Thursday, November 13, 2008

The House that Luke Built (and Stacey...and the builder)

This post is more for the people who would be interested in the house we're building. Although it does have some artistic merit and all are welcome to have a look.

The plans are through council and are getting to the building permit stage. I'm getting ready to start building a 36m long retaining wall. There's a first and last time for everything.

Commission 14-11-08

Just a couple of photos of a recently commissioned caricature, this with the added feature of a signed matte board.

It came up pretty nice... if I do say so myself.


Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Budding Caricaturists

After posting Pascoe's caricature of me, I thought why should he get all the glory? I've kept a couple of rippers that budding artisits have done of me as I've worked different jobs.

Various ages, various mediums, and various sizes, but all gold! I'm going to frame the one by Kampi, she was only about 5 and took about 10 minutes to do this great caricature. The lines are really precise and she thought my hair was the defining feature.



Sunday, November 9, 2008

Clinton

8-11-08

Here are some examples of live work I did over the weekend. Pretty happy wth how they turned out, especially as it was blowing a gale!








Yours Truly

Here's a caricature that Anthony Pascoe, Melbourne caricaturist, did of me while we were under-worked at a job recently.

He's a smart arse. Check out more of his smart-arsery at http://www.anthonypascoe.com/

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Ahh, McCain

While watching the US election, trying to avoid work, I put this together for a bit of fun. Poor McCain, he just wasnt very good, I guess we'll just have to see what strife bush gets the US into before January when Obama takes over!


Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Who's that handsome Devil?

I got to do some cartoon workshops recently, the first since the move to Victoria, and it was great to get out there and do a bit of teaching. Plus I got my mug in the local paper, can't argue with that.

Beard Envy

Well I've been flat out, but I did have the pleasure of heading to the opening of an exhibition by a childhood friend of mine a few weeks ago. His name is Neils (Nails) Oeltjen and we hadn't seen each other for 13 years or so. He's always been a great artist and is making a name for his work around Australia. It's, not to sound too arty farty, really bold but delicate, using spray paint to add depth and colour and then layering detail and texture on top. Very cool.

Anywho below are a few photos and sorry they're such low quality my camera phone sucks in dark rooms.

Well I suppose I should do a review, it could become a standard thing here.

Level of Work: Awesome, if I had some spare dollars I would've have bought a couple.
Venue: Nice, Somewhat of a fire hazard with cardboard walls and all.
Nibblies: Only lamingtons - awesome.
Number of Free Drinks: Endless and Little Creatures too!



Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Not a winner...

Last night I was at the opening of the first Out of Controller Exhibition/Competition in Melbourne. I entered, but to my dismay didn't win (not even a door prize, which I think was jinxed by my brother saying "I never won a door prize, never will."

The exhibtion was based on what Nintendo characters get up to out of the games. It was good to see a smattering of digital art work getting amongst the winners.

Here's my review:

Level of work: Good
Venue: Fire Hazard
Nibblies: Average
Number of Free Drinks: Only 1! terrible...


Toshiba Event

I was recently invited to help toshiba promote their Tablet PC range at a Teaching Conference. I was there to caricature using the machine and found it a great new way to do live gigs. I had a great time at a great location (Lorne, Victoria). Stay tuned there may be more to this story soon...


Monday, August 25, 2008

New Matilda Cartoon Comp

Excellent Australian news website New Matilda is holding their first Political Cartoon Comp. Not only am I trying to win some cold hard cash but I did the promo illustratins for the competition.

To have a look or to vote for my cartoons head to http://www.newmatilda.com.

Happy Voting!

New Matilda Cartoon

sketching

Here are some different sketches that have popped out during the last little while, all different but all fun.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Basset Hound

I was just fiddling around the other day and decided to caricature a dog, I've done them as live caricatures before, so I thought I'd put a bit more effort into one...


World Youth Day

In light of many people's joy about world youth day a couple of weeks ago, I decided to make fun of the Pope through caricature. He has a great face...

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Winston Churchill Caricature

I thought it's be interesting to find out how a black and white caricature would turn out, so I chose Churchill 'cause all of the photos of him are in black and white to start off with so it would suit him.

It was a big job taking over 20 broken hours to complete (less than the damn Keith Richards one because I made sure I had a decent reference this time!). It was done digitally using a Wacom Intuos 3 and photoshop. I use low opacity and flow to build up the texture using a rough round bristle brush.

Anywho here's how it all transpired...


The base was a quick sketch done manually, after a couple of aborted digital attempts pissed me off.
Step one was, as always just to lay down a new layer over the base and fill it with a mid tone with some texture, then drop it's opacity, add another layer and start blocking in colour.



As you can see I also added a cigar and hand from another reference, and am adding more detail to the caricature, but still essentially blocking it in.


After the general tones and shadows are are done I start around the eyes and work my way out, I only managed one eye this day, but it looked alright so I gave myself the rest of the night off.

The other eye, nose and mouth are all pretty well done here and some more attention is given his jacket to provide some contrast.

Next step is to move out fom the main features of the face, so I detailed the neck and bowtie and added some shape to the cheeks.

Adding detail and skin texture to the eye brow and wherever I feel like it, slowly bringing it all together.


Finishining off the eyebrows (a pleasure to do Sir Winston) and am just refining the remaining areas.The final skin details are added and I start to think about that hand...


The reference for the hand wasn't that great so it was a fair bit of interpretation and staring at my own hand. I also scaled it down to make sure that the face was the main focus. added some more background texture and we're done!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Monday, May 26, 2008

Keith Richards

Here's a caricature of Keith Richards I've been working on. It's in the same style as the Barrack Obama one below, but this one took forever. I think there's a lesson in that about choosing terrible reference photos...don't.

A kind colleague pointed out that carciaturing Keith was a bit of a cop out because he's so freakish, but it was fun none the less.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Barrack Obama Caricature

Just a quick note to post a caricature of Barrack Obama I did last week. I went the whole hog and am pretty happy with the result. I'm looking forward to doing more in this style but they're pretty labour intensive so they'll mostly be a spare time thing at the moment, but that said I could have one in the pipeline for an online client soon...


Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Brad Pitt

I was working on a Brad Pitt caricature this week. I went into a lot more detail than I normally would and am happy with the result. I though I'd post the different stages of the illustrations development so you could see how it progessed. FYI it took about 8 hours all up.