Eric Goodwin's Art Blog

Cripple Con 4 Life

2011-04-07T18:29:00.000-07:00

Here's a few pieces of art from this year's Cripple Con, a caricature convention dedicated to the somewhat recently crippled Len Hernandez.

Sean Evans

Marlo Meekins

Jeff Pecina

Patrick Martinez

The Great Unveiling

2011-04-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

Here's my family unwrapping and seeing their drawings for the first time on Christmas. Fun!

The Fam!

2011-04-07T17:33:00.001-07:00

I did these drawings as gifts to my family for Christmas. They knew I was working on drawings of them but had no idea what the drawings looked like till they unwrapped them for Christmas.

my Mom

my Dad

my sister Kimberly

my sister Jenny

Lumpy Self-Caricature

Abstract Self-Caricature

International Society of Caricature Artists Vegas Con

2011-04-07T17:13:00.001-07:00

Here's my wall of art from the convention!

Andrea Gerstmann

Lindsey Woodward

Derek Brennan

Amanda Nikki

Desiree Cadua

a couple caricature paintings of friends

2011-04-07T15:15:00.000-07:00

Here's David Patel, a cool caricaturist who worked at the San Diego Zoo last summer that I painted a few months ago.

Here's Trevor LaFauci, a cool guy who moved out to San Diego from my home town of Londonderry, New Hampshire shortly before I did.

2010-10-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

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!

2010-10-22T04:59:00.000-07:00

He's 28 now, dontcha know

Meet Marcus Sakoda

2010-10-22T04:58:00.001-07:00

Chuck Norris

2010-10-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

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

Political Contributors

2010-09-23T17:31:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-18T09:14:00.001-07:00

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

2010-09-10T15:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-31T02:36:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

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

Dhaveed

2010-08-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-11T00:37:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-27T19:08:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T21:17:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-14T16:56:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

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

2010-06-05T00:49:00.001-07:00

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

2010-05-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Cross-Country Craziness

2010-05-22T14:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a few of my favorite, most artistic photos of sight-seeing, architecture and landscapes that I experienced with my dad on my drive from New Hampshire to San Diego, California over the course of 8 days. I think that most of these photos can't even begin to capture how overwhelming it was to see this stuff in person, but it might at least give you an idea of the awesomess. I was unlucky and lucky enough to lose my year-old camera while at a Boston Red Sox game just a week before leaving, so I ended up getting a sweet new Sony camera that's way cooler than the one I had before. Enjoy!

Cleveland, Ohio
You can see the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, the Cleveland Browns football stadium and some water.

Chicago, Illinois
The Sears/Willis Tower Skydeck. The view from up there was crazy and a bit scary.

St. Louis, Missouri
The St. Louis Archway, the Gateway to the West. Also got to go up an elevator in this thing and look out from the top. You can't really see the small windows from this angle. It was a really gray, soon-to-be-rainy day.

(Somewhere in) Colorado
Talk about some curvacious green hills. Straight out of Super Mario Bros.

(Somewhere in) Arizona, near Monument Valley
I liked how jagged and fantastical these rocks were.

Monument Valley, Utah
This was probably about a 180-degree panoramic taken from a dirt road you can drive on that takes you down into the valley.

Monument Valley, Utah
This caterpillar was so spiky and cool that I had to grab a shot of it.

Monument Valley, Utah
Probably my favorite photo that I took during the trip. I like the contrast between the crisp and vibrant flowers and the muted, epic background.

Monument Valley, Utah
I like how the plant breaks the plane of the buttes in the background. The swirly white growths of the plant are kinda cool too.

Zion National Park, Arizona
The collage-y feel of this photo was a happy accident. I had left a map of Zion and some brochures about Zion on the dashboard of the car, making them reflect onto the windshield and creating a cool traveling-through-Zion image suitable for a travel book that I didn't notice until afterwards.

Zion National Park, Arizona
I thought the honey-combed rocked was pretty cool.

