Barqzr Davi The Terrible

Tonight I'm posting a caricature study I did for a good Google+ friend, Davi Barqzr. Don't ask me how to pronounce it. His G+ handle is +barqzr so if you're a G+er, check him out. He's a very interesting person. A little eccentric but I think that's a good thing, especially in my world. Seriously, he is a true lover of great art, great music and has an awesome sense of humor. Barqzr is one of the most interesting subjects I've worked with. He's tough, proud, a bit crusty, has great features for a caricature and has a little attitude for good measure. I think it suits him well. I see him in a blood spattered crusty suit of armor wielding a massive sword in a medieval setting. Actually he was a lot of fun to work with but it's back to business tomorrow. I experimented with one new techniques and actions this time that I've been working with to better enhance detail. As you can see, he did most of the work though. Below is the original source image used for this project. This guy should be in movies right? Don't forget, I'm a G+er as well so circle us. My handle is +Rodney Pike.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Help me get featured in Time Square

Hello friends. I need your vote for a contest I'm in at about.me which is where my main introduction web site is. They are holding this contest to determine the "face of about.me" website. The winner of the contest will be featured on a billboard in Time Square. You can vote for my about.me page once a day, every day until the contest ends on September 20th. Every vote counts. You can vote by following any of the links I provided or simply click either of the two images. I'm at just over 500 votes so far. Thanks to all of you who have been voting daily. It's a great site. Please share. Thanks!!!!

VOTE HERE: http://about.me/RodneyPike




Here's a clue as to what it might look like:

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Google+ Hangout Interview with Artist Rodney Pike

This is a quick video of a Google+ hangout interview of myself by Cliff Baldridge of YouTube fame. His channel has over 150 million views and growing. This was done on Google+'s video "hangout" which is a real cool feature there and was shot to give you an idea of what the G+ hangout looks like. This is a view of what cliff was seeing on his end of the hangout. It's just a short overview of who I am and what I do. Hope you're not too disappointed :). If you are a member of Google+, please circle me and Cliff. My handle is +Rodney Pike and Cliff's is +Cliff Baldridge. If you're not a member and would like to be, I think there are still some invitations available so let me know and I can send you one.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Jeremy Clarkson ~ Caricature Study

This is a caricature study of Jeremy Clarkson of the British TV show Top Gear which will be used for an upcoming project and publication. I'll keep you up to date. The source image is posted below as well as a short video from his show.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Barack Obama Profile Study

Tonight I'm posting the finished study of Obama's profile. The source image was very fuzzy and extremely noisy at 1:1 so I did a lot of experimenting with texture and detail. People have been asking me why I haven't posted much lately. Well, there are a couple of reasons. One, I've been busy with some small commissions... which is good, and I have been studying Photoshop every day. I'm spending a lot of time on tutorials and experiments but that's what it's going to take for me to get to the top of my game. I'm amazed at all of the things I didn't bother to learn in the past year. A lot of them are very basic to Photoshop as the video demonstrates below. I have been learning Channels, Masking, Refine Edge, Camera Raw, Bridge and really interesting stuff with actions. I'm starting to record a few actions of things I have learned. Now that I know how to use and make them, I plan on building a library of actions which ultimately will save me an enormous amount of time. The video below is just an example of how basic some of these things are that we overlook or don't think we have time for. Check out the related videos on this guys channel. He has some great stuff, he explains it well and allows you to actually keep up. I want to become proficient at Photoshop so I will be studying for a while, but I am going to get back into posting more in the coming days. I'm going to find a good subject to work on tomorrow before turning in tonight.

Lets take some time and see just what Photoshop can do.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Barack Obama ~ Profile WIP

Just a quick experimental manipulation of Obama's profile. It's a very bad source image so I don't know that I'll do anything with this. It was just for practice. I may play with painting it. Source image is below. I have some good stuff on the way. Busy busy busy!! Goodnight folks!

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Admiral Mike Mullen, CJCS ~ BIG Brass

Tonight I'm posting the finished manipulated caricature of  Admiral Mike Mullen, 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Most people probably don't know who this guy is and this is the only caricature of him that I know of. I didn't choose him because he was recognizable, I chose him because he was a challenge and he just has great features for a caricature. I did two versions of this. The first is a very large high resolution image, almost 13 inches @ 300DPI. I did this just as if it were a print commission creating a large print ready TIFF of it. I also have a smaller PSD file at 1280 pixels wide which is the standard size for my portfolio. I did both so I could see how close I could get the two, because when you reduce an image of that size by that much, all of the detail and textures are greatly diminished. As a result I had to go through my small PSD file and rework the details and textures as well as small touch ups like hair. Nothing special here but I think I achieved what I was shooting for. The source image is posted below.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!