Tonight I did something way different. I've manipulated a painting for a Photoshop contest requiring that you combine two paintings into one. I used William Adolphe Bouguereau's "The Curtsey" and Gottfried Helnwein's "The Disasters of War". I chose them because I wanted to use extreme opposite type art. I'm not really pleased with the results but thought I'd post it anyhow. Don't worry folks; I'm not changing my style. I love caricatures and will continue to do them. I have posted the source paintings below. This just isn't my thing so I'll be back to caricatures tomorrow. BTW, this piece has been featured on Bouguereau.net.
Original source paintings:
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I did a full body caricature of Gareth Frank Bale (born 16 July 1989) is a Welsh footballer who currently plays for Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur and the Wales national team. I've had a lot of requests for soccer players but have had a hard time finding good images to work with. This one, posted below for comparison, was a pretty good image.
Original image below:
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I Just felt like doing a portrait, so after an hour of trying to decide who I wanted to caricature, I finally settled on Stephen Colbert. He has some interesting features like that one wild ear. He was on a blue background so I decided to stick with the color scheme. I've provided the original image I worked with below for comparison. I think I'm going to do a soccer player tomorrow. I'm still looking for Heavy Metal stars and I'm taking requests provided I have a good image to work with.
Original image:
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
I've been fixing computer problems all day today so I didn't get to do the caricature I wanted. I decided to do a quick one to have something to post tonight. I chose George Wein named a "Jazz Master" in 2005 by the National Endowment for the Arts. I did some experimenting on this one with recreating skin textures where they were totally lost. It was a good exercise and I learned a couple of tricks. It's late...off to bed.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.
Tonight I did a manipulated caricature of Bill Clinton. I know he's not in the news much these days but I never caricatured him before so I decided to give it a go. Me makes a great subject. I've posted the original image I worked with below for comparison. Now it's time to do something a little more wild and crazy.
Original source image below
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I have a morphing video I created for one of my Behance Network projects which I've posted on my YouTube Channel and was put together using FantaMorph by Abrosoft. It features some of my photo manipulations and caricatures cropped for the face morphing. This was a learning process, so the next one will be much better. This is a very short video, just over 3 minutes but was a huge file size, just under 2gb so It took for ever to upload to YouTube. Hope you like it. I'll be back to photo manipulations and caricatures tomorrow.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This is a photo manipulated caricature head study of James Hetfield of Metallica that I used in a previous project. I thought the Heavy Metalers out there may like to see it. I'm planning on doing AC/DC next. Anyone know of any good images?
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I have a caricature of Robert Trujillo, the bass player for Metallica. I've had some requests for metalers and Trujillo specifically. I'm working on another project so I did this while I was uploading some large files. The image I had to work with wasn't the best; so I used a little Topaz to clean it up a bit. Not the resolution I like to work with though. Here is the image I started with. I had to do a little splicing. I've also posted a video with Rob in action. He's awesome and a great subject...very animated.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
I've been away for a couple of days buiding my Behance Network page and putting together a few projects to get it kicked off. You should check it out. Tonight I did a quick caricature study of Ozzy Osbourne. I've always liked this image of him and I had a lot of fun tweaking it. I've also posted the original image as well as a very popular song and video by Ozzy called "Dreamer". I'm looking for some good images of Heavy Metal groups or individuals so if anyone knows where I can find some, let me know.
Below is the image I started with.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I have a quick caricature study of Saddam Hussein. I know he's old news but I wasn't doing caricatures when he was in the news and I've wanted to caricature this image since. I think this was his best shot, next to the one of him hanging by a noose of course. Here is the original image I worked with. I'm posting early tonight because I've been fixing computer problems all day and I'm turning in early tonight.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I Have for you a group caricature I did of one of my favorite bands, Metallica. I have had requests for Metallica so I decided to do all of them tonight. The original image is posted below for comparison and a video for your listening pleasure. "Nothing Else Matters (Live Earth, London, 2007) [HD]"
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This video is a compilation of photo-manipulated caricatures. I have been doing photo manipulations for FreakingNews.com since April 2010 but I just started experimenting with caricatures 6 months ago. I have put together about 85 of my caricatures in this video. I have done more but a lot of them are rough studies not suited for this project. It's 12.5 minutes long. I hope you like it.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I have a caricatured manipulation of James Hetfield of Metallica. This was a requested caricature. I used two different images of Hetfield for this one. The image with this pose wasn't real clear so I used another head. It's still not as crisp and clean as I like my work to be but It was good practice.
Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This is a couple of caricatures I did for some good friends, Claudio and Adrianaa Paolini as a gift. I hope I got Claudio's wife's name correct. Click on the image to view full size. Merry Christmas Claudio!
