RIP Alan Rickman

This brilliant actor brought so many classic moments to cinema over the years, it's hard to pick the best. Here's a drawing I did of him five years ago for my 300 heads sketchbook:

Alan Rickman, 1946-2016

Sketch of Max Von Sydow as Lor San Tekka

So some years it's easy to think of what you want to pursue more as a resolution. For me, this New Year's resolution was a resounding: DRAW MORE! 2015 was the dryest year yet for time spent away from the drawing pad, with attention spent more on photo manipulation and touching up family pictures (you parents of young kids out there know where I'm coming from). However, the neglect ends now. The first piece I drew this year ended up being taken from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, whose art books were a joy to flip through over the break. There will most definitely be more subjects taken from that universe as I work on getting my draftsmanship skills back up to snuff.

Actor Max Von Sydow as Lor San Tekka. Graphite on paper. 2016

Also, I read an art book over the weekend called Sketchbook for the Artist, that I highly recommend. It was the perfect refresher of illustration principles to keep aware of, no matter how many years you've been drawing.

300 Sketchbook: Top Chef finalists

Brooke Williamson, Sheldon Simeon, and Kristen Kish.

I'm posting this a lot later than I was hoping, but here are the latest trio of portraits from my "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme was "the last three finalists of Bravo's Top Chef." From left to right are: Brooke Williamson, Sheldon Simeon, and Kristen Kish (who won).

The portraits were drawn first on paper (reproducing photographs from Chelsea Sektnan, Star Chefs, and Bravo), then scanned and corrected, then digitally painted over in Photoshop. The background colors were chosen based off the colors of competition ribbons.

WIP shots:

Raw drawing.

Adjusted lines in Photoshop with rotate/transform tools.

Overlay comparison between raw lines (blue) and final lines (black).

Final lines, post-adjustment.

Color flats.

As with all reproductions I do of photographs, I hold no copyright on that material. This is a non-commercial fan art piece.

New '300 Heads' sketchbook drawings: Rocket Jump

Freddie Wong, Brandon Laatsch, and Brian Firenzi.

More drawings for my “300 Heads” sketchbook. This week it’s the Rocket Jump guys: Freddie Wong, Brandon Laatsch, and Brian Firenzi. Their web series Video Game High School is a must-see.

New portraits for the "300 Heads" Sketchbook

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for this week was Top Chef judges, and in Bravo fashion, I introduced some bold color...

Tom Colicchio, Emeril Lagasse, and Hugh Acheson

300 Heads Sketchbook Update

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for this week was The Three Amigos.

300 Heads Sketchbook Update

More portraits from the "300 Heads" sketchbook. The theme for these was White House Cabinet members.

Arne Duncan (Education), Shaun Donovan (Housing/Urban Development), Eric Holder (Justice)

Ray LaHood (Transportation), Hilda Solis (Labor), Steven Chu (Energy)

300 Heads Sketchbook update

Barack Obama’s campaign “Dream Team”: 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe, senior advisor/strategist David Axelrod, and 2012 campaign manager Jim Messina. Together the three controlled the two most dominant political campaigns of the modern era, and with Obama's re-election success this week, it seemed fitting to draw them for this week’s trio of quick portraits in my "300 Heads" sketchbook.

David Plouffe, David Axelrod, Jim Messina

"300 heads" sketchbook update

Five pages from my "300 heads" sketchbook:

Steve Jobs, Stephen Colbert, Mark Kelly

John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman

Robert Iger, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy

Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr.

Nothing all that pretty, but at least I'm keeping myself busy.

300 sketchbook update

Another page of 15 minute sketched heads, colored in Photoshop. Sure, it takes time away from the minicomic, but I have to keep sharp. These are more topical than the ones I've done in the past, which were mostly drawn from pages of the LA Weekly.

Chris Christie (Gov-NJ), Anthony Weiner (Rep-NY), Louis CK

American McGee's "Alice: Madness Returns" show at Gallery 1988

A belated post, but here's a writeup my friend Ben wrote of the art show for American McGee's "Alice: Madness Returns" video game. We attended the opening on Thursday and I was pleased with the artwork. NC Winters and Kevin Tong had some standout pieces, as usual. I got to speak with American and his art director Ken (who I was photographed with on that blog post), who provided some insight on the game's production. American had just started up Red Dead Redemption, so we talked about that a bit as well.

