Bye Week Makes Me Sad :(

This past Sunday the Packers had a bye so in lieu of football watchin' I thought I'd do a painting of Clay Matthews. It just so happens that Dexter (a show that had me hooked after the very first episode) is on Sundays. It was clear to me that I must conflate the two.

Illustration Friday: Crooked

Wouter "Gotye" De Backer is, in my opinion, a good looking man. That being said, the first time I saw his "Somebody That I Used to Know" music video, all I could think about what his jacked up mouth. Huge, crooked, teeth are always fun to draw.

Netan-YAHOO!

Finally I've gotten around to putting together a new mailing list, and I discovered that I had several Judaism oriented magazines on it. So I decided I ought to work up a Netanyahu caricature that could be used both as a mailer and a portfolio piece.

Awesomeness That Will Melt Your Face Off

I woke up early this morning, and felt motivated to start an Aaron Rogers caricature. I did a quick sketch and didn't know where I was going to take it. I got an idea to do a series of football card type illustrations (which I may do in the near future). Instead of doing that, I thought adding some slick photoshop effects in the background would suffice for the moment.

Illustration Friday: Imagination

Paul Ryan caught day dreaming about middle class, blue collar folk.

This isn't 100% finished, but I thought I would post it while I took a break. I still have to throw something a little more dynamic in the background.

Paul Ryan WIP

I drew up a couple Paul Ryan sketches last week during the RNC Convention. I had a bunch of ideas for editorial cartoons, mostly featuring empty chairs, but none of them would translate very well into a painting. As I wanted to do a few illustrations before school really got underway, I figured I'd just start painting Ryan and see where it would take me. This one is a couple hours of work, after blocking everything in and starting finer rendering. I'll make it into something a little more compelling over the next couple days.

Trojan Man

After doing that last sketch, I had pictured it as a digital painting, though I really wanted to do it in watercolors. But, I didn't have a good sized piece of watercolor paper lying around and I didn't want to go buy any so I just did it in photoshop. The painting did provide some challenges such as creating the translucent feel of a condom. I feel satisfied with it now, but there were many revisions.

Detail.

Revisiting Rush

I started this digital painting of Rush Limbaugh a couple years ago and at the time I felt satisfied with it as a warm up/semi-finished caricature. The other day I was looking through some old files and came across it and I couldn't believe I just left it.

So I tried to turn it into something useable.

I didn't change anything with the caricature or drawing minus a handful of small adjustments. Anyway, I think I improved it a little bit. Let me know what ya think.

Rush detail

Black Snake Mooooaaan!

I had to take a break from watercolors for a little bit, and yesterday I got the urge to do a caricature of Christina Ricci for some reason. I'm glad I did because apparently the digital media gods were in my corner on this one. I think this is the first time I've been at all happy with the local colors in a digital painting. Something just clicked I think. Anyway, I hope ya'll can dig a scrawny Christina Ricci tied up in chains.

Face Detail

WIP Holiday Card

Here's a mostly finished drawing I did for Melissa an my Christma-Hanu-Kwanza card. I've still got a little bit of touching up to do. Anyway, happy holidays everyone.

Cartooning At Last!

With the Wisconsin special recall elections out of the way (minus two Democrat senators on the chopping block next week), it might serve Democrats well to reflect on the results. Only two districts were able to replace their former Republican lawmakers, one short of the three required to make a Democrat majority. This is not surprising as Democrats in this country have developed an innate ability to fail at everything.

There has been a bit of speculation whether the results of the elections are an indication of a nation wide sentiment: public sector unions are destroying the country. At the moment, many American's are popping Dramamine to assist in the tumultuous voyage that has been the economy. A pertinent distraction to be sure. Of course America's nausea may persist, but at the Wisconsinites' Pharmacy(liquor store) there's a more appropriate remedy. Part of me doubts that the elections will phase anyone outside of the Cheesehead state. However, the rigid, partisan divide in Wisconsin is completely in line with the rest of the nation. That, I do believe, will foreshadow the 2012 election season. As per usual, the Republicans' inane rhetoric will trump thoughtful, deliberate, debate just as "Wisconsin Pharmacies" will trump Dramamine, Aspirin, or even mild opiates.