Showing posts with label NCN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NCN. Show all posts
It's Quiz Time!!
Happy Birthday, Judd Hirsch!
I haven't had time to take this to a more finished version, so here is a pencil sketch of Judd Hirsch, perhaps most famous for his role in TV's Taxi. This was primarily drawn for the ISCA (formerly NCN), the International Society of Caricature Artists, for the ongoing daily celebrity birthday forum, where all the members can draw their version of a celebrity who is chosen for each day. Admittedly, I had a tougher time drawing Judd than I reckoned I would. He's got a face that's ripe for caricature, but I wasn't able to find as much good video reference as I like to work from, so I had to use a combo of online video clips and a few good photos, all courtesy of Google, the artist's best friend!
While researching his likeness, I came upon this wonderful scene from the short-lived TV series, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. Judd Hirsch's character sums up my own sentiments regarding contemporary TV:
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - Funny video clips are a click away
One Of My Reeses Pieces
Well, actually, my ONLY Reese piece, at least in finished form anyway, although I went through several rough attempts before I thought I was getting closer. Reese Witherspoon was the NCN birthday subject about a week ago, but I didn't get my picture done on time to post it on that day. I watched my DVD of "Legally Blonde" in order to do the sketch, although it went through several revisions at the pencil stage before I committed it to the ink and colour version you see here. She was actually much harder to draw than I thought she'd be, and I'm still not sure it's as good as I'd like but I'm posting it here anyway.
Happy Birthday Albert Einstein!
Just a quick post today, as I'm too busy to write much. Anyway, once again I did a caricature for the NCN forum which acknowledges the birthdays of notable people. Today, March 14 happens to be the birthday of Albert Einstein. I haven't read much about him but I gather he was pretty smart. :)
Trivia: Did you know that comedian Albert Brooks is the brother of comedian Bob ("Super Dave") Einstein, and that the family name is actually Einstein? Yep, Albert Brooks' real name was originally Albert Einstein! No foolin'!
Happy Birthday Al Jaffee!
Over at the National Caricaturists Network, Jan Op De Beeck's birthday pick for today is Al Jaffee, the veteran MAD Magazine cartoonist. Al is celebrating his 88th birthday today, and I'm happy to see that he's still one of "The Usual Gang of Idiots" contributing to MAD on a regular basis. There aren't too many still there of the artists who were big in the 1970s, when I was a regular reader. Aside from Al, there's still Mort Drucker and Sergio Aragones, maybe a few others, but mostly there's been a newer crew illustrating in this millennium, including the wonderful Tom Richmond. My favourite was Jack Davis, but I don't believe he's been active at MAD for awhile now.
Even after all these decades since starting as an artist with the magazine in 1964, Al Jaffee is still coming up with his famous "MAD Fold-In" for the back inside cover every month. Frankly, I don't know how he creates those things - they're brilliant visual puzzles! Incidentally, he was also recently named "Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year" at the 2008 Reuben Awards, presented by The National Cartoonist Society. In order to draw this caricature of Al, I checked out what was available on YouTube, so here are a couple of neat interviews with him that I found. Happy Birthday Al!
Happy Birthdays, Ted and Joe!
I don't normally do many caricatures of political figures, as my preference is for showbiz entertainers. However, over on the National Caricaturists Network (NCN), our esteemed senior member, Jan Op De Beeck, has come up with a daily challenge for us to draw a celebrity he has chosen who is celebrating his or her birthday that day. That's what led to my recent caricatures of Lee Marvin and Ellen Page, by the way. This past Sunday was Senator Ted Kennedy's birthday and, since he's a politician I quite admire and respect, I thought I should do a caricature tribute to him. (Don't forget - we have him to thank for being one of the major players to endorse Barack Obama in the presidential race!)
Admittedly, I have somewhat mixed feelings about Senator Joe Lieberman, who celebrates his birthday on Tuesday. Though a Democrat, Joe also seems to have one foot firmly planted in the Republican camp, being somewhat hawkish in matters of defense and foreign policy. Still, I do respect him for speaking his mind and voting accordingly, as I don't believe anybody should slavishly adhere to the party line on every issue.Incidentally, I have to share this funny YouTube clip I came across, as it turns out that somebody else agrees with me in noticing the similarities between Joe and the "son" of Stimpy in an episode of John Kricfalusi's "Ren and Stimpy":
Hitchcock's "Vertigo"
This month on the National Caricaturist Network forums, the subject for the drawing contest is "Hitchcock Films", as decided upon by last month's "B.B. King" contest winner, Vin Altamore. I was overjoyed at this choice of subject, as it gives a lot of scope as to whom we may draw based on whatever Hitchcock film we choose to portray. I really love the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and I had several favourites to choose between, including two starring Cary Grant: "North by Northwest" and "To Catch a Thief". However, my all time favourite is 1958's "Vertigo", starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak and, believe it or not, I'd never really drawn a finished caricature of Jimmy Stewart before, though I recall having done some rough sketches of him many years ago. I had, however, drawn a caricature of the alluring Kim Novak from the other film in which they had co-starred together, "Bell, Book and Candle", which you may view here.
