatured...or perhaps more likely...my caricatures will not be televised...

Thanks, Reece!

I was very excited to get a tweet from one of my comedy heroes; Reece Shearsmith, in regard to a recent bit of fan art that I'd created of him. I hadn't tweeted it or sent it to him but he obviously got to see it somehow and very kindly took the time to tweet me the above message. Wotta gent! After I'd completed the original Reece sketch, I'd resolved to do a complete 'League' piece at some point, with all three (visible) members - but now I think I'll bring that project forward! I strongly recommend anybody (is there anybody?) who isn't familiar with his work to check out the genius comedy that is League of Gentlemen, Psychoville, and Inside No. 9 as well as his recent acting in The Widower. Special stuff.

CB W.I.P.

Bit of a late post. Must have a Death Wish...

Stewart Lee

Have been really enjoying the third series of Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle, so it was good fun to morph what has been called by The Times "the face of the decade". Mr Lee doesn't tickle the funny bone, rather he gives it a rude kicking and then glowers at it. Tried my best to get the caricature as spot on as his observations. Looking forward to a fourth series...

A parade of percussionists...

Put this together last year as a gift/card for a good mate's 40th birthday, himself a gifted drummer living and working out of LA...a line-up of a few of his personal heroes.

Tony Benn

From a time when conviction politics and tobacco smoking were still legal...

Machete!

Some full colour Grindhouse madness with Danny Trejo as Machete. Lines in Sketchbook Pro, coloured in Photoshop.

Eric Cantona

King Eric! Apparently, doing little recently to shake off his bad-boy image...

Get Sketchin' with Sketchbook Pro - now as an App!

As regular visitors to this blog may already know, I'm a big fan of the illustration and drawing software 'Sketchbook Pro' which is created by Autodesk. For the last couple of years all my black and white caricatures have been drawn with it and all my colour ones have been roughed out with it. Sketchbook Pro has the most intuitive graphite pencil and ink pen effect that I've discovered so far and (unless it's specifically called for) has replaced old school pencil and paper in my drawing and design work. When used with my Cintiq it combines to make a killer combination. It's very reasonably priced, making a professional package affordable for amateur and professional alike.
I had an email recently from the nice people at Autodesk who'd picked up that I'd mentioned SBP in my posts and asked if I could mention a new web page of theirs covering all their creative design apps, which include many funky products for your smart gadgets - all to create cool designs and fx. I'm more than happy to mention companies that produce great products that have helped me in what I love to do, so, if you're into this kinda tech, and you want to know more, then hit this link which will take you to their apps page. Keep creatin'!

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Phew! Bit of a late upload - but I wanted to push through and get this finished. So here is the great and rather marvellous astro-physicist and science communicator, Mr Neil deGrasse Tyson; of whom which I'm a big fan. Thrilled to hear he's hosting the recently re-vamped 'Cosmos' series - taking over (many years later) from that other great science communicator; Carl Sagan. If you like popular science but aren't familiar with him then check out his talks and interviews on YouTube. Not dull.

John Kerry

Mr Kerry - beseeching divine guidance? I learnt a trick a long time ago from studying the art of the master cartoonist and caricature artist Derek Bauer, in how to represent certain lines by keeping them simple and 'patterned' - especially when juxtaposed with areas of furious detail. When I came to draw John Kerry's hair, having completed the face with all its detail, it just ended up being too much, somehow. Representing his hair using simple wavy lines gave the contrast needed and kept the comical element.

(Sketchbook Pro + Cintiq)

Ibrahim Tapa

Good luck, Ibrahim.

Reece Rough

Reece Shearsmith

(sketchbook Pro)

A quick line rough of the great Reece Shearsmith. This was one of those happy experiences where a satisfying morph tumbles forth from the pencil on the first attempt. It's pretty rough (with few tidy-ups) but it's the sort of first stage that I'm usually looking to achieve before going on to clean-up for a finished version - however that might be realised.

Shia Labeouf (famous enough...)

Far easier to draw when he's not wearing a paper bag on his head...

Michael Madsen

I've had a few attempts at Mr Madsen's intimidating features (that smile's a shark's smile) with varying, but generally unsatisfying, results. No real change with this lastest effort, which started off OK, then slowly slipped away from me and has ended up looking more like Bob Mills rather than Mr Blonde, ha, ha! Oh well...

Ta, Ta, Trig

Not being an avid telly watcher, I'm only really familiar with Roger Lloyd-Pack's work through his role as Trigger in Only Fools and Horses (back in my younger years I did watch more tv) and as someone perceptively put it elsewhere on the web recently, there was an extra gloss on the episode when you knew that Trigger was in it.
This has been the first chance I've had to acknowledge the actor's death in virtual graphite, so; 'bon voyage', Mr Lloyd-Pack.

Hooky

Found this un-posted pic' of low-slung bass-plucker Peter Hook while rummaging through the caricature hard drive. It's probably a couple of years old but it didn't get a posting at the time as I wasn't that enamoured with it on completion. I know I did a couple of versions of it - obviously wasn't happy with either. Looks alright to me now...strange...