Zion National Park, Arizona
Waterfalls at the Emerald Pools

Zion National Park, Arizona
Pretty majestic.

Arizona/Nevada
The arrows breaking up the outline of the mountains in the background is pretty cool. I liked this shot when I was taking it because you just want to look out at the scenery but have to turn away from it or your car will go careening off the edge. Don't worry, my dad was driving when I took this shot.

Las Vegas, Nevada
The Venetian. This resort probably puts the most effort into making the interior actually live up to the theme of the resort. I like how they painted the ceiling with clouds and created a just-about-sunset mood with the lighting.

Las Vegas, Nevada
The Palazzo. I liked the reflection of the parasols on the ground.

Las Vegas, Nevada
The Mirage. Pretty appealing on its own; all I had to do was find a good spot to shoot it from and come up with a composition that worked well, which was pretty easy.

Las Vegas, Nevada
Crystals. Some of my favorite architecture in all of Vegas.

Las Vegas, Nevada
Crystals. The blues, yellow-grays, blacks, straight lines and crisp edges really made this shot appeal to me, not to mention the composition.

Las Vegas, Nevada
Crystals/Aria. I really liked how all these verticals lines become diagonals and overlap each other in interesting ways when you stand in the right place while looking up.

Las Vegas, Nevada
The Monte Carlo. I found a good place to half-crouch so that the Monte Carlo words would show up close to and underneath the fountain. I like how the yellow-white of the building contrasts with the warm blue of the fountain and how the water from the fountain drips down in front of the Monte Carlo words and the white statue to the right.

Las Vegas, Nevada
The Sunset Strip. I like the downward diagonal from left to right of the buildings. The van with the girls on it that somehow made it into the photo perfectly sums up the other aspect of Vegas that isn't exactly as family-friendly as guitars, Coca-Cola and M&Ms.

Craft Fair and Expo Stuff

2010-04-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

I've done a few craft fairs, expos for hunting and fishing (a bit scary to see who turned up for that one) and motorcycle enthusiasts (got to see some nasty, wrinkly, leather-clad biker chicks), and other random events like a home and garden show that you wouldn't expect to see a caricaturist at. Let's just say that none of them were too successful, but I was able to do a drawing every now and then that I was casually content with, so it wasn't all for practically nothing.

Here's a musician who set up about 20 feet from me and delighted everyone at the home and garden show with non-stop, loud, put-you-to-sleep folk music all 3 days of the show. When I brought in my ipod and some portable speakers on the second day and played music (at less than one-quarter of the volume of his) that would actually give me energy to stay awake and be able to draw, he "told on me" to the organizer of the event that I needed to turn my music down so that he could concentrate on his. I was amazed that he could even hear my music when he wasn't even playing, but I was even more amazed that a 50-something-year-old man couldn't bring himself to walk over and ask me politely to lower my music himself. I'm pretty sure he was getting his revenge on me for my staring at him while I drew him the previous day. Hey, better than a punch!:

And here's a drawing of the guy who was set up to my left. He claimed to be the inventor of "dessert hummus" and was letting people try free samples of it. He had a large stuffed animal camel on his table to lure people over, so most people saw that thing and totally overlooked my caricature display, which is tough to miss. I kid you not, a woman who was extra enthusiastic about the camel asked me, "Did you see the camel?!" as if I hadn't noticed everyone that passed by it for the previous few hours commenting on it. Best investment for his business he ever made, he said. Here he is (the guy, not the camel):

And here are some live drawings that people paid for (as opposed to drawings I did of people indiscreetly while ogling them from afar):