There were actually a lot of creative decisions that went into preparing this image, long before the drawing was finalized. In watching the film again, I wanted to pick out one scene that would seem iconic, and the pivotal scene at the old California mission was just perfect in summing up the movie for me, more so than anything in San Francisco itself, where the bulk of the movie takes place. As you can see by the rough thumbnail sketch pictured at left, I wanted to combine several shots from that scene into one single image that would tell more of what was going on, so in addition to the desperate embrace that Jimmy Stewart has on Kim Novak, I wanted her eyes to be focused on the top of the foreboding bell tower. 
So I included a forced, 3-point perspective shot (not entirely successful) of the mission to create the suspense, and took it further by using the spinning vortex from the Saul Bass title animation as the backdrop, with the bell itself focused in the centre. Lastly, I had struggled with getting Kim Novak's caricature in this 3/4 view, as I wanted to show her hair at the back in the "Carlotta" bun, indicative of the subplot of her believing she's possessed by the spirit of the mad Spanish woman, Carlotta.Though I've certainly seen "Vertigo" a number of times, it's amazing how it can continue to engage me with repeated viewings. When you see the film for the first time, there is the shock of the mystery being revealed in the last act, which of course you can never relive a second time. However, even when you know what is going on, it's such a pleasure to watch the characters' faces, as you are aware of what they know and what they don't know at any given time. While Jimmy Stewart was wonderful in anything he did, this may be Kim Novak's finest hour, as she was not always given such great roles to work with in her somewhat spotty career. (I personally liked her a lot co-starring with Frank Sinatra in "Pal Joey", but the critics were not as impressed, I'm afraid.)
I'm including here the trailer for "Vertigo", which will hopefully give the uninitiated a compelling reason to seek this film out. Bernard Herrmann's memorable and haunting score, which plays over this trailer, is just one of many reasons to see it. Also, in the second YouTube clip, some very clever fan of the film has taken it upon himself to revisit all of the major locations in San Francisco where "Vertigo" was filmed, as well as faithfully recreating some atmospheric shots like the pan across the inside of the arched doorways of the old California mission. One interesting note of trivia is that the infamous bell tower had actually been created for "Vertigo" as a matte painting, as the mission's own bell tower had burned down many years prior. That's why you're not going to see any such bell tower in the scenes shot by this film fan. I really encourage all of my readers to watch "Vertigo" if they've never seen it before, as it really is one of Hitchcock's finest works.
Bits and Pieces...
These are just a couple of recent pics I sketched in pencil, then scanned and coloured up in Photoshop. Both of these young ladies are subjects to be drawn on the National Caricaturist Network forums. I'm not much of a digital painter, I'm afraid, but I do like to add some quick colour to my drawings with the Photoshop program. I was also trying out one of the texture brushes on the backgrounds of these two caricatures. As I am also currently teaching about diversity in face and body design for animated characters, I offer up these sketches as two examples of attractive young women with extremely different features. There is such a wealth of variety to be found when you study what real people actually look like, so there is really no excuse for sticking to the same time-worn template whenever you are trying to come up with a new character design. By taking an honest look at people, you may then observe and analyze the differences in head/face shapes, as well as the relative placement, size and shape of all the individual features.
Something else I wanted to make note of at this time is something that John Kricfalusi had posted recently on his blog, "All Kinds of Stuff". He has written about the cartooning tips in the Famous Artists Cartoon Course which, though it dates back to the 50s, is still as relevant today insofar as showing practical drawing principles. I would particularly like to direct my Sheridan Animation students to these notes, as some of them relate very closely to many of the things I have been specifically talking about in my Character Design course in recent weeks. Here is the direct link to the original source of these pages.
