RIP Lemmy

Regarding the recent departures of musical greats, here's an overdue sketch of Lemmy - saying 'Hi'.

RIP John Bradbury

Seems like you don't have to be away from the drawing board too long before another musical great is snatched away. This is the first chance I've had to attempt to honour in pixels Specials' drummer John Bradbury.
I remember thinking at about ten years of age, when hearing their album for the first time, that I'd never heard drums sound quite like that before. Check out 'Blank Expression' for a masterclass of rimshots on what soundlike biscuit tins recorded in a fire-escape...but in a good way.

Rush & Belushi Commissions

 

Geoffrey Rush

(as Captain Barbossa - Pirates of the Caribbean)

  

Progress pic

 

John Belushi

First: Happy New Year!

Looking forward to getting some more great faces caught this year - in some format or other. Last year was my quietest year, caricature-wise, thought it wasn't through idleness: just had more non-caricature artwork going on elsewhere.

So, I'm kicking off with a post showing a couple of commissions that were completed at the end of 2015. Both were pencil and paper.

For those interested; I used a Rotring Tikky machine pencil with a 1.0 HB lead (could probably have gone a bit softer/darker) on 220 gsm cartridge paper.  I cleaned up the final images in Photoshop as pencil scans can look a bit messy, but the progress pic of Rush is a good indicator of how they finally turned out..

They were fun to do - hope you like.

I'm on Facebook - proper.

 

After a long period of avoiding the place I've decided to re-activate my long-dormant Facebook account, which was started - and pretty much stopped - back on 2010.There have been several good reasons for this: not least one of them being that I had artwork hi-jacked and posted to a fake Russ Cook Facebook page. I have to stress that were this other site a 'fan-page' then I would feel very complimented, have no problem with it and endorse it but the site gives all the impression that it's hosted by me and friends and family have been taken in by it. It shows erroneously posted info and, being fake, has not made some necessary replies to some important communications from visitors - replies I would always endeavour to make. I don't know whether the site-host has sold versions of my artwork - they could only be of a lo-res quality - but this would be another reason to avoid it, notwithstanding the small matter of it being theft. Attempts to have the fake facebook page removed have failed - hence the re-boot of my own.

I haven't posted much official Facebook stuff yet, but from this point in time I shall be posting various artworks including caricatures, comic art, cartoons and paintings as well as artwork related news. Pictures of pets and political/religious expostulations will be kept to the almost non-existent.

If you wish to visit and 'like' my official page (link here) then you'd be very welcome and I promise to answer all direct, sensible and art-related questions. If you find Facebook an easier option for you to keep up with what's going on then come on over and hit the like button.

Look forward to seeing you there.

Rotten!

John Lydon in Sketchbook Pro.

Complex Simple: Tim Robbins

Had the film poster of Jacob's Ladder on my wall for years. Bit of a cult classic round our way.
Anyway, I'd like to say that my pic of Tim was just me experimenting with how to represent caricatures in a slightly different, but hopefully interesting, way. Or it might just be a case of me suffering from chronic lazyitis. Either way; 'twas fun to do. Thinking I might start a new series of images in a similar vein and calling it 'Complex Simple' (Freud?). Thinking I might just go to bed.

Click on the image for larger whatnot.

Scott Weiland

Sad to read this morning of the death of Scott Weiland. Have to admit that Stone Temple Pilots went by me a bit - though I was totally on board for Velvet Revolver, who still rock my turntable. He fought demons that had hounded him for years but he was a brilliant front man and vocalist. If there's a rock 'n' roll afterlife then he'll definitely be among the better dressed. Cheers for the music, Scott.

Mark Wahlberg

Just watched The shooter: daft and clichéd, but good fun.

Sketcbook Pro + Ps

Benny of da Bull!

Benicio Del Toro

Woohoo! Benicio Del Toro: cooler than Brad! (amazing how they share so much facial structure). Fun to do. Tools were Sketchbook Pro with a sneeze of Photoshop.

Marlon Brando Re-Draw Commission

 

Pencil on Cartridge paper

A recent commission to re-draw an old caricature I'd created in pencil of Brando as The Godfather. As far as I can remember this is the first time I've been asked to copy an old original of mine so I was intrigued to see how it would turn out. Was fun to do.

Matt Damon

Been a while since I sketched a face, so, seeing as Mr Damon's currently making headlines for various reasons I thought a heavy-set take on the features would be fun.

Da Prodge

"...Danger Illustrated!" A bit of fan art of electronic punk pioneers, The Prodigy.

