Russ Cook

Chaz

2012-02-16T12:47:00.001Z

Charles Dickens - Photoshop CS2

I'm a bit slow out of the blocks with this one - in regard to all the Dickens anniversary stuff - but I started it and ... forgot it! - anyway, here's my effort.

Alastair Cook

2012-02-15T23:07:00.000Z

Willow-waving, leather-lofting, opening thwacksman (and sometime column-scribbler), Mr Cook.
Heeeeyyy - good name!

Steve Bruce

2012-01-29T22:25:00.001Z

Another member of the expanding footie manager gallery, although he's currently 'between clubs' I believe.

Albert Camus

2012-01-27T13:01:00.000Z

A great face which derserves a longer treatment - but for now, only time for a relatively quick one.

Mark Lanegan

2012-01-25T11:31:00.000Z

You too could have a voice like him if you chewed nails and smoked sandpaper. Mr Lanegan: nice and loose.

Brian Ferry

2012-01-23T13:29:00.000Z

Gary Busey

2012-01-22T14:38:00.001Z

Wanted to try and keep the great energy that Gary Busey has in his face - so I kept it loose and rough without too much erasing of wayward lines, etc. Good fun when they come out right.

Grievous Gram

2012-01-22T13:29:00.000Z

Gram Parsons

Membership reciprocation #2!

2012-01-11T15:40:00.004Z

Extended deviancy for my deviantART account was further extended by photo-manip' humourist, Rodney Pike, aka rwpike, so he received the above caricature, at his request.

Thanks for the top-up, Rodney!

Membership reciprocation #1!

2012-01-11T15:27:00.004Z

Extended deviancy initiated! my dA account was topped up by vector artist Dominique, so she received a caricature of herself.

Thanks for the top-up, Dominique!

Jolly Yule Y'all

2011-12-24T14:00:00.000Z

Just a small post to wish those who check in here 'happy holidays' and seasonal greetings, etc.
Thanks again to those who've joined up as a member and/or taken the time to comment - it's always appreciated - and I hope you check back in 2012 for more visual goodies.

To those who are waiting for artwork: thanks for your patience, they're in various stages of completion and will be with you soon.

See you back here in the new year - good times!

Russ

Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-17T13:56:00.002Z

Had to break off from my current work to acknowledge, in virtual graphite, the death of Christopher Hitchens. I first read his writing back in 2006 when my brother and my American sister-in-law visited from the States bringing with them, and leaving behind, a copy of the American magazine 'Details'. There was an article written within, taken from Christopher Hitchens' book 'Letters to a Young Contrarian', which was set out as a top ten of 'advice' for free-thinkers and aspiring writers. It all resonated deeply and I've been a fan ever since. Now sadly he has died far too soon from esophageal cancer, but not without writing and talking on it right up to the end. I can't really think of anyone living who can step into his shoes.
I've sketched him many times although I've never uploaded any drawings - but now is the time.
Jerry Falwell - matchbox - enema! (you look it up). Thank you, Christopher!

Commission Art - b&W stage

2011-11-25T15:17:00.001Z

Recent work...

Ian Botham - In colour

2011-11-18T09:56:00.002Z

Here's a colour version of a sketch I did a little while ago (link) The ref material wasn't great for fine detail but I'm happy-ish with the result. It has been hanging around on my hard drive, semi complete, for too long and was a struggle to get back into - It's so easy to lose momentum on an involved piece.

George Papandreou

2011-11-05T01:11:00.000Z

George in happier times. Still hanging on in there at last look...

Julian Barnes Part3

2011-11-05T01:03:00.001Z

More JB stages after a break away down the South West. The end is in sight...

Julian Barnes Part 2

2011-10-23T17:23:00.000+01:00

Julian Barnes Part1

2011-10-23T14:00:00.001+01:00

Haven't been posting lately as I've only been producing poop. However, I got the urge after a short break, to create something out of the 2011 Man Booker Prize winner's face. It's a work in process, so the above is stage 1and, although I have some vague ideas of where I'm going to take it, I'm just going to see how it plays out and put up the various stages as they materialise. It might give a glimpse of the chaos that informs my process. Stay tuned for part 2 - coming soon(ish)

Hideo Kojima

2011-10-16T13:15:00.002+01:00

A recent commission of the creator of the Metal Gears games series and Vice President of Konami Entertainment.