Fidgety Fellow

Horse Teeth: A Family Heirloom

A Look of Familiarity
If this guy looks strangely familiar to you but you can't quite put your bony finger on it, I'll tell you why, my questioning quails, my wondering whippoorwills. It's my papa! Turns out my dad was helping out with the Parenting Magazine booth at the home and garden show I was at, as he art directs a lot of goodness at that magazine's headquarters, McLean Communications. So he stopped by for a visit, and in a successful attempt to lure in customers, I drew my dad for the first time in probably 2 years. Wow! So many beautiful imperfections that I hadn't noticed before, even from seeing him almost daily in a casually-looking-at-him-kind-of-way. I wasn't able to grab a photo of him then and there, but I found a photo from a couple years ago, so that's why the shirt doesn't match:

Wide-Eyed Grimace
As I got close to completing this drawing, I got a chance to actually look at it as a whole for the first time and got that pang in my stomach that's a fun mixture of guilt, surprise, exhilaration, laughter, nervousness and anticipation that you can sometimes get when you realize that you exaggerated a bit more than you maybe intended or when you think the result is potentially going to get a mixed or negative reaction from the person you're drawing. Luckily for both of us, she loved it and was impressed with the detail so much so that she sang my praises when the next person sat down. I must admit, she has a good sense of humor to like this one:

Square Jaw and Willow Tree
These guys were a lot of fun to draw and talk to, the perfect combination:

Freckled Teeth Freak
This was good therapy (for me):

Notice how he didn't smile with his teeth AFTER he saw the drawing? Better than the other way around though.

Wish I'd made her cheeks pink instead of red.

Lonely Cowboy
This guy was set up at the motorcycle expo with his "artwork." Turns out he's been working on 1 (count 'em: one) woodblock carving of a couple riding on a motorcycle FOR THE PAST 15 YEARS! Apparently he only works on it during motorcycle expos, which means that he pays about $300 each time to work for a couple hours on that carving! He didn't have much skill at it, but he probably liked getting a reaction from people when working live. I think I know where he's coming from, now that I think about it...

Bottom-Lip-Biter
I just kinda gave up after awhile on that sweatshirt design. I think I realized, after it was too late, that it wasn't just an abstract design but actually a dragon. Haha whoops!

Gummy Braces
A really cool kid with an awesome smile.

SeaWorld, San Diego

2010-03-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's been a while since I've posted, especially since for a couple months I was actually posting a couple times a week. I've been pretty busy. A week or two ago I got hired to draw caricatures for Kaman's Art Shoppes at SeaWorld, San Diego! I'll be starting sometime probably in mid-May.

I had been considering my options for the summer for a few months, and after getting turned down for my private caricature stand proposal by my local amusement park, Canobie Lake, and not necessarily wanting to return to Six Flags, New England for a 4th season with so few friends returning, I imagined the impossibly ideal: drawing in San Diego with the Beastheads: Brian Oakes, Nate Kapnicky, Andy Urzua, Beau Hufford, Aaron Philby, Francesca Nunez and more whose work I have yet to be graced with. If you haven't already checked out their blog (or even if you have, check it out again), bask in the amazingness:
http://www.beastheads.blogspot.com/

Of course, living here currently in New Hampshire made this idea seem like quite a leap of faith (and a leap of location), and that was besides the fact that I wasn't sure whether I would even make it past the interview and be considered for the job, provided that Kaman's was even looking for new hires in the first place.

Aaron recommended I speak to Brian, and a week or so later after a few email exchanges I was talking live via Skype video chat to Brian and Beau who were 3 hours behind my time over there in San Diego. Ever since hearing back from Brian a few days later with the go-ahead, I've been so excited about moving out there and working with those guys that I've actually been having trouble sleeping.

I've started to put in some practice time into using the markettes and art stix they use, which are really quite different from pencil and airbrush (as I'm sure you can imagine), as I'm accustomed to using. If you can't imagine it, or you simply prefer differences being presented as useless and rather stupid mathemillumustrations, then feast your eyes:

I'll be spending the next few weeks putting more practice into that and into getting used to drawing cartoon bodies, the classic SeaWorld animals (sharks, dolphins and whales) and the less popular animals (walruses, turtles, seals, polar bears, fish, etc.). I know I'll get used to drawing those animals pretty quickly once I get out there, but I'd like to be at least a little prepared for the job as well. We didn't draw too many themes or backgrounds at Six Flags, but that kind of stuff is their specialty (along with the obligatory beasting of innocent faces), so I'm eager for the challenge now that I'm a bit more comfortable with drawing caricatures in general. Three years of practice will do that for ya.