B.B. King
A couple months ago I posted my caricature of Elton John that I drew as my entry for the August contest run by the National Caricaturist Network (NCN). Though there is a token prize offered to the winner, I think that should be just considered a bonus, as the real satisfaction is gained from taking on the challenge of drawing whomever is the subject for that month. For October, member Dave "Rock" Cowles came up with a rather intriguing subject dear to his heart: Legendary blues guitarist, B.B. King. I guess what I like best about this monthly contest is that it challenges me to draw somebody who I might not even think about caricaturing, as I usually gravitate towards either my personal favourite celebrities or somebody currently in the news.
Anyway, I quite enjoyed drawing B.B. King this month, though I must admit it was tough to work from what reference I could find. As I've mentioned often, I prefer to work from video as opposed to still photos. This was particularly important to me this time, as Mr. King is quite notable for his very extreme expressions as he plays. He has a rather endearingly comical face that is continually scrunched up and stretched out in his intense concentration, which makes for rich subject matter to capture in a caricature. Most of the still photos I found through a Google search really didn't help much in that regard, although I found them useful for some small details in the latter stage of my drawing, especially in approximating his guitar. Since I didn't have any video reference in my VHS or DVD collection, I ended up doing all of my rough sketching from viewing YouTube videos, as small in dimension and low res as they tend to be. Just for interest's sake, I'm including my pencil rough here along with the finished inked artwork.Also, I think B.B. King must be seen in action to be fully appreciated, so here is a YouTube clip that I referred to, though not the one primarily used to achieve this caricature, which unfortunately cannot be embedded:
Working Out The Likeness
"Hello Peter, good drawings! Could you put some of the photos of these people up to compare and learn?"
A very good idea, Denise! First of all though, I must give the following disclaimer:
The fact is, working from still photos is not my preferred method for drawing caricatures. When I draw caricatures of celebrities I never use photos if I can avoid it, as I much prefer to sketch them from watching video. By seeing my subject in motion, I find that I get a better feel for their simple visual design without getting bogged down with extraneous details. Also, I am equally as interested in capturing their distinctive personality in addition to their physical likeness and this too is more easily achieved by seeing my subject in action. For me, video is my favourite medium to work from, even better than real life, as it is totally controllable in my ability to play over or pause on a single frame for studying something in depth. When I work from still photos, I must admit I can't guarantee a great likeness of the subject, as the best I can hope for is that the interpretation results in something fairly close to the reference photos provided. So, having said that, I now present for you the way I work when limited to still photo reference alone.
When I sketch my fellow NCN members, the resulting caricature is very much dependent on what sort of photo reference that member has provided. To be perfectly blunt, there are some members who I am unlikely to even attempt to draw because they have only posted a single photo to work from. I never draw from a single image, as it too limiting in its visual information. So the members I like to draw are the ones who have provided a variety of pics, showing different angles and some variation in natural expression. (I say "natural" because I don't like made up funny expressions, like tongues poking out, crossed eyes, etc.)
My first step is to download as many of the pics as I think may be helpful to draw from by placing them in a file folder. At this point I then open them all up on my computer desktop and just look at them for awhile, glancing from one pose to another in order to try and see the underlying "design" of the face. So now I'll use these three examples to attempt to explain my thought process in working out the caricatured likeness.
This "Wolverine" lookalike is Adam Pate. As I study the selection of photos Adam has provided, I first try to see the overall shape of his head and face. Adam has a very wide, blocky jaw structure and a sturdy neck. His head shape seems to taper in narrower at the top. I keep everything loose at this stage of my drawing, as I may need to go back and fine tune things as my drawing progresses. Next it's onto the facial features themselves.The facial features should be analyzed in three different ways: 1) Their relative spacing and placement on the facial plane, 2) their relative size to each other, and 3) their distinctive shape.
My visual impression of Adam's face is that his features are close set along the vertical centre line of his face with plenty of open space for the wide jaw and chin. Size-wise, he seems to have a large nose, small eyes and narrow mouth in its relaxed state. When I study the shapes, his eyes are slanted up and narrow with small light coloured irises. His nose flares out at the bottom with prominent nostrils. The mouth is always the most flexible feature, so I based its shape specifically on his expression in the 4th photo. I like the way his eyebrows arch upward in some expressions, so I portrayed them that way. In fact, Adam's face is very much based on a series of angular, alternating 'V' shapes. Sometimes I like to mentally compare a subject's face to a famous celebrity I've drawn before, and in Adam's case I thought there were some similarities to Kevin Kline and also, strangely enough, the young Peter Ustinov!
