Monday 20 December 2021

Robbie Shakespeare Caricature

 


A pictorial In Memoriam to the late great bass player and producer, Robbie Shakespeare. Lending his talents to such a wide range of songwriters, his could very well be the one name that features the most in the credits of my record collection. RIP.

.
Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Pro

Wednesday 15 December 2021

Mike Nesmith Caricature


Farewell and RIP to the woolly-chapeau’d, mutton-chopped Monkee, Mike Nesmith. Went a bit OTT with that fringe!

Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Photo

Saturday 27 November 2021

Broken Wacom Cintiq 21ux Stylus? Maybe This Will Help








Just wanted to make a post here that may be relevant to somebody and get them out of a hole.


Recently, my Wacom Cintiq stylus (itself a replacement for my broken original) started to ‘miss’ certain operations on the screen before getting steadily worse until it was finally just a useless stick of plastic. It seemed obvious straight away that it wasn’t a digital problem, i.e.; changed settings, etc., as the problem was one of decline rather than going from working to suddenly not. The problem must’ve been analogue and within the stylus itself.

As anyone who’s replaced a stylus knows they’re not cheap—my stylus model coming in at £100–so it was with a sinking feeling that I had to consider buying a third one. Of course, I would also have to ‘down-tools’ and not do any more work till a new one was delivered.

So, feeling I had little to lose, I started to see if I could strip the thing down and spot an obvious problem. By this point I didn’t care about voiding some manufacturer’s warranty by taking it apart; there seemed little likelihood I would be posting it off to be repaired.

The upshot is that I did discover an obvious problem: a connection failure where a wire had completely come away from a soldered connection. With some frustratingly fiddly soldering I managed to reconnect the wire. I did have to do this more than once due to re-breaking the connection while trying to re-assemble the parts, but finally managed to complete it and have a working stylus once more. So far it’s been trouble-free for about three weeks.

So, if you’re experiencing similar issues and don’t mind running the risk of doing some surgery (there’s always a risk of breaking a healthy connection or damaging the board through heavy handling) then it may save you money, time and heartache. However, the process I used to fix my problem was for an older Wacom Cintiq 21UX: what other models are like I have no idea.

Therefore if you swipe the images you will see I’ve tried to lay out and show the problem I had so you could attempt the same fix.

Good luck!

Thursday 25 November 2021

Noel Gallagher Caricature

 

Digital caricature portrait of Oasis' singer/songwriter and guitarist, Noel Gallagher. Created by Russ Cook using Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Photo

A face-mash of Oasis and High Flying Birds' singer song-writer and guitarist, Noel Gallagher.


Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Photo.

Thursday 4 November 2021

HR Giger Caricature

Digital caricature portrait and illustration of surrealist painter and artist, HR Giger. Created by Russ Cook using Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Photo.

Digital caricature portrait and illustration of surrealist painter and artist, HR Giger. Created by Russ Cook using Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Photo.

 

Should have found a way to get this in for Hallowe’en—caricature of the surrealist(?) artist, HR Giger. I wonder what his Christmas cards were like. Swipe for lines.

Thursday 28 October 2021

Stephen King Caricature

 


Caricature of the master of the macabre, Stephen King. Have to say this was a real grind and didn’t come easily. A bit over-ambitious and got quite bogged down in it, but finally managed to mangle it into something viewable. It’s given me nightmares, heh, heh!

Thursday 7 October 2021

Thursday 26 August 2021

Jean-Jacques Burnel Caricature


Boogie! Caricature of Stranglers’ bass boss, Jean-Jacques Burnel.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro

 

Ian Dury Caricature

 


Partial to your abracadabra: head Blockhead, Ian Dury. Having fun with these greyscales…

#iandury #ianduryandtheblockheads #kilburnandthehighroads #whatawaste #spasticusautisticus #newbootsandpanties 

Tools: Sketchbook Pro.

Thursday 5 August 2021

Caricature of John F Kennedy

 

Digital caricature portrait of former US President, John F Kennedy. Created by Russ Cook in Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Phot

Digital caricature portrait of former US President, John F Kennedy. Created by Russ Cook in Sketchbook Pro and Affinity Phot

Caricature of sixties US President, JFK, John F Kennedy. Tried to give it a bit of a Super 8 type feel. Always love doing versions of the stars and stripes.

Caricature Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Photo

Sunday 6 June 2021

Lucian Freud Caricature

 


Caricature of the great British artist, Lucian Freud.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Photo

Tuesday 25 May 2021

Don McCullin Caricature

 







Caricature of the landscape, portrait and war photographer, Don McCullin, one of my favourite artists.

Tools: traditional ink augmented with coloured pixels.

Tuesday 13 April 2021

Willem de Kooning Caricature



 Caricature of the abstract expressionist action painter, Willem de Kooning.

Tools: Skecthbook Pro + Affinity Pro

Friday 19 March 2021

Aphex Twin Caricature

 


Caricature of  Aphex Twin, AKA, Richard D James.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Pro

Wednesday 24 February 2021

Saturday 6 February 2021

Vincent Gallo

 



Caricature of Vincent Gallo.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Pro.


Sunday 17 January 2021

Saturday 16 January 2021

Sylvain Sylvain caricature


 RIP New York Dolls', Sylvain Sylvain.


Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Pro

Friday 8 January 2021

Bill Sienkiewicz Caricature


 Artist Greats: a caricature of the incomparable master of media, Bill Sienkiewicz.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro + Affinity Pro