From Sketch To Finished Product...How Do You Know Who To Draw?

People often ask me (when I am drawing caricatures at a festivals or events) how do I know what people to draw for caricature samples?

We'll it isn't the easiest question to answer, but here is how I do it. The first thing I do is watch television. Your probably thinking...huh, I watch television to figure out what the popular shows are, and who everyone is talking about. Also, I look for long running programs like Survivor, The Office, or even The Apprentice. ( These shows have established followers that help make my caricatures more recognizable ) In some cases, I make caricatures of people of  new shows ( Cee Lo, on the right, and the new show he is on called The Voice ) Next, I turn to good ol' Yahoo and Google search engines. The search engines usually have a feature called " What's Trending " If I find a combination of a popular show on tv that has an actor or actress trending, then that is an individual I tend to draw. It sounds simple enough... I know, but the secret to get people really attracted to my samples is to make a 50/50 mixture of popular and scandalous people. This helps to stir up conversation as everyone almost always has an opinion about an actor or actress!

Here is who I identify as simply popular... People like Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera, and Harrison Ford are people I consider popular. You hear about them in the news, but its always positive comments. Then you have the Scandalous! People I consider to be scandalous are individuals like Tiger Woods, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Pamela Anderson! These individuals seem to be caught in some kind of sex scheme, or money issues that help make for interesting topic to discuss...you get the point.

*Look for a finished Cee Lo caricature in the next blog!

Work Overload....Can You Handle The Pressure?

Every job in the world has its ups and downs, or atleast I believe they do! Being a freelance artist is no different. I spend a lot of time doing the small things that make the difference in whether or not I get repeat business from my employers.

For example, I finished a cartoon logo for a women the other day, and the finished design was to be delivered in a simple jpeg file format. She contacted me the next day and stated that she couldn't get the white off of the image to use on her business card.  (Now keep in mind I have already been paid for the job) but in hopes that she will send me more business I changed her file from a jpeg to a png with no questions asked.

You might be wondering to yourself, why I'm telling you this. The reason is simple! The only way to be sucessful in the business world is to do the little things that keep you seperated from all the other businesses out there. Fact is, there are hundreds of freelance artist just like me, but since I do the little things...and do them well, people trust me more than the next guy.

In the end, when your being pounded by employers left and right about their designs...keep your focus! In the freelance artist world its first come, first serve. I know that you want to get started on that big job that might pay you a couple grand, but finish the little hundred dollar job you started first. It will pay off in the end.

Boston Rob Wins Survivor......

I'm probably one of the biggest Survivor fans in the world. I've seen every season and have to admit that I couldn't stand Boston Rob the first season he played. Well wouldn't you know it, I found myself rootin' him on this season. He was still his snake-in-grass self, but I will give him props since he had complete control of the game.

In my eyes, he's the best player to ever play Survivor. Sure you can make the argument that Russel Hantz is, but Rob has this way of making you believe he'll take you to end and crush you when he gets the chance. Russel just seems to bully his way through the game and claims to be the best. I'll argue this case with anyone....

For now, all I have to say is....YOU GO ROB! spend the million dollars, you truly deserve it! 

I'm On Fire.....

The life of a freelance artist isn't always what it's cracked up to be. There are moments and times when work is hard to find, or it's so abundant that its like a storm...when it rains, it poors!

As of right now I'm in the storm phase of freelancing. As lady luck would have it I'm in the middle of two projects as we speak. I can't show samples of the projects just yet, not until there completed and I have permission from my employers. You can bet, if they give me permission to use the image I'll post them on the blog in no time.

Busy, Busy.....

Besides the fact that I do a lot of illustration work, I also find time to create t-shirt designs for customers as well. I get really busy in the beginning of January as everybody is in a hurry to get the lastest ideas out for the world to see.

Here is a sample page that I send to employers when a t-shirt job comes available. Typically, I charge around $45 dollars for a full color design like you see on the left.

If you look closely the bottom green t-shirt artwork is from a design I blogged about just a couple of days ago! I was going to send it to the James family to let them see what it would look like, but I never got around to sending it!

Friday the 13th....Muh Ha Ha

It seems funny to me that a certain movie made back in the 1980's....Um, you guessed it.... Friday the 13th has helped make this already freaky date in history, infamous in our culture.

I mean come on...does anyone really believe that a little boy drowns in a lake, magically becomes full grown, and kills innocent teenagers wearing a hockey mask and a machete....I think not!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a big horror fan ( mostly zombie flicks ) and Friday the 13th is certainly a cult classic. Who will ever forget the surprise ending in the first one, everybody was like "Whoa, the killer was the mom". The only thing that ruined this classic was the next movie, which introduce the new killer as a super natural phenom we all know today as Jason Voorhees.

So in honor of today's date, I thought I'd poke a little fun at Mr. Voorhee's and the legacy that this character has left behind. I mean, the last I heard the Friday the 13th series is well into double digits as far as sequels goes. I think the last one was called Jason In Space, but with how many movies they have already made I'm probably wrong!

Sometimes They Come Back!

The five gentlemen in the picture are an example of why good communication is key to becoming a sucessful freelance artist. I was contacted by the James family ( Wayne James-far right ) via email to create a caricature/logo for their band called A Touch of Class.

At first, there was band member issues as they shuffled around to get the right individuals and the right sound. Then I had my own technical problems and I couldn't complete the project. Months later the James family contacted me again. They asked if I would give it another go as they had the line-up they were looking for.

The second time around was awesome! I used the pencil sketches from the previous attempt and created the image you see above. The communication between us was great, as Wayne explained what he was looking for and I made artistic suggestions to help improve the design. As a general rule I ask all my clients if they could send me a picture of the final image. Most clients don't as they're busy trying to make their ideas come to life.

So what did we learn? Communication is key to sucessful freelancing, and persistance pays off.....The proof of that is the picture above!

A simple tutorial on how to make unique eyes...

I made this tutorial a long time ago and figured it was time that I shared it with others. This is just one method you can use to make cartoon eyes, but there are probably endless possibilities. Hopefully, more tutorials that I made will be coming soon. In case any one is wondering I used adobe photoshop cs3 to create the eye. Just follow the instructions and see what you come up with! Don't forget to send me pic of your cartoon.