Last week I had a quick turn-around on a commissioned piece for a birthday present.
Sorry for the overlaid copyright stamp. There’s been a lot of stealing of caricaturists work going on in the internet. Several of my pieces and those of other caricaturists from around the world were stolen by a guy in Dodge City, KS. and placed on his site to promote his caricature business. In many cases he removed the original artists signature and replaced it with his own. He did that with at least one of my pieces. Hence the overlay stamp. Probably won’t stop this criminal practice but it’s an attempt to make it more difficult.
I just shipped this one out to the client this morning.
Usually when a golf club pro contacts me for a commission caricature assignment it means clubs, grass, water traps and all that stuff. This one was refreshingly different.
Last year I drew at the annual Planned Parenthood Fund Raiser and donated a commission gift caricature to their auction. It took awhile (I don’t know why) but the winner finally presented her certificate and claimed her gift caricature.
She’s a retired chef.
I recently finished a large corporate job, caricaturing over 30 award winning people. In a week or two, after their awards presentation, I’ll post some samples of the award format, that I designed and created, in which I placed all these heads.
A very appreciative and considerate client, one of my best.
I’ve been too busy to do much, if any, blog updates but I took the time to show you this very fun project I just did for an ad agency in Pennsylvania. Corporate executives done up as super heroes for an internal presentation.
The top two rows were the first job. The corporation liked them so much they came back to me for 15 more, the lower ones. Lot of fun!
I was contacted by a client in New Orleans that wanted a gift for the Silver King, King Osiris 2010. A fun job!
This was a fun, somewhat challenging commission job. The challenge came in getting an adult head onto a baby body, inside a limo, with interstate signs and Chicago outside the car. Arranging all that material and still have the figure be the focus was the challenge. After I closed in the point of view to give the figure the dominant area it all fell into place. The golf bag and clubs were my idea to fill up the left side of the composition.
I did this one last year for the same client;
I’m a gold member of the ISCA (International Society of Caricature Artists) and on the forum there’s a thread where a member posts a celebrity name on their birthday and the members draw a caricature of that celeb. I don’t get to participate very often due to being busy but I wanted to make a special effort to do this actor whose work I like. We recently saw him in The Men Who Stare at Goats which was an enjoyable film.
Fifty years ago tonight the Twilight Zone debuted on CBS television.
A girls basketball team won their tournament and the coach treated them to caricatures! I drew all the girls then arranged ten prints to feature each girl larger than her teammates. Here’s two examples;
Created as a sample for a possibly forthcoming awards job. Client liked it.
Here’s a commissioned gift caricature done for the fine folks at Rolls Royce, Indianapolis. One of their engineers was going home to England, specifically, Derby.
I was contacted by Troyer Foods to do some WANTED poster caricatures of a grop within the company. Here are the results;
Here’s a step-by-step of a fun commission I just finished. I won’t go into why but the gentleman who commissioned this job wanted his family drawn on donkeys. He specified 3 donkeys for five family members. So I drew up this first sketch.
When he saw this he said he wanted all the donkeys facing forward. I pointed out that that design would obscure most of the bodies of the kids. Turns out he was just trying to make it easier on me by limiting the number of donkeys. So I added a donkey. He also mentioned that he was a fireman and could I change the ball cap on his head to a fire fighter’s helmet. And the daughter had won some karate trophies so I switched her breaking boards to holding the trophies since I had good reference for them.
The basics of the family were approved so I started firming up the drawing on the donkeys. All this work was done in Corel Painter X using the largest WACOM Intous digital tablet. I use different line colors on separate layers to differentiate between stages of the sketches on into the finish.
Here’s the line work for the whole family. Each on their own layer.
The client was interested in getting a print twice the size that I am able to print on my Epson 2200 printer so I tried to work with a file that was 360 pixels per inch and 22″ x 34.” I knew I couldn’t work with the totality of a file that size so I split each donkey and rider(s) into separate files for inking and painting. But the larger file was not to be. As I was working on the mustache of the Dad I would draw 3 or 4 hairs and sit and wait until the computer caught up with me. I had to reduce the file size to my usual 11″ x 17.” But, I sent out a sample file (the Groomsmen project) to see how that standard size file would look doubled in size. It looks fine, no degradation of line or color.
These are two of the separate files.
After completing all the family members (after five tries to get the baby’s face right - the right photo reference finally arrived) and doing the beach background it was completed and the regular size print and CD were delivered.
The large print is in the works.
There’s a story behind this one. Something about a woodchuck trapped in a house and the man trying to get him out which resulted in a fall from a step-ladder and facial scarring. Then a similar incident with a skunk!
The client also wanted some of the subject’s prominent buildings and his retirement home included.
I’m preparing my promotional calendar for 2009. This year I’m changing the header art, replacing the line art with some digitally painted caricatures.
For anyone reading this who doesn’t know this is the current actor, David Tennant, playing Dr. Who. The series can be seen on the SCI-FI Channel and BBC America, for those of you fortunate to live in an area with that channel.
This one reflects my love of old films. Bogart and Bacall.
I’m slowly working on my calendar for 2009, which I give to clients, friends, family and use myself. I’ve got all the days, birthdays, holidays etc. updated, now I want to change the banner art for the top of each page. To that end this afternoon I spent about 45 minutes on a Bogart caricature. I’ll work more on it later and hopefully add Lauren Bacall to it.
Here’s the latest commission caricature I finished last week. I’m including the reference photos so you can see the resemblance.
This week I delivered some new employee caricatures to the Milton & Rose Friedman Foundation. Last year I did an on-site booking to draw all their employees. Since then they have asked me to draw any new hires. This time I learned that they have framed and hung all my works on the main hallway wall!
Very flattering. (The bottom row are employees that have left the foundation.)