Sure, you could call them impressions, but I like to think of these clips of me "singing" as auditory caricatures since I tried to push the sound beyond what the singers actually sing like. Plus, I'm not the world's greatest singer, so these are meant to be funny and entertaining rather than serious and well sung (which isn't to say that I'm not singing to the best of my ability haha). I tried to pick sections of songs that epitomize the sound of the singer while trying to capture a lot of the distinguishing, unique sound qualities you'd hear throughout their music that make that singer's voice stand out from everyone else's.

A lot of these voices I've been doing for a while, ranging from a few months to many years, just for fun in the car, shower or whatever, but I've never really tried to exaggerate them quite so much as now. What I found is that this right here is the most like the singers that I've ever sounded before. I thought that by pushing these impressions beyond what I think the singers sound like that I might start to lose the auditory "likeness," but the opposite was true. A good impression is a lot like a good caricature drawing or painting: it can capture the overall essence of the subject matter a lot more effectively and creatively than a "portrait" or simple imitation ever could. And based on the subject, like with a drawn caricature, some impressions naturally become more exaggerated or seem more exaggerated than others.

There are some noticeable omissions in this video, of course, such as the Misfits, Bad Religion, Minor Threat, the Offspring and many others, but this was more about organizing some of the singers I can sound like in the punk and pop/punk genre into one video rather than being about giving a thorough music history lesson. I didn't try to physically move like the singers but sometimes sang in a way that the impression dictated to me and in a way that helped me "sing" the part. This is almost more like a visual behind-the-scenes look at me finally capturing my best try at an auditory likeness. In that aspect, it might actually sound more like the singers I'm caricaturing if you don't even watch the video, but this will at least give you something to distract your eyes while you listen. Plus, it's kind of visual proof that it's me doing the singing if you're the skeptical type. After recording these clips in a random order I put them in the order in which the songs were released, starting with the earliest, , which explains the differences in lighting and placement. Yep, this took a while (about 14 hours of trial-and-error singing over 2 days).

Oh, and I had to use my computer's not-so-great built-in microphone, which is why I'm sitting awkwardly on my bed a few feet away to avoid too much distortion. I added captions so that if you haven't heard these bands before, you can look the songs up on youtube or iTunes or whatever. Try not to be too intimidated by the nearly 5-minute length of this video, as there are actually a whopping 17 auditory caricatures in it. Wow, 17?! Really? Yep. But if you're patient enough to read this, you should have no trouble watching the video.
Enjoy!

P.S. Yeah, I know that even after all this smart talk the fact of the matter is that I'm just a big dork :)

Happy Birthday Aaron Philby!

He's 28 now, dontcha know

Meet Marcus Sakoda

Chuck Norris

This one's a little bit odd, and I like that.

Political Contributors

These are watercolor paintings done of contributors for an upcoming political website. They will basically be used as icons next to their name to accompany any article they write.

Jeff


Ashley


Bob


Kevin

Medical Editorial

Here's an ok illustration I did for a medical-type editorial article for a magazine based out of New Hampshire. Turns out they didn't want to use something this caricature-esque or illustration-y and went with a boring photo collage instead. Oh well, I got paid, and the company that hired me to do this job for the magazine liked it. It's pen and watercolor on watercolor paper.

John Leguizamo

Here's another Caricaturama Showdown 3000 entry. I was trying to do some interesting stuff with straight lines versus curved lines, so I ended up using a ruler for about half of the lines in this with no parallel lines. The likeness is iffy, but I like the design-i-ness and the colors at least.

Brian Oakes

I just realized that I forgot to post this when I shoulda a few weeks ago. I did this after the painting of Dhaveed and right before the Seinfeld painting. It's of the amazing Brian Oakes and was done with Markettes and watercolor on watercolor paper. Had fun with this one! Check out Oakes' blog here:
http://brianoakes.blogspot.com/

Devon Browning

Here's Devon Browning, a cool letterbrush artist who works at SeaWorld. Check out some of her awesome paintings:
http://www.devonbrowning.com/

Colonel Hans Landa

Here's another entry for the Caricaturama Showdown, this time for Inglorious Basterds. I had been working on this the night before it was due and decided to give up on it as it was only halfway done and I was undecided about how I felt about it. Well, I'm glad I finished it even though it's too late to submit it for competition.