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I did a couple of quick caricature studies of Lady Gaga. She's definitely not hard to caricature since she normally looks very abnormal to put it mildly. I think I made her too cute. She can be kind of disgusting at times. That's all for tonight but I should have something a little more interesting tomorrow.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I'm posting the finished piece from a study I posted a few days ago. This is a caricatured manipulation I entered in my 34th "Freak Show" Photoshop contest at FreakingNews.com. It took gold. The original body image was created by Sven Juhlin, a brilliant 3D artist.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.
Yesterday I told you I wanted to do a more extreme caricature inspired by Russ Cook. Well, this is my attempt. I chose Charlie Watts, (Drummer for The Rolling Stones) because he already has that long face and nose. It is in no way to be compared with Russ Cook's mastery of extreme caricatures. I tend to be a very conservative person and I have to push myself to try and max out the color, saturation and exaggeration in my work or it turns out looking muted and washed out. This was a big change for me and is about as extreme as I get. This type of exaggeration when manipulating a photo really gets challenging trying to maintain skin textures as well as likeness. This was a great practice piece for me and I hope to do more of the same soon. I'm including the source picture below for comparison.
I Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
I'm working on a couple of projects right now and was running out of time so I decided to do a quick caricature study of Al Sharpton by request. I hadn't thought of doing him and he turned out to be a great subject. This Study is not in what I consider a finished state. It was strictly for practice. I want to do something a bit more extreme next time. I'll have to find the right subject for it. For example, I love the work of Russ Cook. He really pushes the limits with his caricatures. I don't expect to turn out a caricature comparable to his but I want to experiment with some extreme exaggeration. Russ has a gift of exaggerating a face until it is completely contorted, yet he captures the essence of the person. Check his work out. It's awesome stuff. Well, it's getting late so that's it for tonight.
Update: Al Sharpton Tweaked
Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!
Tonight I have a rough preliminary caricature study of Obama for you. I'm working on another project for a contest and this caricature will be used in. It has an ubusual look to it but be assured I have specific plans for him and you'll understand it when you see the finished product, which will be posted in 2 or 3 days. I think you'll like it. Well, it's about time to turn in, just wanted to post a little something.
Just a quick caricature study for you tonight. I loved this image of this arrogant "gentleman" so I decided to enhance it a bit. Good practice and lots of fun. Now I'm off to watch the UFC.
Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!
Tonight, I continue the soccer player series with Lionel Messi. Lionel Andrés Messi was born 24 June 1987 and is an Argentine footballer who currently plays for FC Barcelona and the Argentina national team as a forward or winger. He also holds Spanish citizenship, which makes him eligible as a EU player. Considered one of the best football players of his generation and frequently cited as the world's best contemporary player, Messi received several Ballon d'Or and FIFA World Player of the Year nominations by the age of 21 and won both by the age of 22. His playing style and ability have drawn comparisons to Diego Maradona, who himself declared Messi his "successor".
I did a full body caricature on Messi. I didn't like the background so I took him off and made a new one similar but with a little more depth and color. Hair can be challenging when changing backgrounds because the background color bleeds into the hair, and other places. I masked the hair off as best I could but it still required painting the hair on his head as well as his arm hair. I decided to add a little detail to his face because it seemed a little washed out. I added facial hair as well as some sweat droplets. He looked like he should be sweating. I really enjoyed this one and I hope you do as well. I've posted the image I started with below for comparison.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Tonight I'm posting a caricatured manipulation I did as a tribute to Leslie Nielsen, which I intended to post the day he died, but Freaking News posted a Photoshop contest called "Remembering Leslie Nielsen" so I decided to enter it into the contest to see what it would do. It took silver so that wasn't too bad. I love this image of Leslie Nielsen with this big eyes and that surprised look. I couldn't resist doing it. I really concentrated on the eyes and completely re-made them to enhance that expression. He was good practice and a lot of fun to do. This is the image I started with:
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
I'm half sick again tonight and not up to working so I'm featuring one of my favorite artists. For those of you who may not know of his work, I discovered Gottfried Helnwein's work about a year ago and it really struck me and the scale of his work is unreal. His work is very moving, sometimes shocking, disturbing, massacre and down right brutal but I think we can learn a lot from this artist. I also posted some of his more tame images. For a more thorough representation, you can visit his web site which is listed below.
Gottfried Helnwein was born October 8, 1948 in Vienna, an Austrian-Irish fine artist, painter, photographer, installation and performance artist.
Helnwein studied at the University of Visual Art in Vienna (German: Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien). He was awarded the Master-class prize (Meisterschulpreis) of the University of Visual Art, Vienna, the Kardinal-König prize and the Theodor-Körner prize.
Helnwein has worked as a painter, draftsman, photographer, muralist, sculptor, installation- and performance artist, using a wide variety of techniques and media. His early work consists mainly of hyper-realistic watercolors, depicting wounded children, as well as performances often with children in public spaces. Helnwein is concerned primarily with psychological and sociological anxiety, historical issues and political topics. As a result of this, his work is often considered provocative and controversial.
