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...

Mid-Era Keef

Because you can't have too much of the human riff!

He may be a caricaturist's cliché - but c'mon, admit it, you'll miss him when he's gone. I received his autobiography 'Life' for Christmas and a jolly good read it is, too. If you love being scandalised by those who are pretty much given a free pass to live outside society's norms and rules then it won't disappoint you. And Keith can write! Is there no end to the man's talents?

Watch Keef being drawn on YouTube:
The above caricature is pretty rough as it was done as an experiment in video capture. Yep, got me one of those You Tube channel things. Funny how even just the invisible audience of the screen capture made the whole process feel unnatural. I was not relaxed. If you wish to see my rather ham-fisted attempt then get over here to see it on YouTube. It won't be winning oscars any time soon (no funky fades, annotations or screen wipes - and it comes to an abrupt end) but after waiting an eon for it to convert/render I didn't want another run at it. The free software I was using wouldn't let me anyway - said something unreasonable like having to actually purchase it...

If you want to see more caricatures-in-progress, then leave a comment or give it a like and I'll endeavour to post more in the future...once I've got my hands on some more software.

Frankie Howerd

Kicking the New Year off with a titter, missus...

Tricky Kid

Tricky Kid

Many thanks to everyone who's checked into my blog over the last twelve months - especially those who've left a comment or emailed - always very welcome. As far as 2013 postings were concerned, I was down a bit on this year compared to last year, so I endeavour to make an improvement on uploads in 2014.

That's it from me until the new year. Keep your pencils sharp and Merry Christmas!

Ben Stiller

That took a bit longer than normal - good fun though: brilliant face!

Nelson Mandela Caricature

Caricature of Nelson Mandela

Tool; Sketchbook Pro

The last roots train has left the station... goodbye, Junior Murvin

Sad to hear this morning of the death of Junior Murvin. Like everyone else with working ear drums, I love his collab with Lee Perry on Police & Thieves, but his other songs are well worth checking out.  If you like his falsetto delivery and LSP's Black Ark production then I recommend  his first album - also titled 'Police & Thieves' - as a good entry point to his catalogue. Roots Train is a cracking opener...

Owen Wilson

Stuart Broad

Ah, the fluctuating fortunes that comprises English national cricket. It's all handbags at the mo' aint it? Still, here's an oddly beatific looking Broad - don't know what happened there...

Mark Webber

Chin! - Done with Sketchbook Pro.