Silver Anniversary

I was happy to have the opportunity to help Denise Grant celebrate 25 years with the Public Relations Society of America - Georgia Chapter. I was given several photos to work from and I think I caught her winning smile perfectly. Congrats Denise!

Pedroscope

This is Pedroscope (aka, Pedro Delgado) over at the DrawingBoard.org. This one doesn't quite pop like I want it to. Can't figure it out. Maybe I'll mess with the colors a bit.

Another DrawingBoard.org Victim

Been a while, but here's another poster over at DrawingBoard.org. He goes by the name Deltadadad. I scanned a pencil sketch then added color in photoshop. I think the break I took from drawing actually helped. I was able to do the painting aspect with a fresh look.

Something New

I call it "A Caricature of a Caricature". I'm looking at a caricature and exaggerating again.

Some dude

Here's another face from the DrawingBoard. This one took me a couple of tries -- trying to break free from the portrait look and really exaggerate some of the features.

Retiring CEO

The CEO of my company is retiring at the end of the month. They "asked" me to do a caricature of him. I know the riding-into-the-sunset scene is rather cliche, but I couldn't resist. I used photos found online for reference when drawing the horse and sunset. Not sure how long it took me. I did pieces of it here and there.

Guy from work

Dang, this blog thing is hard to stay up with. One day turns to two days then to five days then to two weeks. Next thing you know you've forgotten your password to log back on -- that's two more days. Sheesh! Anyway, this is a guy I work with. He had the bad luck of sitting across the room from me. Sorry David.

Shakira

This is actually a step for me in exaggeration. I find it easier to lay out the features then distort them while painting. Kinda like sculpting, I suppose. I've never sculpted anything, but this seems pretty close. Anway, we'll see if this method helps.

Jim from The Office

As a tribute to the writers' strike being over, here's one of Jim (John Krasinski) of The Office. I love that show and look forward to seeing new episodes in the coming weeks. The reference photo didn't show the kind of personality I was looking for. Jim often makes this great face right at the camera. The kind that says "these people are weird. Don't ask, I just work here." Still, it was fun to do and a good learning experience. I guess.

Exxon CEO

Not sure what this guy's name is. Not important really. All I know is that he is/was the CEO of Exxon. This is another one of those photos that demands to be caricatured. I've been told I made him too handsome. Perhaps, but I was pleased with the way it came out. For me, at least.

Squished Face

I think I can safely say that this is my first attempt at drawing somebody with a squished face like this. Not so much "caricature" going on. It's more technique and likeness practice.

Cross-eyed guy

So I've been experimenting with a new method of caricature. I've been skipping the paper stage and drawing directly in photoshop. My high-speed Wacom Graphire 2 (yes, I said 2 -- circa 2001, thank you very much) makes it possible to sketch my subject with the reference photo right next to it. I think before, maybe, there was problem somewhere between the time I looked at the reference photo and me putting the pencil to paper. I further conclude that perhaps after all these years of doodling I got into some habits, neither good nor bad, and they prevented me from drawing what I actually saw. Interesting, I know. So anyway, here's my second attempt at this new process (the Tom Richmond caricature was the first). It's of some guy who's photo is part of the Caricaturists' Caricatures thread over at DrawingBoard.com. I liked this one a lot because I used the blur filter to make the nose the focal point. The bee was added as a recommendation by Mike Hasson of aboutfacesentertainers.com. Thanks, Mike.

Tom Richmond

I had never been on the internet until I moved to Atlanta 10 years ago. My roommate let me use his computer to surf the net. I stumbled upon Tom Richmond's website. Honestly, I had never heard of him, but his artwork was amazing. He's a freelance cartoon illustrator and does a lot of stuff for Mad Magazine. I remember he had a "Me Gallery" which is a collection of all the caricatures that people have done of him. He's since expanded the website and even blogs on a consistent basis about what he's working on, industry stuff, gadgets, etc. It's a must read every day.

Anyway, I finally, finally got the guts to take a stab at his caricature.

Heri's co-worker

I posted this several weeks ago on the DrawingBoard's Caricaturist's Caricatures thread. There's link in the thread that stockpiles the participants' photos. This one is of Heri's co-worker. I think her name is Heather. Great photo reference.

ToonWeekly too late!

There's this great, little (for now) website called ToonWeekly.com that has character challenges. Every week they call for everyone to design a predetermined character and they post everyone's submission in a slideshow. I have yet to submit anything. I would have submitted this one in the "rockstar" challenge, but I was way too late.

Colorized Version

So here's an attempt to add color to the sketch from the previous post. I spent more time than usual on the hair, a first. I followed Linda Bergkvist´s Hair Tutorial. Well, I used it as a guide at least. I gotta say doing the hair on this drawing was a project in itself. Lots of fun, though. Neat how it started to come together almost on its own.

Lobby sketching

Yesterday I was at the hospital waiting for my wife to get out of "minor" surgery. I thought it was going to be a perfect time to do some live sketching, but the seating arrangement was bad. Luckily they had plenty of those celebrity gossip rag mags. I was able to come up with a couple of quick sketches. The first is Brad Pitt and the second is Lindsey Lohan. There's a likeness to Brad, but Lindsey's image needs some work. I wasn't really going for a likeness actually. I just liked the pose. Hopefully I'll have time to color these. Wish I could figure out the coloring-on-top-of-grayscale method that Jason Seiler often refers to.

Oh and the wife's surgery went well!

So here we are

At long last, I decided to post my drawings, doodles and sketches. I hope you like them. Understand that I'm not a pro at this. I just like to draw. I'll post as many as possible. I encourage any and all comments and critiques. They'll just make me stronger!

You'll notice that these first few are in the header of this blog. They're all I have right now.

Diluc


Elijah Wood


Simon Cowell