Alright, enough blogging; back to practicing!

Flight of the Conchords

2010-03-02T21:12:00.000-08:00

Here are Bret and Jemaine from the great show "Flight of the Conchords" on HBO. If you haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, there's a plethora of deliciously dry, British-type sitcom/mockumentary humor mixed with unpredictable, funny song parodies of music from a range of different genres. A very different, fun and catchy show if you've got an offbeat sense of humor and a love for the brilliantly stupid. You can find pretty much all their songs on youtube, for starters.

I decided to use nero lead with watercolor for the first time on watercolor paper. I think I prefer the contrast of those dark and thick lines to the rest of the page compared to the more subtle contrast of 4B graphite. It really makes the figures POP! all that much more. I'm a big fan of contrast. Some pieces don't need as much contrast, but with everything going on in the piece, I found it necessary.

For a while I wasn't sure how I would go about drawing the city scape, which is featured on their official poster and on DVD menu screens and made for a great solution of what to occupy the background with. The lines are fairly consistent in width and are also about as thin as you can draw with nero. That being said, as nero is a type of lead, it needs to be sharpened by rubbing it onto a piece of paper until it comes to a chiseled point, and for extremely thin lines, this needs to be done every few seconds.

An obvious solution came to me after finishing with the linework of the figures. I had several black gel-ink pens which smudge easily but were the perfect width for the linework and had a great fluidity that allowed me to nearly perfectly duplicate the look of that cityscape. I first tried one out on a scrap piece of watercolor paper, and without really even trying was able to duplicate the look of the poorly drawn but perfect-for-the-show skyline drawing. I figured out basic placements and compositions of buildings with light pencil and then went in with the pen, really not spending much time on it, and intending to do that so as to really capture the look of the original.

The next dilemma came from how to go about painting the sky around the figures in a single watercolor wash. Luckily for me, when I checked out a dvd menu screen for reference of the cityscape, there were swirly clouds in the sky, which not only added the whimsical and fun quality of the show but also broke up the blue of the sky so that I could paint that blue in 5 washes instead of 1. Much easier.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this (the negative space of this piece is something I really worked and focused on this time), and it's probably one of the best caricature illustrations I've done if not the very best. Ahhh, progress!!

Uhh... Whoops?!!!

2010-02-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

So I did probably my favorite caricature of myself 2 or 3 months ago, which I posted on here not so long ago. I was flipping through channels yesterday and the Disney Channel show "Phineas and Ferb" was on. Imagine my surprise when I immediately realized that Phineas, the main character, had a VERY similar look to my drawing. Damn! Did I subconsciously have Phineas in the back of my mind as I worked out this self-caricature??! I think it's very possible. Even though I had never seen more than a few minutes of the show before (if at all) and had maybe seen a commercial or picture or 2 of him, he does have a pretty distinctive look about 'im. Here's a photo of my caricature, a screen shot/promotional image of the show and Phineas' head superimposed over my caricature to best show the similarities. I just mirror-reversed and rotated Phineas' head to match up better with mine:

There are some obvious similarities that most, if not all, of you will pick up right away:
-the overall triangle shape to the head
-the straight line running from the prominent nose straight back to the small, tapering cranium
-the eyes/eyebrows and browridges breaking up the monotony of that straight line, one eye/eyebrow on each side of the line
-the spiky hair shooting off from the end of the squared-off cranium
-the inward curving line running from the back of the head down to the insignificant neck, that line broken only by an ear
-the birthmarks on the cranium (his 3 vs. my 1)
-the striped shirt (not seen in my caricature, but a known staple of my fashion or lack thereof)
-the happy demeanor
-the damn-good-looking-ness