Viennese-born Helnwein is part of a tradition going back to the 18th century, to which Messerschmidt's grimacing sculptures belong. One sees, too, the common ground of his works with those of Hermann Nitsch and Rudolf Schwarzkogler, two other Viennese, who display their own bodies in the frame of reference of injury, pain, and death. One can also see this fascination for body language goes back to the expressive gesture in the work of Egon Schiele.
Clarity of vision in his subject matter was emerging in Helnwein's art that was to stay consistent throughout his career. His subject matter is the human condition. The metaphor for his art, although it included self-portraits, is dominated by the image of the child, but not the carefree innocent child of popular imagination. Helnwein instead created the profoundly disturbing yet compellingly provocative image of the wounded child. The child scarred physically and the child scarred emotionally from within.
In 2004 The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco organized the first one-person exhibition of Gottfried Helnwein at an American Museum: "The Child, works by Gottfried Helnwein" at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The show was seen by almost 130,000 visitors and the San Francisco Chronicle quoted it the most important exhibition of a contemporary artist in 2004. Steven Winn, Chronicle Arts and Culture Critic, wrote: "Helnwein's large format, photo-realist images of children of various demeanors boldly probed the subconscious. Innocence, sexuality, victimization and haunting self-possession surge and flicker in Helnwein's unnerving work".
Harry S.Parker III, Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco explained what makes Helnwein's art significant: "For Helnwein, the child is the symbol of innocence, but also of innocence betrayed. In today's world, the malevolent forces of war, poverty, and sexual exploitation and the numbing, predatory influence of modern media assault the virtue of children. Robert Flynn Johnson, the curator in charge, has assembled a thought-provoking selection of Helnwein's works and provided an insightful essay on his art. Helnwein's work concerning the child includes paintings, drawings, and photographs, and it ranges from subtle inscrutability to scenes of stark brutality. Of course, brutal scenes witness The Massacre of the Innocents have been important and regularly visited motifs in the history of art. What makes Helnwein's art significant is its ability to make us reflect emotionally and intellectually on the very expressive subjects he chooses. Many people feel that museums should be a refuge in which to experience quiet beauty divorced from the coarseness of the world. This notion sells short the purposes of art, the function of museums, and the intellectual curiosity of the public. The Child: Works by Gottfried Helnwein will inspire and enlighten many; it is also sure to upset some. It is not only the right but the responsibility of the museum to present art that deals with important and sometimes controversial topics in our society".
Tonight I'm continuing my soccer player series by posting a caricatured manipulation of Franck Ribéry. Franck was born 7 April 1983 and is a French football player who currently plays for Bundesliga club Bayern Munich. Ribéry primarily plays as a winger, preferably on the left side, and is known for "pace, energy, skill and precise passing." I had a pretty good source pic for this one so I was able to post it at my normal full scale which is 1280 pixels wide. He was good practice and a lot of fun. If you want to learn more about Ribéry, his name is a link to his Wikipedia page. I'll have something a little different tomorrow.
Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This is a very quick, loose caricature study and experimental piece of Martin Palermo. I had a little fun tonight and carried this caricature in a little different direction than was intended. The image I started with was very rough so I decided to keep it loose and play around. I'm sure he's a little skinnier than some of you would like but it just seemed appropriate. The image below is what I started with. I actually wasn't going to do a soccer player tonight. I did a caricature of Leslie Nielsen earlier to honor his passing with the intentions of posting it tonight but I ended up entering it into a contest, so I won't post it here until the contest is over.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Rio Gavin Ferdinand (born 7 November 1978) is an English footballer. He plays at center back for Manchester United in the Premier League and in 2010, became captain of the England national football team. He has amassed 78 caps for England in total, and has been a member of three FIFA World Cup squads. I imagine you football fans know much more about him than that. It was a snippet from Wikipedia. His name is a link to his Wikipedia page if you want to learn more about him.
Tonight's project was a full body caricature of Rio Ferdinand. I seldom do a full body caricature like this. Normally when I do a caricature manipulation, I use a completely different body. I thought this image was cool with the rain, so I decided to keep it in tact and manipulate the whole picture. It created a couple of challenges but was a lot of fun. I'm providing the original image below for comparison.
I've had requests to do a caricature of Diego Maradona but I can't seem to find a good image. Help!
Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This was an entry at FreakingNew.com for a contest called "Thanks for nothing". The object was to Create de-motivational poster satirically thanking somebody and to make it mimic the classic motivational posters with a black background, image in the middle, followed by the title word(s), and de-motivational message below. This contest allowed using material from a previous manipulation, which was an exception. Mine was a de-motivational poster called False Hope. It took gold.