W.H. Auden

2011-10-11T22:28:00.000+01:00

David Hasselhoff

2011-10-05T23:42:00.000+01:00

The Hoff. Burgers, puppies and talking car just outta shot.

Lou Reed

2011-09-20T15:24:00.000+01:00

The more I progressed with this the more I thought I was doing David Gedge from The Wedding Present (who in turn, bore an uneasy resemblace to John Major). So who had the best hair? Who had the best tunes? The best policies? You decide.
Anyway, in what sounds dangerously like a plan; that's gonna be it for straight headshots for a while. Going to be concentrating on full body action shots with simpler flat colouring...hmm, we'll see!

Roberto Mancini

2011-09-15T15:40:00.000+01:00

Photoshop with Cintiq

Commissions - B&W stages...

2011-09-05T11:54:00.001+01:00

Thought I'd post some recent commission work at line art stage. If you're a fan of comic work then you'll know that black white line art has as much power, perhaps even more, than full colour work. I try and get a snap of the b&w stage when doing colour work as I really like it ... and in some cases wish I could stop it there.
FYI: The artwork can been seen fixed to a light box where a print out of the rough stage sits sandwiched between the two.

Ian Curtis

2011-08-24T17:52:00.000+01:00

Anjelica Huston

2011-08-20T14:19:00.001+01:00

Trying to get a few more female faces done...

Ian McShane

2011-08-14T17:54:00.000+01:00

Another great face to study - could approach drawing it in many different ways...

Segata Sanshiro!

2011-08-05T22:42:00.002+01:00

...and third, Segata Sanshiro: the fictional character invented to help sell the Sega Saturn games console back in the late nineties.

Reiko Nagase!

2011-08-05T22:38:00.000+01:00

More commission work...this time the glamourous CG gal from the ridge racer series of video games...

Mario!

2011-08-05T22:34:00.000+01:00

Some recent commission work for a yet-to-be-launched French web site. Always a bit of a weird one caricaturing a cartoon character instead of a real person. So this is my take on the energetic Italian-American virtual plumber.

Ian Botham

2011-07-23T01:06:00.001+01:00

Saw the documentary on England cricket badboy Ian Botham the other night and couldn't think of why he hadn't hitherto entered my mind as a possible subject for facial foolery. As they said in the doc'; he was a national treasure for a time (while spending the rest of it as an anti-hero)
I originally wanted to draw him when he went through his Paul Calf stage but there were few hi-res pic's to work from. So a later, cleaned up Beefy (albeit with a few extra lines) had to be the subject material.

Web Site Updated!

2011-07-19T13:35:00.002+01:00

Just to say I've been working behind the scenes updating my caricature site. There are now pages for digital pencil work as well as extra pages for regular pencil work and vector. With well over 200 images within the site it now comprises a better 'one-stop-shop' for viewing (nearly) everything so far.

The only area not covered at present is digital paint, mainly as I have so little that falls into that category. As soon as a few more pieces have been created then a dedicated page will go up.

It seems there are two schools of thought when showcasing artwork online; one: put up a small, select gallery of your absolute best work; and two: put up a large selection of everything and have your web site more of an online storage depot. Having spent a few years in the former camp I'm now trying out the latter. I've still left out the real scrappier stuff although I may add a page in the future for sketches and roughs that I think have merit. I've trawled back as far as I dare go and the keen-eyed will see a progression (of sorts) especially in the early pencil sketches from 2006 up to the digi-pencil stuff I'm currently doing.