I remember this drawing evolving as I lightly sketched it out. The first epiphany I had was to have the nose head back into the cranium, broken only by the brow ridges. I then sketched out a triangle shape to use as the basis for the head shape, a shape that co-creator Dan Povenmire obviously used as the basis for Phineas when he first drew him. The next brilliant idea I had was to use a curve from the back of the head down to the neck. It all seemed so original and clever, yet I remember seeing this Phineas character last possibly a year or 2 ago and liking the simplicity of the shape of his head. I absolutely did not have this character consciously in mind when I drew my caricature, but it always seemed like it reminded me of something. One person suggested that it looked like the Pink Panther a couple months ago, and I assumed that was the answer. I can see a bit of the panther as well, but it must have been the shapes of Fineas that really influenced me from whoever knows how long ago I had last seen anything related to the show.

Oh well! You're not a hack if you don't know you're copying the artwork of someone else, right? Right??

Robb Miller

2010-02-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a caricature I just finished of fellow caricaturist and buddy Robb Miller:

The Superman thing comes from the fact that he was wearing a Superman t-shirt at the convention, he's a martial arts instructor, and he's kinda ripped. So it was the obvious thing to do.

I met Robb at my first caricature convention in November of 2008. He's a really cool, friendly, talented guy, and I ended up doing a rather crappy drawing of him at that first convention. At the second convention, he took a couple photos of me to do a drawing from, but he was apparently unhappy with how it came out, so a few weeks later he did this great digital caricature of me:

You can check out more of Robb's sweet artwork here:
http://robbmiller.blogspot.com/

Greg is not an alien.

2010-02-08T00:50:00.001-08:00

If you haven't seen one of these (3) recent sketches from SNL, be sure to check at least one of 'em out. Funny stuff! Suffice it to say that Greg seems to be an alien.

I impressed myself by actually starting and finishing a new caricature painting the day after I finally got caught up with editing and uploading all the old artwork from September-January. I hadn't done a pencil drawing with watercolor on coldpress watercolor paper since the caricature con, but luckily I fell right back into the groove of using that same technique here, 2 months later. The tough part about this was that it's Bill Hader with a wig and prosthetics making an expression that looks nothing like him. I ran into a similar problem drawing Ben Stiller as Derek Zoolander making the Blue Steel expression. How do you best capture a character's look while still maintaining the actor's likeness? A question for the ages, I suppose.

Here are some links for the Sports Show clips:
Sports Show w/The Rock
Sports Show w/Gerard Butler
Sports Show with Jon Hamm

More Mall Sketches

2010-02-06T08:38:00.000-08:00

Like the other mall sketches I posted when I first created this blog a few months ago, these were drawn from people I saw sitting and standing around in the food court where my caricature stand was first located. None of the people I drew ever saw the drawing and only a few realized that I was drawing them in the first place.

Even if I didn't make much money on a given day, if I had drawn a couple mall sketches that I was happy with, I considered it a good day, and after awhile I looked forward to doing these more than live caricatures, as I was finding a lot more freedom with drawing quicker, drawing at different angles than I was used to, and trying to start caricaturing not just people's faces but their bodies, poses and a bit of their personalities. Also, I learned to simplify faces more and learned to draw moving or at least non-posing targets, which helped a lot with all the babies I would draw later.

These were the last mall sketches I did, as I was relocated to a couple other spots where I was busier and didn't have much time between drawings to do sketches. I never got around to scanning and editing them in photoshop till a couple days ago, so they're new to your eyes but not to mine. That being said, these are some of my favorites! These are posted at 75% of their actual size, in case you were wondering...