I'm about three pages into my minicomic, and am trying to redouble my efforts to make sure it's finished in the near future. I underestimated how long it would take, and I think making it digitally has been about a wash in terms of time saved compared to making it in 2D. I'm planning to post the first six or so pages here on the blog when they're ready.

300 sketchbook update

So this blog has been static lately, but for those who have been asking for updates, here's the latest 15 minute head sketches from my 300 heads sketchbook. I colored them up a bit in Photoshop. See how many you can recognize from the headlines over the last few months:

Alfred Hitchcock, Francois Truffaut, Imed Trabelsi

Muammar Gaddafi, Vice Admiral Alex Gortney, Michael Keaton

Melissa Leo, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale

My spare time has been spent on a ten page mini-comic that I'm doing 100% digitally. It should be finished soon (before ComiCon) and I'll make it available as soon as I can.

NFL 2011 Faces

Here's a selection of Superbowl-themed faces from my "300" sketchbook that I'm filling up these days. I put more time into shading the heads on this page, so I figured I'd throw it on this blog.:

QBs Aaron Rodgers, Ben Roethlisberger, and Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin.

Time for bed.

New "The 300" Sketchbook

I've started a new 100-page sketchbook that I'm filling with just portraits. Specifically, 3 portraits per page, totaling 300 when I'm completely finished. It's mainly for keeping sharp with my draftsmanship skills, so I'm trying to keep each head to around 20 minutes. The early ones used a lot of shading, but I'm now standardizing the style to be more line-based, with a head-on perspective.

28 pages into my "300 Heads" portrait sketchbook.

11/12/12 Update: I've started using #300Heads as the hashtag for my Twitter updates regarding the new portraits.

Comedians I Like: Fall Sketchbook Dump

So I'm mostly moved into the new place in L.A. and have been able to make some time to colorize some of the sketches I've done over the last month. Apologies for the lack of polish with some of these and varying degrees of commitment to a caricature-y style. 

First up is Greg Fitzsimmons. I haven't seen him live yet, but I've been listening to his podcast lately. He's been behind the scenes of many TV shows over the years and has a very sharp act.

Earlier this year my wife and I saw Bill Burr destroy at the Brea Improv.  He is one of my all-time favorites, and I have been meaning to do a drawing of him for some time now.

Dave Attell is a standup legend, and I had the pleasure of seeing him on a weeknight at the New York Comedy Cellar a few years ago. I was right up front and he did some back and forth with me, which felt surreal. His recent appearance on the "Blue episode" of Marc Maron's WTF podcast had me nearly crying with laughter.

I never miss Marc Maron's WTF Podcast, which features long interviews with the best comedians working today. He's a true original, and digs much deeper into his personal life than most comics, providing material which is very raw and fearless. I did an assortment of drawings for him, one of which came out looking a bit like Steven Spielberg:

Update 12/31/10: Me with Marc Maron after his set last night at The Comedy Store:

Now onto two looser sketches. The two on the left are Joe Rogan, from when I saw him perform at the House of Blues this summer in San Diego. The show started late, and at least four people got kicked out for disorderly conduct, but he handled it like a pro. Joe hosts his own podcast and first gained fame from the underrated TV show "Newsradio" before he watched people do things like eat maggot-ridden cheese and punch each other in the face.

To the right is Kevin Pollak, is an actor-comedian you'd recognize from The Usual Suspects. Like many other comedians in this post, he hosts an excellent online video podcast/chat show. His recent hour special is titled "The Littlest Suspect."

Marc Maron recently interviewed comedienne Kristen Schaal on the WTF Podcast, which inspired me to sketch her and her co-author Rich Blomquist (a Daily Show writer). They have a book out now.

And lastly, Mike Dawson and Donny Misraje, who both work on the Adam Carolla Show, which I did another illustration for here.

Sketchbook Dump

ComiCon started this week, so I've been drawing a bit each hour while I'm in panels. Here are a bunch of recent sketchbook pages:

Queens of the Stone Age.

Softball team and the Scheme Team.

