Hopkins - Detail

Such a fun face to paint!

Hopkins - Bedtime Stories - Final

Well, here is the finished illustration for my final submission on the caricature course. Little has changed in terms of structure between this and the value painting but I got to have fun working on the details such as the texture of the leather chair and the wrinkles and crease's of Lecter's face.

Hannibal- Phase 2

Phase 2 of my Hannibal picture. Without getting too detailed I done a full black and white value painting. I would have liked to have rendered it to a higher degree but time is against me and today will see him getting some colour applied.

I made some structural changes through the painting process most notably to his head. My photo reference was relatively low quality so I put my hand my pocket and paid to download the movie Silence of the Lambs from iTunes and was able to get some good screen grabs, which has really helped. Still toying with the idea of throwing some 'props' into the picture, so dont be surprised if you see a bottle of Chianti in the final.

Everything has to start somewhere

Well, its the final week of the Seiler course on Schoolism. After doing a few studies of various celebs I've decided to go with Anthony Hopkins for my finished piece. Here are my modest beginnings and the initial sketch I penned out for the painting I'm currently working on. I should have a black and white 'value' painting up in a few days and god willing the final colour painting by the end of the week.

I'm using photo reference of Hopkins from the film Silence of the Lambs and putting him in more comfortable surroundings and narrating from a child's nursery rhyme book, quite a disturbing thought I'm sure you'll agree

Bruce Willis Caricature - Week 5, painting techniques

For my Bruce Willis caricature I wanted to work from photo reference which portrayed him as the action man we've come to know him as. So what better than a screen shot straight from Die Hard 4. I loved the lighting in this scene and enjoyed painting it. My process for this, the first full colour caricature in the course, was to do a detailed black and white value painting. I spent the majority of the overall time working on this stage. Next I painted a layer in colorize mode blocking in with my split compilation palette before returning to normal mode and detailing the piece in a direct painting style. After a bit of horizontal flipping and a few structural changes I was now happy he no longer looked like a distorted potato and pleased with the finished result.

Dave B - Week 4, Continuing with values

This painting of 'citizen' Dave B was done with a monochromatic palette taking the lessons learnt with value painting further.

Gary Value Painting - week 3

In week 3 of the caricature course Jason articulates the importance he places on getting good and correct values in his work. For the assignment we used a quick pencil sketch he'd done of a friend called gary and built up a value painting in greyscale using photoshop.

Pope Benedict XVI - Week 2, Understanding Shapes

This is my finished rendering of Pope Benedict XVI, done as part of the assignment for week 2, understanding shapes.

Tom Hanks Caricature - Week 1, Introduction to Caricature

Week 1 of Jason's course on schoolism.com titled 'introduction to Caricature'.  Each week there is a new video to download where Jason talks you through his techniques and thought process.  You then put what you've learned into practice by completing an assignment based around what you saw in the instructional video.  Week 1, Jason discusses the weight of a persons face and exaggeration and asks you to sketch the faces of 3 citizen's and a final rendering of celebrity Tom Hanks.  So this was my submission. 

A Beginning

Well, I've finally taken my first baby steps in this blogging world.  I hope to use this as an outlet for my sketching and painting and to put it out there in the public domain. Feel free to give me feedback and interact. It'd be cool to hear from other artists.

I'm currently a student of the fantastic Jason Seiler. I'll be posting the outcome of the assignments he sets us here in my blog, so look out for updates on that. For more information on Jason's caricature course check out www.schoolism.com