My real problem was how to add pages without adding loads of buttons and cluttering up the place. I went with a system utilising the usual up-and-down 'tree' system that branches out from the home page but which also used a side-to-side (or left and right) approach once you landed on the first page of the gallery.
For instance, by clicking 'vector' this will take you to page one of the vector section of the gallery. To then see more pages within that vector section hit the left and right arrows situated within the flourished border and these will take you through the dedicated pages within that section. The same principle works within all the various sections of the galleries. Not only does it sort out the problem of not letting the buttons become more numerous and overcrowded but I can also add future pages which will slot right in without having to fundamentally re-structure the site.

With so many links, etc I've checked and double-checked that everything's working, that all the links are taking you where they should and that there are no spelling errors, but if you discover anything erroneous then you're welcome to hit me up so I can then sort it.

Hope ya like it!

Sketchbook stuff...Captain Beefheart

2011-07-17T17:50:00.000+01:00

Tryin' some stuff...

Thom Yorke

2011-07-16T23:15:00.000+01:00

Fellow Oxfordian...

Billy Bob Thornton

2011-07-15T05:05:00.003+01:00

It's been interesting to notice how time spent doing caricatures is affected by the format - especially when the formats are similar. For instance, the above pic of Billy Bob took me: 2h 20m. I found that on average I would only spend an hour to 1h 30m on real pencil drawings - for a similar overall effect. The only theory I have is that with the digital pencil I'm probably editing and trying different things along the way - sometimes scrubbing out whole sections of an involved piece. With real pencil I'm committed - but I do a lot of screwing up of paper.

Cy Twombly

2011-07-06T03:44:00.000+01:00

The artist Cy Twombly who died yesterday.

Can't sleep, so I decided to finish this up. Gotta be the latest upload I've ever made. Or do I mean the earliest? Either way, I'm going to pay for it later.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

2011-07-04T21:35:00.000+01:00

The French tennis ace...

Sebastian Vettel

2011-07-03T22:37:00.000+01:00

Rough Sketchin'...

Bashar al-Assad

2011-06-24T10:41:00.001+01:00

Syrian president...Something going on with pointed ears at the moment!

How? Why?

2011-06-23T11:07:00.001+01:00

Got a new gadget running on the right of the blog in case anyone is interested in the thinking behind illustration and caricature. It's purely to collate previous posts I've written - in answer to specific questions I've received - in one handy access point. It doesn't make one comprehensive treatise, although I'll certainly add to them if I find myself writing anything coherent in the future. Also, in no way are they supposed to be the last words on the 'right way' to draw - but if they helped... then all to the good! Hope you enjoy 'em...

Paul Collingwood

2011-06-22T00:19:00.000+01:00

Tools: photoshop + wack 'em sin-teeeeeeeeeeeek

Rory McIlroy

2011-06-20T10:38:00.000+01:00

US Open champ and record breakin' Rory!

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner

2011-06-17T13:00:00.002+01:00

There's a glam-Cam'-slam going on...or something.
Currently frustrated at finding her voice mail messages left at No.10 ignored - it's Argentinian president Cristina Fernández De Kirchner.

Jeff as Rooster

2011-06-12T15:52:00.003+01:00

Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn in the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit. Enjoyed the film - looked great.

Martin Jol

2011-06-07T18:34:00.000+01:00

Should've been a relative walk in the park but this one needed about five attempts - goes like that sometimes...

Internal Wall Sign For Studio

2011-06-01T16:51:00.000+01:00

Here are some snaps of some studio decoration I recently undertook. Now and then I like to make a print or frame an image and try and spruce up the joint. The five images on the left (top to bottom) shows the original layout for a wall mounted image I wanted to go in my studio. I took the digital files round to a mate who's got a large scale colour printer who turned them into vinyl adhesive prints (giant stickers, basically).

In the top/right image you can see I've started to cut up the individual images as the prints came out on one sheet.
The right/middle image shows a crop of Steve Buscemi which has already been applied (wet) to the blank sign material. This is made out of dibond, which is a thin polyethylene core sandwiched by two thin sheets of aluminium and comes in various colours. Dibond (or alupanel, as it's sometimes called) makes for a strong but slim sheet material and with its attractive finish it's great for signage.
The bottom/right image shows the finished sign fixed with gold wall mounts.

Job done!