Fist, hats, and people at ComiCon.

Paul Pope, ComiCon attendees, and the Marvel panel.

Panel members hosted by Chip Mosher of Boom! Studios. http://blog.boom-studios.net/

More Caricature Practice

I'm still trying to find my go-to style for caricatures. I've been picking themes for subjects, and today's ended up being animators & animated filmmakers. Most of the source images for these came from the podcasts from the Speaking of Animation Blog, which I was listening to today.

Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders (ref), the guys behind the story to How To Train Your Dragon. I did this first thing in the morning, so it doesn't have much flow to it.

Ted Ty, Aaron Gilman, and Richard Baneham. Kind of a spectrum of angular minimalist to straightforward portraiture, which I keep slipping into accidentally.:

And finally Steven Gordon, David Weatherly, Ben Rush & Ken Fountain (ref). I tried something different and "chunky" with these, which ended up being pretty unexpected and fun:

There's a big world of animators out there, so I'll no doubt be including more of these as time goes by and I hunt for more subjects. I'll also be posting some co-worker caricatures on here soon too.

Comics I Like: Brian Posehn, Seth Rogen, and Aziz Ansari

More caricature sketches with digital coloring in Photoshop. Brian Posehn is one of the "Comedians of Comedy" and went on to appear in movies and recently had a role on the Sarah Silverman Program. He's also a big metal head. The first time I remember seeing him was on the hilarious "Titannica" sketch on "Mr. Show":

I've since seen him live in San Diego, and he had a great set.

Posehn Ref.

10/25/10 Update: Here's me with Posehn and his fellow Mr. Show alum Scott Aukerman after they presented The Blob at the Silent Movie Theater:

Seth Rogen and Aziz Ansari are probably the funniest guys of their generation. Rogen popped onto my radar back when "Freaks and Geeks" first aired, and Aziz's $#!++iest Boombox Blast first let me know he was someone to keep an eye on.

This scene from the movie Observe and Report (language NSFW) has them facing off by exchanging the same insult back and forth. Their body language and energy levels contrast nicely, and I wanted to make it seem like Rogen is saying the first part of the insult on his side of the image in an angry way while Aziz is finishing it on the right side of the image almost silently (watch the video link to see what I mean).

         
Ok, that's enough links and swearing for now. It's hard to turn off the caricaturing part of my brain now that I've tapped into it, so I'll be posting more in the future.

Comics I Like: Patton Oswalt

I like a good number of comics, but if you were to ask me my overall favorite, I'd have to go with Patton Oswalt. I remember when his 222 album had just come out and it seemed like no one knew who he was. No matter who I shared his album with; however, they were instant fans of his crazy characters and uniquely-worded rants. Now he's a famous actor whose voice starred in the Pixar classic Ratatouille and the disturbing but fascinating Big Fan, which I watched for the first time last night.

In Big Fan, Oswalt plays a New York Giants fan from Staten Island who accidentally disqualifies his favorite player from playing. Torn between standing up for himself or his team, his character's life is turned upside-down. You never know just how far he's been pushed by the humiliating circumstances in his life, and Oswalt plays the character with a mix of enthusiastic, pathetic, and even a bit deranged. I loved the movie, and it reminded me why I'm such a "big fan" of Oswalt himself.

As for the piece, I decided to keep with the caricature style that I've been developing this week. I've been tending to over-render the original sketch, which ends up hampering the digital coloring process a bit. Here's a photo of the original drawing (the scanner on my printer is acting up yet again, so I had to use my camera to get it into the computer):

I decided the sketch was too stretched, so I squashed him down a bit to the final proportion and painted the rest in Photoshop. Caricatures are never flattering, and I wanted to push this rendition of him in a disturbing direction, to mimic the character Oswalt plays in the movie:

Reference for Patton in Big Fan.

Founding Father Caricatures, Pt. 3

For this round I chose the two most trusted and competent commanders in the Continental Army under George Washington: Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene. Both men were instrumental in leading their divisions and preparing the untested American forces for the battles against the British and Hessian troops. They were mentioned prominently in the 1776 book I finished this week, so they seemed like natural choices for the caricature kick I've been on.

Knox Ref. Greene Ref.

Publish Post