Tomorrow, more soccer. I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for dropping by and have a great day!
Well, I promised you soccer players and tonight I'm posting two caricatures I've done of what I'm told are famous soccer players. Above is Ronaldo de Assis Moreira or Ronaldinho, born 21 March 1980 in Porto Alegre, commonly known as Ronaldinho or Ronaldinho Gaúcho. A Brazilian footballer who plays for Italian Serie A club A.C. Milan and the Brazilian national team. I don't know a thing about him accept when I google his name, there were some really cruel caricatures of him with over exaggerating his lips and famous teeth. I tried to be a little nicer to him.
Carles Puyol i Saforcada ~ Carles Puyol
Below we have Carles Puyol i Saforcada or Carles Puyol, born 13 April 1978. A Spanish footballer who plays for FC Barcelona and the Spanish national team. Puyol was a very quick study but I spent a little more time on Ronaldinho. I do know one thing; these guys are incredible athletes and pretty good caricature material. I got a very positive responce from yesterday's post of Pele so I think I'll be doing a few of these soccer players or "footballers". I hope the little information I provided about these atheletes is correct. If not or if you want to know more about them, their names are links to their Wikipedia pages.
I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
This is a caricatured manipulation I did tonight of world famous soccer player Edson Arantes do Nascimento or Pelé to you soccer fans. I had a request to caricature some soccer players or football to most of you out there. Being from the U.S., I don't know a thing about soccer, but even I know who Pelé is. I remember watching him as a kid. He was an incredible player. This was a very quick study, but I will be doing a series of soccer players from around the world. There are lots of great subjects for caricatures in the soccer world. Hope you enjoy, and I hope this will appeal more to you international readers. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!
My work this evening could star in one of those "Fail" videos, so instead of putting you through that misery I'm going to give you something much better. I’m featuring one of my favorite artists this evening, Pamela Wilson. Otherworldly, dreamlike, haunting, dark, and hilarious absurdities are a few of the words used to describe some of the works of this incredible artist. I'm including a short Bio and a few of her works, but you will want to visit her web site to see more of her brilliant artwork and learn more about this amazing and very unique artist.
Pamela Wilson’s works of art transcend the commonplace to enter the realm of the sublime and otherworldly. She develops haunting images that evoke moods and memories inspired by real life, and which create a remarkably compelling narrative. The physical and emotional isolation of her characters has emerged as a hallmark of her work. She has much to say of the dark and hilarious absurdities we must often endure... while we are creating ourselves.
Primarily a figurative painter, Wilson has worked in many other mediums, including photography, printmaking, and assemblage. She received her MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was awarded a Regents Fellowship, the Abrams Project Grant, and a Regents Award for her Thesis Exhibition. She is currently Mentor Faculty at Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna, CA, as part of the MFA Program.
Wilson has exhibited consistently since 1992 in galleries in New York, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia, California, and Santa Fe. She has been included in many museum exhibitions, including the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington DC, and a solo exhibition at the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY. Her work is included in many prestigious collections. She is currently represented by Sarah Bain Gallery, Anaheim, CA, and Evoke Contemporary Gallery, Santa Fe, NM.
I hope you enjoyed this brief peek into the life and work of Pamela Wilson. Please take the time to visit her web site where you will find a wonderful Portfolio, Bio, Résumé as well as an excellent feature and interview with the Ramshackle Review.
Tonight's project was a caricature study of The Rolling Stones. These guys are great caricature subjects. Every one of them has a load of character. They all have really interesting features begging to be exaggerated. I consider this a mild caricature. I typically exaggerate a little more and put the head on a smaller body, but since I was using the existing bodies from the source pic, I tamed it just a bit. I've wanted to do these guys for a long time but hesitated because I thought it would be an enormous amount of work but it wasn't bad at all. I completed it in one evening. They were a lot of fun and I'll have to do more of them in the future. This manipulation was inspired by Sebastian Kruger's caricature works of the Stones. He became quite attached to the group and did numerous caricatures and paintings of them especially Keith Richards. His works range from super realism to extreme caricatures and usually on a huge scale. I can't do justice to them like Kruger. His paintings of The Stones are amazing. Check out the quick video at the end of this post. It will give a pretty good overview of the work he did with the Stones. By the way, he hasn't stopped.
This is the source pic I used:
These guys were really fun to do and a great learning experience. Practice, practice, practice. I'm determined to get good at this. I read an interesting quote today that kind of sums it up, getting good at something I mean. I don't know who it's by but I thought it was really cool and answeres the question that a lot of people have about whether or not they can achieve a certain goal. "The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?" That says a lot because I believe anyone can achive thier particular goal if they have enough passion for it and are willing to go as far as it takes to reach it. Well, time to call it a day. I hope you enjoyed.