John Bolton

2011-06-01T09:40:00.000+01:00

Bush's bulldog. And possible future leader of the free world?

Steve Buscemi

2011-05-08T20:13:00.002+01:00

It's been a stretch since I've found time for some digital colour work - so it's good to finally get my morph of the great face of Steve Buscemi aired. Found it hard to stop tweakin' so I'm not sure it's finished; an all-too-familiar story...

Virginia Woolf

2011-05-07T11:34:00.000+01:00

An old 'un from the vaults.

Martin Amis x2

2011-05-07T11:26:00.000+01:00

Great writer - great face. Colour work to come real soon...ish.

Werner Herzog

2011-03-26T13:50:00.001Z

Haven't done any proper drawing for ages - and boy, I'm out of sync.

Judi Dench

2011-03-26T13:47:00.000Z

Started eons ago. Finished today.

Gustav Mahler

2011-03-02T14:13:00.000Z

Tools: Ps2 + Cintiq

I'm slap in the middle of a some busy painting so I've just got time to try and finish some drawings that were temporarily abandoned for whatever whim or fancy overtook them at the time. So; here's another baton-jocky to add to the collection.

Right! Back to the day job...

Carlo Ancelotti

2011-02-17T22:51:00.000Z

Found an hour after a full day of painting to sketch the above.

John Irving

2011-02-17T08:41:00.000Z

Howard Jacobson

2011-02-13T20:35:00.000Z

The Man Booker Prize winner from last year.

Hosni Mubarak

2011-02-06T10:42:00.000Z

Found a bit of time to etch the sessile statesman.

Paul Newman

2011-02-05T18:04:00.000Z

Only McQueen is cooler.

Novak Djokovic

2011-01-27T13:29:00.000Z

Giant Slayer!

Carlos Tevez

2011-01-25T15:42:00.002Z

At last Carlos is on the field. He's been sat on my virtual bench since last July. I know he's not with the reds anymore but it's languished for so long on my hard drive that he's half way to retirement, ha, ha!

Technique part 3 - Brian Cowen (stage1)

2011-01-24T14:07:00.000Z

OK, I've had a few emails recently asking about improving caricature skills, etc. so I thought I'd re-iterate here a point I consider very important. And that's if you don't get your basic morph (exaggeration) correct then all the fine digital painting or finely hatched pencil work is not going to make a successful caricature. Ever.

If you're not getting a successful caricature at the line stage then you will never improve on it by rendering it to death in whatever medium you're using. The above line drawing of the exiting Irish Prime minister Brian Cowen hopefully illustrates how, technically, if you've got the line right then you can stop right there. Job done. Also, good lines in a good line drawing will have body and weight to them and will suggest the volume of the character it describes. A good place to see this is in the line art of the great marvel artists of yesteryear.

The purpose of fine hatching (or the painting in of every blood vessel and liverspot) is to add the 'Wow' factor, and never to make the caricature more 'successful'.
Therefore, your succesful caricature relies on two things: great morphing and great rendering of medium, but only great morphing can stand alone.

Now I'm off to add a load of furious cross-hatching to the above, ha, ha!

Keep on creatin'!

Nick Cave

2011-01-23T20:20:00.000Z

Another Nick Cave - and certainly not the last.

Dmitri Shostakovich

2011-01-19T11:58:00.003Z

Vince Vaughn

2011-01-19T11:57:00.000Z

Susannah York...

2011-01-17T13:28:00.000Z

...who has exited stage left for the last time. My main memory is from watchin' endless repeats of The Battle Of Britain on Saturday afternoon tv. Who wants to bet it's made the schedule for this weekend?

Stevie Wonder

2011-01-09T16:20:00.000Z

Coming towards the end of the creation of all the individual roughs for the canvas. Stage 2 is to pull all the characters together and work out a composition for them all.

Jamie Cullum

2011-01-05T16:26:00.003Z

JT Taylor

2011-01-05T16:25:00.000Z

Roughin' away..

Ray Charles

2011-01-03T13:41:00.000Z

Johnny Cash

2011-01-02T12:38:00.002Z

More rough stuff...

