Red-Winged Blackbird

I was back at it with another bird video today.





This is the finished painting. Going dark with watercolors has always been tricky for me. I think this turned out pretty well, though. At the very least, it was a confidence booster to go bold and dark in the future.

Illustration Friday

I haven't had a post in a really long time, and even longer since I participated in IF, but I'm turning over a new leaf (fingers crossed). I was working on these birds for another project, but I thought they fit the topic this week.

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.

Coming to Term, a Mini Comic

Here's a little project I just finished up. I had the intention of drawing a multipanel editorial cartoon, but as I started two write down gags and a "script," I quickly had a bit that was 700 words long. Perhaps I should have just cut a lot of the text out. That would have been the smart thing to do, but I figured I'd just make a mini comic out of it.

Burnin' Brats an' Effigies

Well I started this painting yesterday before I heard about the resolution to the NFL Ref lockout. But I don't care, and I think this illustration still holds up.

With regards to this Monday's Packer game, it was an unspeakably crappy call that lost the game for the Packers. However, I hate the fact that the game was close enough that it came down to a hail mary pass. The replacement refs served as a distraction from what was a terrible game to begin with.

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.

A Cure For All That Ales You

I've had these brewing in my studio over that last couple days. Not literally brewing, sad to say. For whatever reason I really liked the idea of an India pale ale aptly named "Hoppington Bittersworth" so I sketched up a frog. The rest, as they say, is history.

Comrade Black Ivan Imperial Stout

Sly Rusty Irish Red

Sir Hoppington Bitterworth IPA

I've realized I have to brush up on graphic design. I'll be reworking these a bit so I can use them in my portfolio.

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.

New Illustrations

I recently got a somewhat large illustration gig- at least large for me. It was going to be 17 paintings in two weeks which didn't sound terrible at the time. But after all the sketching, revisions, and rigmarole, I really only had a few days to complete all of them. Yes there were several all nighters involved. Enough with the pity party, below are a few of the watercolors that I liked.

Illustration Friday (Suspense)

Here's this weeks submission to IF. I think Mr. Hitchcock fit this weeks topic of "suspense." I've been trying to work on speeding up my digital painting process so I tried to keep this loose and finish in about an hour.

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.

Illustration Friday (forward)

I didn't get a chance to paint this one for IF, but I thought the sketch will do for now. I'm debating whether to paint this in photoshop or watercolors. Your thoughts?

Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive, and Dodge

Here's the finished(?) illustration from my last post. I'm a little hesitant to call it totally finished because I'll probably revisit it in a few days and completely change it.

As you can see, I switched Mittens around a little bit. I thought it would be a little more affective. Let me know if it was a bad idea!

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

Between Two Ferns

I thought I would bust out my acrylics for this Zach Galifianakis caricature. It was fun, but I might go back to watercolors for a little while. We'll see.

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

The Reluctant Demise of Print Media

I've been working on this painting off and on for the last couple of days. It's been the source of a lot of frustration for me for several reasons. I painted it on some heavy duty, really textured watercolor paper, and that took a lot of getting used to. I haven't used paper that rough for several years. Also, the semi-silhouette made for an unusual color pallet. It wasn't until I finished that I said to myself that the colors kind of work. So let me know if you think they do, or don't.

Detail 1

Detail 2

A Polar Bear on a Unicycle

A month or two ago, an old high school buddy of mine asked me to do a drawing for him. He's a pretty crazy guy and our conversation went something like this: Scott: "Marc, can you do a drawing of sandals on a platypus on a polar bear on a unicycle with a horn and a light with a battery?" Marc: "Sure thing Scott." The request was not at all out of the ordinary and I had no intention of drawing it. But today I was bored and wanted to try out doodling in Adobe Illustrator so I killed two birds with one wacom stylus.