My next subject is Ken Coogan, or "Coogy" as he goes by professionally. Coogy's got a long narrow head shape that is swept back in a convex facial plane as can be clearly determined from the profile in the 5th photo. Because of this, my impression is that his features are stretched along this vertical space with a small chin that is close set to a long thin neck. His longish nose keeps the eyes and mouth separated some distance from each other. His eyes are squinty and heavy-lidded when he smiles and he has prominent lips. The shapes of his eyes and mouth are based on more curving 'U' shapes that head in opposite directions from each other. There is a droopiness to his features. Again, like in Adam's face, I chose to portray Coogy's raised eyebrows that I see in some of his expressions. As I drew Coogy, I couldn't help but think that he has similar features to that of comedian Garry Shandling.
Finally we come to Angie Jordan. Some aspiring caricaturists are somewhat unsure of how to approach drawing the face of an attractive woman, yet one should not shy away from the challenge. Overall, Angie strikes me as having a very angular head and features, which are in great contrast to the softer, curvier features that are seen on Alison Gelbman at the top right corner of my previous montage. In determining Angie's head shape, I am more inclined to draw her in a 3/4 view so that I can play up her high cheekbones and angular jutting chin. Her nose also juts out from the facial plane, so I see the overall design of her face as being made up of "arrows" thrusting forward and slightly downward at a 45 degree angle, with bridge of nose, mouth and jawline all parallel to each other. I like the expressiveness of her eyes in the 3rd photo, so I play up that wide-eyed look, giving her a lot of white space around her irises. Her mouth stretches wide back to her cheeks when she smiles, with all of her flesh taut to the bone. With females, it's also fun to study how the hairstyle works with the design and framing of the face. Angie's hair is long and straight with an interesting tuft in front that hangs down towards her eyes.Again, I must confess that I have no idea how much these caricatures may or may not capture the subjects, as I have never met my NCN colleagues in person to have formed a visual impression of them. If I had good video reference of these folks to sketch from, I would likely end up with somewhat different results. By the way, my Sheridan students will recall that I distinctly have instructed them to draw people for their sketchbook assignment either from life or from video, and NOT from still photos. Until you have experienced drawing people in a caricatured fashion from life, you will not be able to draw them from still photos with the necessary skill set required to make informed artistic choices. Believe me, even I feel hindered when drawing from photos and would far rather draw my NCN friends from real life in order to get a more accurate feel for what they're all about.
Variety Is The Key!
Back in the spring, I decided to join the National Caricaturist Network (NCN) in order to meet some of my talented colleagues online and hopefully raise my own profile out there in cyberspace. It's certainly been a fun and rewarding experience, and I'm glad to be getting to know such a great bunch of artists through the member forums. (Unfortunately, you have to be a member to read them, otherwise I'd direct you all there. Sorry!)
Anyway, one of my favourite areas in the forums is "The Firing Squad", where members can post a selection of photos of themselves as fodder for the rest of us to sketch from. It's quite fascinating to see the myriad of variations that result, with each artist interpreting the subject in their own individual way. At this point I have sketched over 50 of my colleagues and posted them in the forum, as it's a lot of fun and keeps me in practice with what I love to do. Here is just a random sampling of some of my fellow NCNers - I'll post some more over the next little while.
Fact is, I really enjoy drawing what people really look like. By that I mean, not just drawing the same generic, cookie-cutter face and body design over and over again, but instead really observing the individual "design" of each person's face and then trying to exaggerate and simplify it into something appealing, while hopefully capturing the essence of their personality as well. I thought it might be a good time to post a montage of these faces on my blog, as I am currently going to be teaching my Sheridan animation students all about "Character Types". In other words, designing a character that somehow communicates to your audience what he or she is all about through the face and body type, essentially doing the same thing in cartoon that a casting director is concerned with when selecting the most appropriate actor to fill a role in a live-action film.
During this first semester at Sheridan, my students are also required to keep an ongoing sketchbook of drawings of actual people they see, but caricaturing the features and bodies as if they were studies for potential animated film characters. I am of the strong belief that by studying what individuals look like, this will hopefully result in them producing character designs that are richer in personality as well as more visually interesting in their variety of shapes and sizes. By posting my own caricatured drawings of these NCN members, I'm hoping this will give my students a clearer understanding of what I am looking for and why. In upcoming posts I will discuss more of the thought process that goes into doing these.