Frank Sinatra - young

2011-01-02T12:36:00.003Z

2011 already! - Let's go to it...

2011-01-02T12:36:00.000Z

So, happy new year! Hope every one had a good break and that you're looking to 2011 to make some great art. Thanks to everyone who has dropped by over the last year and left their comments - always welcome. Nice to know people want to see what I'm working on and I have evey intention in producing and uploading regular artwork through the coming twelve months; so stay tuned.
Can't imagine there'll be any great changes in the format: just looking to refine the pencil and digital work. There's no dirth of ideas and experiments that I want to conduct to try and push the boundaries - I hope I can find time to really sink my teeth into it.
There'll be more real painting going on but it'll be mostly wrapped up in the canvas commission. I'm also looking to expand on comic and character design in 2011 which will go hand in hand with a need to revisit and study the rest of the human form - the skills are lacking! I've neglected this a bit over the last five years as I've been concentrating on the face. But I'll still be morphing and caricaturing - it's just too much fun.

Thanks for checkin' in - and keep on creating!

A Merry Christmas sneeky-peek!

2010-12-23T18:30:00.001Z

Hey everyone - just to say hope youse-all have a great festive break with those who mean the most and that your stockings overflow with Santa goodness. In a perennial show of seasonal un-preparedness I haven't designed or drawn a personal greeting to upload so you'll just have to make do with a sneak-peek of a piece I've had knocking around my hard drive for way too long. It's 95% done but I've just been so busy with other stuff it's been somewhat overlooked. But watch out! - he's gonna escape sooooon, heh, heh. Merry Christmas!

Barry White

2010-12-22T09:17:00.000Z

Lionel Richie

2010-12-22T09:11:00.000Z

Michael McDonald

2010-12-22T09:07:00.002Z

Smokey Robinson

2010-12-22T09:02:00.000Z

More first stage artwork for 'The Canvas'

Brian Hanrahan

2010-12-20T13:47:00.000Z

...the well known BBC journalist who's died.

Evil Dead Ash

2010-12-17T19:16:00.000Z

"We're gonna get you..."

Here's Bruce - in situ - as promised.

Sam Allardyce x2

2010-12-14T20:27:00.000Z

Apparently he's topical at the moment. I just liked the face - good for 2d sculpting.

Commission

2010-12-10T13:26:00.000Z

Don't put much commission stuff up...but here's one.
A recent job for a groom who wanted to give it as a gift for his best man.

It's ink outline with pencil in-fill which I've never tried before. The customer suggested it and I was dubious at first but I liked the result so I'll probably do it again.

Bruce Campbell

2010-12-10T12:15:00.002Z

ASH! - the chisel-chinned dispatcher of the undead!

I recently completed this for Loopy Dave (check out his amazing work here) for his generous gift of a year's membership on Deviant Art; though his version doesn't have a large watermark over Bruce's ample chin - heh! See what you can get if ya good to me?!!! ha,ha!

It was good fun to do and I rediscovered my love of the greatest horror/comedy flick in the process.

Currently workin' on an expanded 'movie-still' version of the above: so stand by!

Richard Thompson

2010-12-09T14:29:00.002Z

More quick sketchin'

Mark Rothko

2010-12-05T12:08:00.000Z

Just sketchin'...

Lindsey Buckingham (young)

2010-11-27T15:02:00.000Z

Finished rough for 'The Canvas'

Well, I did say in the last post I love drawing hair...

Billy Joel - (canvas commission prep)

2010-11-24T23:21:00.001Z

Another worked up prep for the big bad canvas. It's come out a bit straight for me; more like a portrait; so I may re-draw for the final piece. However, I quite liked certain parts of it so it was saved from the trash for a post.
Love drawing hair but salt and pepper stubble is a nightmare to try and get right. Never drawn a greying short beard I've been happy with. So; plenty of summits still to reach.