Christoph Waltz was awesome in this role as the Jew Hunter, and he had this creepy way of being evil while smiling and sounding friendly, a bit like an evil clown.

I used a uni Super Ink pen with watercolor on Arches watercolor paper. 14" x 24"

Michael Cera

Here's my second entry for Caricaturama Showdown. Being the winner from last week, I was able to choose whoever I wanted, and there were a lot of really great entries this week.
Michael Cera's such a wimpy-looking guy, so here he is as Scott Pilgrim in a fighting pose made even wimpier by the fact that he's fighting for love. The hearts are from a kissing scene with Ramona Flowers in the movie. His hair reminds me of a tree or shrub, so I went with kinda earthy tones for that. Markettes and watercolor on watercolor paper.

Jerry Seinfeld

I did this for a facebook contest called the Caricaturama Showdown 3000, which has a new person to draw each week. This was my first entry. I had drawn the cast of Seinfeld about 2 years ago, so I thought I already had a good head start on knowing how Jerry looked. This one's a lot more fun and crazy than the first, as I've been really trying to do different stuff lately.

Turns out I ended up winning!

Aaron Philby talks Caricature Theory

Well, if you couldn't tell, it's actually me doing my best to imitate Aaron Philby, whose artwork is inimitable.

Dhaveed

This is Dhaveed, a cool friend co-caricaturist-worker. I was going for a piece that was intentionally a little disgusting to look at.
PITT artist pen, watercolor, mud, hair, spirit gum for reflective qualities on blood and eyes, coldpress watercolor paper

Drawings of Me

I've been lucky enough to get a lot of free drawings of me in the past couple of months since I arrived in San Diego. Here's not even half of them (more to come!):

Another Urzua:


Another Philby:


An Andy Urzua original:


An early Nate sketch:

Nate and Marcus

Here's Nate Kapnicky. I sketched him over a dozen times before coming up with this idea. I'm especially happy with the weirdness and the color of this drawing.
This guy has been one of my biggest idols for the past couple of years, and I've been lucky enough to be able to watch him draw and paint here in San Diego. He's a true pioneer of caricature and has a totally twisted view of reality. Dali himself would be wowed. Check out some of his sweet artwork here:
http://www.jackin-faces.blogspot.com/


Here's Marcus Sakoda, a new guy at the San Diego Zoo. I've only seen him once without his Cookie Monster sweatshirt, so I wanted to do something interesting with that and thought that this was pleasantly stupid enough. I used only 4 colors and was kinda going for a geisha look with the way I used them.
He's been taking an online caricature class with Jason Seiler and is new to live caricature, but this dude is totally rockin' it already. Check out some of his amazing digital stuff here:
http://msakoda.blogspot.com/

Andy and Andy again

Andy, Cloudy and Damion
I'm really happy with how this came out. l was going for an Adams Family look crossed with an old-time family photo with maybe a hint of The Nightmare Before Christmas thrown in for good measure. I started shading in the whole drawing with just a black art stick and then added a few colors to subtly add a moody tone to the drawing. I spent a while moving lines and shapes around until I was able to create an interesting composition (I hope) with a balance of positive and negative space and realism crossed with abstraction.


Here's an earlier version I did of Andy a few weeks ago. It was the first studio-style caricature I had ever done with markettes and art stix (done before the Andy, Aida and Dejon drawings), so I was happy with it when I did it, but I like that I've already started to get comfortable with the materials and have been trying new stuff out already.

Dejon

Trying to work on rhythm, perspective, shapes and exaggeration on this one. My line quality still needs a lot of work, but I'm pretty happy with this drawing for now. I like how the ovals of the nose, eye, ear and cheek are all tangent to each other. I've gotta say that I'm really liking being able to start and finish a color drawing anywhere I want without having to drag along a huge table, a tacklebox and a portable air compressor like I had to do with airbrushing. Plus it's (nearly) silent and doesn't require electricity.

Grab Bag o' Sketches

I've been keeping busy seeing what I can do with pens, pencils and markers and having fun drawing animals in ways that I haven't tried out before. I did most of these over the past couple of weeks, so I should hopefully have many more to come over the summer.

Flamingo marker and highlighter sketch
After already having bought some highlighters for the aye-aye's eyes, I knew I had to use them a bit more. By using warm and cool grey markers in addition to the highlighters, I was able to capture the brightness of flamingos without the full-out tackiness of fluorescent flamingo lawn ornaments (I hope).