Mall Sketch #60: Hooded Flier

Mall Sketch #59: Booby Lady

Mall Sketch #58: Lollipop Girl

Mall Sketch #57: Turtle Jacket

Mall Sketch #56: Shaggy Slob

Mall Sketch #55: Globe Squatter

Mall Sketch #54: Hourglass Figure

Mall Sketch #53: Poop Man

Mall Sketch #52: Old Dude with Fork

Mall Sketch #51: Lanky Frog

Mall Sketch #50: Cross-Hatched Crone

Mall Sketch #49: Cross-Hatched Sourpuss

Mall Sketch #48: Pretentious Lashes

Mall Sketch #47: The Mumps

Color Live Caricatures: Batch 4

2010-02-03T13:10:00.001-08:00

Here's the rest of 'em: Hope you enjoy!

Color Live Caricatures: Batch 3

2010-01-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

Color Live Caricatures: Batch 2

2010-01-30T15:42:00.000-08:00

Here's some more live stuff for ya to check out:

Color Live Caricatures: Batch 1

2010-01-29T12:06:00.000-08:00

Here's the first batch of 4 or 5 that I'll be uploading from my mall lease. It takes a helluva long time to get these online just because in Photoshop I adjust the lighting, color balance, sharpness, cropping and size of every single photo and have to fix warping issues on half of them. Worth the effort though.

Black-and-White Live Caricatures

2010-01-26T12:57:00.000-08:00

Here are some of my favorite black-and-white drawings from my fall/winter season at the mall. I figured it might be cool to put the photos of the people I drew in b&w as well. Why not?

That's right, just when you thought I couldn't get any slower at live caricatures, I've started to render them even more than before. But when there's no line it's hard for me to not take my time.

Self-Caricatures

2010-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some self-caricatures I did over the last couple months when I had me some down-time at my stand and was in the mood for some fun self-destruction:

Babies and Toddlers

2010-01-12T21:23:00.000-08:00

During the past few months of drawing live caricatures at my local mall, I ended up drawing many, many little ones. Here are my favorites:

I used to hate drawing babies, but that was before I knew what I was doing. When you don't know what you're doing and you're trying to draw a squirming, crying, androgynous little ball of anti-joy, it's not too much fun. I've gotta say though, I had fun with all these drawings.

Giraffe Chalk Drawing

2010-01-12T13:49:00.000-08:00

My sister wanted me to draw something on her new chalkboard bedroom wall, so I picked up a pillow that was sitting around that had a picture on it of the giraffe from the movie Madagascar. Personally, I thought the movie wasn't the greatest, but this image made for good practice with trying out an artsy-looking drawing using sidewalk chalk. It was a fun challenge cause I ended up blending with my fingers, slightly erasing off some colors and then blending them into the black of the chalkboard to get them to be darker, and using a damp paper towel to erase out areas to get an almost black. This took about 2 hours and is about 2 and a half feet tall.

My Convention Artwork

2009-12-09T08:51:00.000-08:00

My Wall

Greg McCrary

Sun Yeong

Walter

Andy Urzua

Dexter

Aaron Philby

I did these all with the 6B graphite lead holder we use at 6 Flags, NE with watercolor on coldpress watercolor paper. This style was somewhat similar to some caricature illustration work I've done before, but I hadn't worked much on watercolor paper before with this technique, and the texture of the paper led me to try new techniques. Overall, I was pretty happy with how this stuff came out, so I'll definitely see where else I can go with this style.

3 Caricatures of Amazingness

2009-12-08T20:58:00.000-08:00

Jert's caricature of me

Aaron Philby's caricature of me

Tomo Tabata's caricature of me

These were my 3 favorite caricatures that other awesome caricaturists did of me at this year's caricature convention. Amazing!

Trying Stuff Out

2009-12-08T19:39:00.000-08:00

Heidi Klum

The likeness really sucks, but this was at least good practice for trying out 6b graphite with watercolor on watercolor paper, a technique I used a few days later at the convention. I'm also pretty happy with the anatomical exaggeration and linework. Likeness, not so much.