Sir Elton
Every month on the National Caricaturist's Network forums they run a contest where a subject is chosen and everyone is invited to upload a caricature of that person. Though a prize is awarded to the winner, I think the real fun is just in the drawing and jumping into the fray. August's subject was Elton John. There were some really neat entries this time around and I decided to sketch Elton from a combo of his short interview on "The Lion King" DVD, plus from watching him in concert in various YouTube clips. As I've mentioned on here before, I always prefer to work from video footage as opposed to still photos, as I get a far better feel for the physical design and personality of my subject that way. Incidentally, when did Elton go from being that skinny balding kid he started out as, to the middle-aged pudgy with the wig?
As it happened, the winner of this month's contest was...me!! Much thanks to the judges who liked what I came up with. Though I sketched from several sources to arrive at this finished colour caricature, the main reference I used was this duet Elton sings with gorgeous Shania Twain. Watching and listening to it many times over while I sketched actually gave me a new appreciation for Elton's "Something About The Way You Look Tonight". It really is a lovely song with a powerful melody. I can't claim to have been much of an Elton John fan through the many years he's been on the scene, but I find that his songs do hold up well, and they're probably much finer compositions than I'd previously given him credit for. My younger sister always liked him, but I'm still decidedly more a fan of Sinatra and his contemporaries than I am of anything my peers were into back in the 70's. I reckon I was just born old...
Look - It's Me!
There were quite a few good caricatures that were drawn of me from various angles, but I thought I'd post my favourite one here on my blog, as it really has captured not only my physical likeness, but my personality as well. This art was done by a young fellow in the Netherlands, named Thijs Wessels. Here is his great caricature that definitely bears a close resemblance to the guy who stares back at me from my bathroom mirror each morning. I'm thinking I might cut out a print of it and wear it as a mask on Hallowe'en to scare the kiddies:
More Photoshop Frustration!
Not long ago, I had read on the forums of the National Caricaturist Network, a tutorial by the brilliant Court Jones (sample art shown at left), showing how to construct custom brushes in Photoshop that would behave similar to real brushes. I followed his directions to create one and, not long after starting to use it, Photoshop just crashed, disappearing and leaving the message, "Photoshop has unexpectedly quit". Several attempts later and it was causing Photoshop to crash every time. Many phone calls to Adobe did not help to resolve the problem, and they were convinced it couldn't be their program, that it must be my computer. I might have believed that, were it not for the fact that the same thing has happened on the iMac that was having the power problem (as detailed in last post), the new iMac Apple gave me in exchange, and also the 24" model that I insisted on upgrading to. Therefore, the glitch is in Photoshop itself, or at least something that is incompatible with the iMac.My Google search into the matter turned up some interesting discussions on various creative forums, though. Seems that many graphic artists who have experienced the same problem have come to the conclusion that the trouble lies with the setting of "Direction" under the "Shape Dynamics" function. This setting is essential for enabling the virtual "hairs" of the brush to follow in the direction that you move the stylus. Seems that this is problematic on a lot of computers, causing some conflict between software and hardware, resulting in a crash at some point. I find it very frustrating, and it also reinforces my personal belief that virtual media is still no match for real brushes and paint! Fact is, I haven't yet been able to totally control making even a simple, smooth line using Photoshop. Yet it is a simple matter for me to create a line with real brush and ink that is a thing of great beauty. Why should I have to fight with percentages of opacity, flow, brush size and pen pressure settings in order to do what I can so easily accomplish through intuitive pressure and angling of a well crafted Winsor & Newton sable brush?
However, one good thing that has come out of all of my exploration was finding a tutorial on how to make a custom brush that feels pretty much like a nice soft pencil for sketching with. I found this great little tip on the blog of concept artist/designer, Paul Lasaine. All it involves is taking one of the default brushes and tweaking the settings a bit to make something more practical for the artist. I've tried using Sketchbook Pro on a friend's computer, and this custom brush created on Photoshop feels much the same as the Sketchbook ones, as I recall.
These are a couple of Photoshop doodles I just did to play with this virtual pencil. There is a nice freedom to using this modified brush and I can see myself getting some good use out it. These two samples started out as sketches directly using the new brush, then adding a layer on top, selecting the "Multiply" feature, then adding colour just using the soft round brushes full strength and going back to blend some areas with some gentle airbrushing. They look similar to the results I would achieve if using coloured markers on a photocopied pencil sketch. Great for visual concepts, if nothing else, although I don't want to rule out this approach even for a fresh looking piece of final art.
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