Daniel Sturridge

Hoping he's going to turn it on again for England's next outing in the Euros against Slovakia. Don't care how he dances when he scores, as long as he scores!

Gareth Bale

There's your target, England - lock him down, ha, ha!

Brilliant Bill Burr

My current favourite comedian - enjoyed doing this.

Quentin Tarantino

I've tried drawing Mr Tarantino a few times in the past and never felt I got anywhere near a satisfactory take on his features. After a long break and a fresh approach I went with a flat line version and felt a lot better about the result. No doubt there's a more detailed, cross-hatched version 'in there' somewhere but for the present I had to make this intermediary stage to understand how about getting the basics down.

Chris Evans as Steve Rogers is Captain America

 A pouty Captain America!

Cillian Murphy as Thomas Shelby

Yeeeeeeeeeees! Peaky Blinders back on the small screen! Celebrating with my version of Thomas Shelby as played by Cillian Murphy. I don't want to paint a flat cap again for a loooong time...

Sketchbook Pro + Photoshop

Johan Cruyff

 

Total football requires total caricature. My tribute to the late, great soccer star, Johan Cruyff. Great memories of being a kid and watching him dazzle on the field.

Travis Fimmel as Ragnar Lothbrok

Travis Fimmel as Norse smiter, Ragnar Lothbrok. Have enjoyed a few episodes of Vikings - a show about extreme Norse farming, as far as I can tell. Seems he'll lick you upside the head just for a nice plot for his carrots.

 Caricature was hacked out on a cintiq and splattered with digital ink in Sketchbook Pro...

John Grant

Saw John Grant playing live last last night - a pretty darn fine performance, I reckoned. Thought he'd make a good caricature but it took me ages to get the right look. About 80% happy with it.

Lemmy in colour

 

Thought I'd throw some paint at my recent sketch of Lemmy. Always fun to do some real painting

Acrylic on canvas card: 31cm x 20cm

Original sketch here

Commission

A recent commission of a sports blogger for a company called Brainify - a Norwegian consultancy firm. My only brief was not to make him look too angry(!) so I slightly softened the attack of his eyebrows. All done in Sketchbook Pro - and an enjoyable one to complete...

Boris Karloff

Boz: sans nuts and make-up.

Alan Rickman

That great voice, sadly gone. Despite the hairstyle I gave him, I'm not a Potter Fan - I prefer a Gruber over a Snape.

'Twas fun to try and put something down as fast as possible without getting too hung up on detail.

(Speed-paint in Sketchbook Pro & Ps.)

Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do...

Very sad start to the day with the news of David Bowie's death. Am posting an old caricature of him from the vaults but I will look to post a fresh tribute to the starman in the near future.

RIP, David.

Kurt sketch

Kurt Cobain in Sketchbook Pro and Photoshop

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.