The Creative Mind At Work!

I get asked from time to time on how I create my characters. Well, here it is! This is a screen shot of a character I designed in Adobe Photoshop CS5. The first image in the top left is what artist call the blocking in stage. Its were we take the simple shapes like spheres, cubes, triangles, and squares to create a basic skeleton of our idea. Once all the elements are in place, I begin sketching in the details (bottom left) I want the character to have. Lastly, with the pencil lines in place, I proceed to ink the drawing, add the color, highlights, shadows, and all the other little fun stuff until I have the finished character!

There is more to it than this. There are tons of things to get into like color theory, shading, perspective, and balance, but I'll save those things for another day.

A Blast From The Past.....Sort Of!

Every once in a while I find things that I forgot even existed! In today's case its an old business card from 2006. I can only assume I wasn't very good back then, as I still have this business card lying around.....LOL!

On a good note my email address hasn't changed, but for all of you who think it would be funny to prank me...uhmm sorry, the phone number is wrong!

In the end, it's cool to take a look back on how things use to be. Is a great reminder of how far I have come as an artist, and how much more I still have to learn. I know that I have had different business cards over the years, but I think this one probably sticks out most in my mind as it was create in the beginning of my career.

For all you people who might read this, can you guess who the character/caricature person is on the card?
Lets see how many people can get it right!

Character Design....

It seems that I have missed bloggin' the last couple of days. I have been trying very hard not to miss a day, but things happen and being really busy doesn't help matters either!

I was asked by a client the other day to draw up some sketches of a character he was creating for a novel/comic book.

He gave me the run down of the story line which was about a retired sheriff ( back in the old west ) who is found by some outlaws that he helped put behind bars years earlier. To make a long story short... they find the sheriff, put him in an old wishing well to die. He doesn't die, but instead figures out a way to climb out. After being left for dead, and nothing left to lose he goes after all the outlaws to seek his revenge.

Here are my sketches that I whipped up. Typically, most artist draw their character profile in a front, side, and back view. I tend to draw the front view, a head shot, and a action shot. This helps give the writer/employer a good idea of what the character might look like and help spark so more imagination!

Bad Axe Lock-in.....Results

The last time I posted, I talked about the Bad Axe Lock-in. As I figured, this Las Vegas themed party....WAS AWESOME!!!! All the kids who got caricatures done where great. They made me feel at home right away asking me if I need any to eat or drink or how they could help.

At first, I thought to myself, I might not be that busy. Then when the 10:30 mark hit, I had all kinds of kids wanting me to draw them.  I had so many that a sign-up sheet was started, and by the time 10:45 hit I had 38 kids on the list. Just to give you and example of how shocking this was, if you take the 38 kids and times that by 3 minutes a face....equals 114 minutes, or just about 2 hrs of drawing!

I was so popular that the kids requested that I stay a little longer, so I gave in and stayed an extra hour. I can tell you this, I was there for 5 hours and I never once moved from my chair due to how busy I was, but it was worth it!

Hopefully, there is another lock-in next year, cuz I am so there! 

Lock-In Gig Tonite....

People who know me, know my business in the summertime is caricatures first, illustration second. Tonite is another caricature gig for me at the Bad Axe High School- Lock-in. This should be a great time as the theme of the lock-in is Las Vegas, which is a place I am very familiar with!

I always love events that are close to home. It gives me a chance to talk with people in the community and help me land other caricature gigs. The one thing that I am not looking forward to tonite is the time frame of when I will draw caricatures. It just happens to be from 10:30 pm until 2:30 am ( Ahhhhhh! ).

Hopefully, if I'm not to busy ( probably will be though! ) I will get a chance to take some pictures and post them later tonite, or tomorrow for sure!

And The Custom Avatar Winner Is.....

The winner of the first finish the sentence game is.....
Sarah Dow! I thought that it was very unique that out of all the possibilites in the world, Sarah wanted to grow to be a penguin.....how unique!

Here is how the final four went in order.
1. Sarah Dow
2. James Gagnon
3. Jani Verga
4. Merry Mankin

A Finished Product!

I blogged earlier about who to draw for caricature samples, and my approach to it. At the bottom of that blog I left a little message that I was going to post a finished Cee Lo caricature...and here it is.

I inked the drawing and scanned it into Adobe Photoshop CS5. I then proceeded to color the illustration working out where the shadows are, and the general light source. This is what I came up with.....enjoy!

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!