Al Green

2010-11-22T21:43:00.001Z

I've recently been commissioned for a canvas of 2.5m x 1.5m to show 65 characters: all to be painted in acrylic (Al Green is one to be included).
They are to be mainly rock 'n' roll; pop 'n' soul luminairies and it'll take me half way into next year; so that's going to keep to take up a large chunk of my time. I'll upload roughs and progress shots where I can but obviously I can't give too much away before the deadline has been reached. I won't be roughing all the characters to the level of the above, but where I feel I want to inlude one as a post then I'll take it to a more finished stage and upload it. I will have a feature on it when I've finished - if I haven't been sectioned by then - which will include roughs, colour close ups; final shots - all punctuated with tales of desperation and joy, in equal measure I'm sure, ha, ha! No doubt I'll be breaking off here and there to do other personal pieces but this is how it will be for the coming months. Tally-ho.

Stephen Baldwin

2010-11-05T20:52:00.000Z

Holy Big Brother! It's the godly one out of the Baldwins. Dawg!

Evolution - Sean Penn

2010-10-30T17:24:00.001+01:00

For those who like to see this kind of thing I thought I'd put this little progress montage up of the painting I posted recently of Sean Penn.
Like most images it started off as a digital pencil sketch although you'll notice the pencil stages are more cropped compared to how the final image was realised. Originally I'd set out to do just a pencil drawing but then I thought I'd give it the full paint treatment. It was at this stage I thought I'd expand the composition as Mr Penn still sports a fine head of lustrous hair and it seemed a waste not to put that all in. So it was just a case then of placing the drawing in a new document and, well, painting over the top...just as you see it above. No student would be told to follow me as an example of how to paint a face as quite often I don't bother to build up a base or work out colour values from dark to light. I just pick a start point and jump right on in, ha, ha!

Diego Maradona

2010-10-30T16:06:00.000+01:00

Here are a couple of studies I did recently. They were painted in photoshop so they don't have quite the crispness of vector rendered artwork but with my wacom pen I can work quicker and it's more comfortable. Horses for courses, I guess. I painted the top one which was...ok, but I really wanted something a bit more cartoony so I did the one underneath with the cheeky maestro showing off his infamous hand.

Harry Shearer

2010-10-19T00:58:00.000+01:00

Hadn't done any drawing for a couple o' days so I tried to do something fun and quick without getting swallowed up into overworking it - too late in the day for anything too involved. Just sorta scratchin' an itch really. Job done - time for zeds.

Tchaikovsky

2010-10-16T16:19:00.000+01:00

Continuing the list of the fantastically follicled music maestros, it's a sketch of ol' Pete himself.
May colour him up at some point...we'll see.

Vincent Cassel

2010-10-14T19:17:00.000+01:00

Been a fan of Vincent Cassel since first seeing 'La Haine' all those years ago. He's been on my 'to do' list for way too long (along with a gazillion others)...and he's married to Monica Bellucci - c'mon!

Janis Joplin

2010-10-09T12:38:00.003+01:00

Cintiq + photoshop

No! It aint another Ozzy! But it's rock 'n' roll madness all the same...

Gabriel Faure

2010-09-26T00:13:00.002+01:00

Wild hair and big 'taches; ya gotta love them composers - always good fun to draw.

Sean Penn...

2010-09-09T19:00:00.001+01:00

...or is it some hideous amalgam of Robert De Niro and Hugh Grant?
Digital airbrush/paint isn't my usual (virtual) medium of choice but since I near bankrupted myself with the cintiq purchase back at the start of the year, curiosity go the better of me and I thought it would be good to experiment. I'd also had a couple of commissions asking to use this process so I thought I'd better get busy with it. Can't say it'll become my favourite process for caricaturing but I know I shall be givin' it another go before too long.

Cheerio Cyril Smith

2010-09-05T18:19:00.000+01:00

(28 June 1928 – 3 September 2010)

Graeme Swann

2010-09-02T18:55:00.000+01:00

Julia Gillard

2010-08-28T19:24:00.000+01:00

Australia's premier female premier - if you get ma' drift...

Michel Platini

2010-08-27T13:00:00.002+01:00

Cinitiq with Photoshop + Illustrator

Platini's gonna sort it out...