 

 Final composition: click on image for large version.

 

Clean Lines

Made a clean line version before each character was coloured up and arranged in the final composition.

Clark Gable

Me: "Say Clark, what do you think of my caricature of ya?"
Clark: " Frankly, Russ..."

Lionel Messi

Latest addition to my gallery of footballing greats, it's Mr Messi. More to come- at some point!

Tools: Sketchbook Pro & Photoshop

Hutch again

Back in 2012 I did a bit of fan art for YouTube good-guy, Hutch @z0mgItsHutch - COD hero, Chess master, life coach(!) - 'cause I love his uploads. I tweeted him with it, though didn't hear anything back, but that was cool. Seems like he must've recently stumbled across it and now retweeted it, ha, ha! Am made-up that he likes it enough to show. If you like YT gamer content then check him out. Cheers, Hutch!

When Scarlett turns Black!

Good fun with Natasha: Sketchbook Pro & Photoshop illo

BB King

 

My tribute to the recently departed king of the blues guitar, BB king. Click image for larger view

Floyd Mayweather

 

World Champ, Floyd - Tools: sketchbook Pro + Ps

Manny x2

Manny Pacquiao: a couple of quick rough sketches of the Filipino fighting champ.

Ben E King

April turned out to be not a particularly great month as far as mortality was concerned. Here's my tribute to Ben E King - another great face and voice.

Back to Machete...

When I created my caricature of Danny Trejo as Machete I wasn't sure from the outset which way I was going to go with it in terms of the style: traditional inked look or a clean digital blocked look - couldn't make up my mind. More often than not I pick a style, whichever it may be, and go with it without looking back. But now and then it sometimes goes that I start down one particular route and there comes a gnawing doubt that perhaps a different approach would have been better...so I end up putting the image I'm working on to one side and start a new version with a different approach. But with a certain inevitability I end up glancing back at the original version and it's now looking quite good, better in fact than the second version that, by this time, I'd also put a fair amount of time into. And so a maddening vacillation between two versions starts and I can't make up my mind which is better; at least, not without doing lots more work on the image I end up forsaking for the the one I actually do go on to finish. Therefore, there are half-formed versions of certain caricatures that never go anywhere or get finished and it seems to me - even when I'm trapped in the middle of it - a ridiculous waste of time! As it often happens, some time later when I've finished the artwork (taken sick leave, received counselling, partially recovered) I go back and look at the version that I ended up abandoning and, of course, still yet see a worth in it. And the inevitable thought starts to form: 'perhaps it would have been better if...'

I don't know why it can often be like this. Some kind of inability to knuckle-down to one style, married with an easy fatigue, plus a bit of the 'grass looks greener on the other side' thrown in for good measure. Agg!

Below are some outtakes of the whole brain-busting process. I like 'em all!

 

Above: A version with a traditional ink look, where I thought I was going to keep the lines black.

 

Above: An abandoned digital version with blocked, clean colours - I even had big trouble deciding which type-style to opt for.

 

Above: Thought about abandoning the line work and keeping just the colour flats. Also tried adding a bit of grit for effect. It all came to nought!

 

Above is the rough that started it all...

Percy Sledge

Here's my tribute to Percy Sledge - great voice and a great face.

Richie Benaud

Farewell Mr Benaud. Had a mate at art college, many moons ago, who did a spot-on Benaud impression. The two characters have remained inextricably linked in my mind ever since...anyway, this was a quick-'un - keeping it loose with a heavy 'ink' brush in Sketchbook Pro. Ps for background, as per usual. To view a sped-up version of the caricature creation then click on the thumbnail below:

David Sowerbutts (aka Steve Pemberton)

Tools:  Sketchbook Pro + Ps

The mighty fine comic creation of Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, from hit series Psychoville. As promised, I've finally posted another speed caricature/process drawing - over a year after my first dabble with demo software - so if you want to see the creation of this then click on the thumbnail below:

Jeremy Clarkson

 

I've recently purchased some video-making software to upload more speed caricatures and processes onto You Tube - and the production of the above image was my first attempt at trying to make something a bit slicker than the Keith Richards vid I produced a year ago on free demo software. However, previewing the Clarkson vid  was a bit of a tough watch as it had what I thought were to many zoom in-and-outs which left me feeling a bit nauseous. The zooms are normally part of the drawing process: zoom-ins to work on details and zoom-outs to see how the image is shaping up. I may post the video yet, but in the meantime I'm going to try and capture something that doesn't leave the viewer with a headache! For future videos I'll endevour to keep the page at a static position as much as possible.