Finished!

Well, probably. Don't want to overdo it. Let me know what you think!

Progress on Angelina

Still have to paint the hand, and then see what it looks like... :)

Prints available

Limited edition prints of my Billie Joe Armstrong painting are now available on my website, it'll be an edition of 100 at A3 size. Check out the details and how to order one in the 'Traditional paintings' section of my website!

www.caricatureclub.co.uk

Bit more...

Sorry for the crappy mobile phone photo. It's starting to look a bit better now I think :)

Painting again...

Painting my Angelina Jolie (or 'Fox' from the movie Wanted) on canvas now, looked a god-awful mess initially but it's getting better... still a mess though. My painting technique need overhauling I think ;)

Some quick sketches

A better shot

Here's a better pic of the Green Day painting and some close ups of detail - still not a proper photo though, probably going to have to get a professional to take one I think!

Avatar

Just returned from seeing the movie Avatar (After several attempts - it's very popular!). Thoughts? Gob-smackingly awesome, never seen such amazing visual effects. Calling it CGI or computer effects is insulting I think, because that goes nowhere close to describing it - virtual reality is a better fit. At no point did I ever think of any of it as anything less than real.

The story was simple but totally effective at holding your interest. I liked it more than I expected actually. It does the job very well of creating the setting for the stunning visual sequences, some of which were just breath-taking. The flying scenes in particular I just gawped at - it was like being in a Roger Dean or Rodney Matthews fantasy painting for real (the whole planet seemed to have been pulled right out of Roger Dean's work to be honest). Extraordinary.

I liked the 3D a lot too, not having seen one before I was worried it just wouldn't feel right to me but it quickly did. My only problem was the shit 3D glasses we had that seemed to have lenses that were too small and were foggy around the edges. I'm amazed frankly that James Cameron hadn't designed, manufactured and shipped his own 3D glasses around the world for people to see his visual masterpiece with. He probably wanted to. It seems a massive oversight to spend 5 years and $300 million creating an entire alien ecosystem battling a future human flying arsenal only to have the effect spoilt at the very very last point before those images hit the viewers eyes. A minor gripe but I hope something that will be improved in the future if 3D cinema is to become the norm.

Fin

All done, varnishing now - and hopefully later this week I'll get a decent photo taken and post a bit more detail. Pleased with the final thing, looks better in real life I swear!

Happy New Year :)

More details done...

Finished the arms and hands now, again sorry for the shoddy mobile phone photo. Those tattoos were a NIGHTMARE... ;)

Just the head to do now...

Fiddly stuff

Finished some of the fiddly bits, onto the arms and head next...

(excuse the bad mobile phone photos)

Finished before Xmas? Maybe!

Check this out...

Got my copy of 'The Art of Caricature' by Paul Moyse today - it's got a ton of brilliant caricature paintings and sketches in it (both traditional and digital) and a couple of excellent features on acrylic painting and exaggeration. An absolute must for anyone wanting to learn about caricature or just look at the pretty pictures! I'm going to be studying it for a while :)

You can buy it here: http://www.wackyfeatures.co.uk/book-sale.htm

Paul's blog is here: http://artofmoyse.blogspot.com/

Still painting...

Had a bit of a hiatus from this due to various things, back painting now though. I've blocked in everything except the tattoos which I need to dig up some more reference for. Pretty much finished the shirt and working on the TNT sticks and wires of the bomb(!) at the moment. Looking forward to getting to the arms and I think I'll leave the head till last, by then hopefully I'll be a bit more confident with the paintbrush! Really want to get this done over Xmas and move on to something else :)

Painting! For real!

So I'm now painting my Billie Joe Armstrong pic in acrylics on a nice big canvas (5ft high) - here's some bad photos of the stages so far:

Top left is the canvas with a couple of thick layers of gesso which I scratch into a bit and gave a nice rough texture to. Then top right is the base colours, orange for the figure and dark blues for the back ground. Bottom left is about halfway into the background, then bottom right is after yesterday's work on the body. So far it's going really well and I'm enjoying it, which is great because I'm so crap at traditional painting! This WILL be good when it's done though. Then the Angelina painting next.

New PC, new monitor, new software... Angelina Jolie!

Upgraded my system just recently (it needed it) so now I have a decent size monitor and a quick PC to work on. Also got Autodesk Sketchbook Pro which is awesome - played with a trial for a while but finally took the plunge.

This is a piece I just did today using all those things; I need to work on my sketching technique as it's not great and I just don't do it enough - but this turned out OK. It was so much fun to do!

Another go...

That's much more like what I had in mind... I was trying to bend him the wrong way! The pose is a lot better I think...?

Muse - Matt Bellamy

A quick sketch of an idea for another painting. Found a cool reference photo I thought I could have some fun with. Might try and take this and exaggerate it a lot more and see what happens.

A few recent commissions

Here's a few recent gift caricatures I've done:





Pleased with the cricket team, a lot of work in that one!

Sketch for a BIG painting

Unashamedly inspired by (in no particular order) Kruger, Phil Hale and Jason Seiler. I hope I can make a decent fist of painting something roughly along these lines for real (as it were) :)

Billie Joe Armstrong

Sketch in preparation for a big acrylic painting which I want to start soon - which could be a lot of fun! This is of course the front man of Green Day - The Greatest Band In The World ;)

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Another great actor with a fun face to paint :)

David Tennant - finshed painting

Really pleased with how this turned out!

David Tennant

A quick sketch of the outgoing Dr.Who - 45 mins or so in Photoshop.

Congrats Jenson and Brawn GP!

(Prints available on my website www.caricatureclub.co.uk)

Some random sketches

Here's a few random quick sketches, done for fun and practice: Jeremy Paxman, Hitler, Caesar and Shakespeare. I know, very random :)

Tim Minchin

Saw Tim's live show 'Ready For This' the other night in Reading, it was fantastic. Here's a quick sketched idea for a caricature.

Zooey Deschanel

Quick sketch, probably an hour and a bit. I'll probably finish this off properly as I like the shapes, shapes is why I chose this pose (from a reference photo). Pretty girl :)

Sad news

Very sad to hear this morning of the death of Ismael Roldan. I'm a big fan of his work, an amazing talent. My thoughts go out to his family.

Tom Richmond has posted a recent interview: http://www.tomrichmond.com/blog/2009/09/15/ismael-roldan-r-i-p/

Tim Roth

Always liked this actor. Watched a few episodes of Lie to Me yesterday which were good fun, inspired a quick sketch.

Another doodle redux

Another doodle idea of Anthony Hopkins that might end up being an acrylic painting, or maybe not!

Tweeting...

Ok, I've signed up to Twitter even though I have no clue what to do with it! I'm @CaricatureClub if you want to 'follow' me whatever that means :)

The Gadget Show

Love this show, and thought the presenters would make a good portfolio piece. Got the idea pretty quickly but it took ages to get the reference and paint! I think it works OK.