Mall Sketch #46: Bloody Tears

2009-10-30T20:16:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #45: Mr. Fat Potato Head

2009-10-30T20:15:00.004-07:00

Mall Sketch #44: Pucker Up!

2009-10-30T20:15:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #43: Bottle Beaut

2009-10-30T20:15:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #42: 5:00 Mustache Shadow

2009-10-30T20:14:00.002-07:00

Mall Sketch #41: Cyborg Señorita

2009-10-30T20:14:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #40: Daffy Dude

2009-10-30T20:13:00.004-07:00

Mall Sketch #39: Ursula Shopper

2009-10-30T20:13:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #38: The Interrogator

2009-10-30T20:13:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #37: Joe Giraffe

2009-10-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

Mall Sketch #36: Japan-Style Cutie

2009-10-30T20:10:00.002-07:00

Mall Sketch #35: Awkward Kid

2009-10-30T20:10:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #34: Hair Stylist Mom

2009-10-30T20:09:00.004-07:00

Mall Sketch #33: Rachel Raccoon

2009-10-30T20:09:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #32: Big-Mouthed Bass

2009-10-30T20:09:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #31: Turtle-Necked with a Soda

2009-10-30T20:07:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #30: Chicken-Legged, Big-Gutted Old Dude

2009-10-30T20:06:00.000-07:00

Mall Sketch #29: Troll Doll Hair

2009-10-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Mall Sketch #28: Window Glasses

2009-10-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

Mall Sketch #27: Doggy Man

2009-10-16T21:52:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #26: Wolf Boy

2009-10-16T21:52:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #25: No Upper Lip to Speak Of or With

2009-10-16T21:51:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #24: Bridge Troll

2009-10-16T21:50:00.002-07:00

Mall Sketch #23: Biker with Neck Rolls

2009-10-16T21:50:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #22: Slouched Gent

2009-10-16T21:49:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #21: Lightbulb Nose

2009-10-16T21:49:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #20: Suspendered Belly

2009-10-16T21:48:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #19: Homeless Wandering Gnome

2009-10-16T21:48:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #18: Wigged Trendy Kid

2009-10-16T21:47:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #17: Nostrilled Jowly Woman

2009-10-16T21:46:00.002-07:00

Mall Sketch #16: Pointy-Nosed Librarian Type

2009-10-16T21:46:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #15: Rockabilly Vampire

2009-10-16T21:45:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #14: Nosey Fish Lips

2009-10-16T21:44:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #13: Turkey Dipping Toy

2009-10-16T21:44:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #12: The Shaking Elderly

2009-10-16T21:43:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #11: Fighting Neanderthal

2009-10-16T21:43:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #10: Shaggy Egyptian

2009-10-16T21:42:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #9: Rockabilly-Haired Beaker

2009-10-16T21:34:00.004-07:00

Mall Sketch #8: Levitating Baby

2009-10-16T21:34:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #7: Turtleneck Cupcake

2009-10-16T21:34:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #6: Doofily Concerned

2009-10-16T21:33:00.003-07:00

Mall Sketch #5: Hovering Squat

2009-10-16T21:33:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #4: Mohawked Mac Store Muchacho

2009-10-16T21:32:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #3: Lady Homer Simpson

2009-10-16T21:28:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #2: Shark Eyes

2009-10-16T21:21:00.001-07:00

Mall Sketch #1: Bosomy Rapunzel

2009-10-16T20:33:00.000-07:00

For the past few weekends I've been set up with my own caricature stand in the food court at a local mall. Which doesn't bring in too much money, but I have hours to sketch people as they sit down to eat their lunch all around me. Some people notice that I'm drawing them but most haven't got a clue. It's really given me a chance to work on 3/4 views, profiles, gestures, bodies, flow of form and lots of other stuff that I've been a little intimidated to try out before. It also helps attract interest and ultimately gets me more business. For a while, this blog will probably be dedicated mostly to these drawings. Enjoy!