Baby aye-aye marker sketch
After finishing all the grey in this drawing, I realized that it wouldn't do the animal justice for me to leave the eyes white, as aye-ayes really have highlighter-yellow eyes in real life.


Giant leaf-tailed gecko marker sketch
One of the coolest-looking animals I'd seen in a while.


La Jolla Cove marker sketch
I had a pretty limited time to work on this since the tide came in really quick and backed me up against the rock wall.


Prismacolor cool and warm grey marker fish sketch
For some reason it had never occurred to me before to use warm and cool gray markers together to develop more form. I had always figured you were supposed to use one or the other (or french grey).


Pen penguin sketches


6B pencil walrus sketches
After spending a long time on the other walrus drawing, I wanted to do something quicker and more cartoony.


6B pencil walrus sketch


6B pencil seahorse sketch


6B pencil shark sketches
These were drawn on 2 separate sheets of paper, but they fit together really well accidentally.


Pen sketch of a basking shark


Sketch of a Sketchers poster girl done during down time at the mall

Some Last Mall Sketches

Here's some ol' sketches I had lying around that I've been meaning to throw up on the ol' blogosphere.

Reckless Runner


Hairy Hunter


Pointy-Jawed Boxer


Preggo with Skinny Leggos


Goblin Gal


Teenaged Thor

Aida

I didn't use a foamy on this one. So, I used the white blending stick on this drawing on parts of the table, the background, her gums and a couple other places on her face that I wanted to take emphasis away from. I figured that by making certain parts of the drawing smoother, it brings more emphasis and texture to the skin and sweatshirt where I want it. I like how the colors came out in this one.

A Drawing for a Drawing

Here's one of my first attempts to use markettes and art stix to create a non-park drawing. I think this ended up being pretty derivative of other better drawings of this guy, but learning a lot these days. This is the eggs-celent Aaron Philby:


Here's Aaron's second take of me:

The Last of the Live Mall Caricatures

Here's the last batch of pencil-and-airbrush caricatures for a while, as I'm starting to get used to using Markettes and artstix here in San Diego. I did these all at another local mall in New Hampshire over the course of 2 and a half weeks with my own setup again. I basically worked 12 hours a day for 18 days straight, did some decent drawings and made a whole bunch of cash! Which is always nice and helpful when you have to drive from one "corner" of the country to the other. Enjoy!

Pock-Marked Vampire


Static EleChickcity


Goblin Girl and Gnome Guy


Big-Mouth Bass Boy
I wouldn't recommend feeding him anything by hand if you're a fan of having fingers.


Birthmarked Pixie


Just a Girl and Her Dog
Happy with how the dog came out.


Eyelash Rakes and Picasso Eyes


Pumpkin Head


Almond-Toothed Girl and the Music Man
These guys were really cool and let me exaggerate as much as I wanted. I definitely learned a lot doing this drawing, and I think it's currently one of the best caricatures I've ever done.


Smiley Face
Thought I'd continue the circle motif in the background.


Magical Girl
I really like how the colors came out in this one.


Orange and Raw Umber
The color of their faces was really easy to replicate, but my favorite part of this is her earrings.


Oval Cheeks
Yeah, I realized what this looks like pretty early on, so I just went with it haha.


Wittle Orange Dress
Aww!-Dorable


The Bearded Dragon Society
That's magical purple smoke, in case you were wondering.


Eyes of Blood


Bumps and Underfangs
These guys got a drawing from me and then came back for another one a couple days later, asking for a funnier one. This was a lot of fun to do and is one of my faves at the moment.


Lopsided Skull


Natural Asymmetry
She was really cool and loved the drawing.


Ornery Owl
She wasn't sure what to make of it, but her son was cracking up the whole time, so that helped.


Chipmunk Chick and Wonky Eyes
Nothing too special about him, but she was a lot of fun to draw and paint.


Witchy Woman and Goateed Guy


Clefted Chin Chica


A Fitting Couple
First date at a mall while being supervised by their mother. Aww! Not really sure why he's kinda floating, but why not?


Inversed Jaw and Round Jaw


Pirate Girls
Depth perception is so over-rated.


Dimple Wells and Best Friend


Downward Lashes and Eye Caverns


Head-Popsicle-on-a-Stick and Hair Swoop of Orange (aka Jenny and Meghan)
My sister Jenny is the one who is not a redhead.