Adam's Blog

Ah, for my next cool-down sketch another Big Love wife. Did I mention how much I love this show? Ha, ha. Margene is another one of my favorites, she has a naiveté that is cute and sometimes funny--but she knows what she wants. Did I mention she's practically a nympho?

All digital, done in Photoshop. It's funny, I'm coloring this one artist right now who is very realistic and I colored this the same way. I kinda missed on the likeness but I think I namely missed because I didn't exaggerate much.

I used to laugh at people who used to say, "keep it" or "keepin' in real". I used to find it a little cliche and maybe even corny until I grew to learn I really do like to keep it real, real as in true. That's why I LOVE most HBO shows. If someone is pissed they cuss, if they have sex it's usually intimate, violence is more real etc. HBO dramas (as well as any cable pay TV) can push the envelope in ways TV dramas cannot. Which brings me to one of my favorite shows; Big Love. It's supposed to start again in January and I'm happy to have it back.

I didn't do much warm-up sketching this morning so I figured I'd do something before bed. This is a quick sketch of Nicki. I found a couple of really cute pics of Chloe Sevigny but I figured to make it Nicki I needed to draw her all pissed off and lookin' like she just got off the compound.

All digital sketch in Photoshop.

I started off with the intent to draw a zombie. It took me so long to get the head looking half way right I really ran out of time to zombiefy it. I'll probably sit on it for now and break out my zombie pimp hand for tomorrow.

I've been working with Keith on my next book and he mentioned Russ Meyer. So, who the hell is Russ Meyer? A google search later... Where the hell have I been? And I call myself a pinup artist!!??

For those like me who didn't know he started making films in the late '50s. To quote Wiki he made movies, "with a trademark blend of odd humor, huge-breasted starlets and All-American sleaze". Now ask yourself, what's not to love about Russ? LOL! It goes deeper than that because he did it before anyone else did. Read up on him, he has an interesting story and product.

This is a caricature of Tura Satana who stared in one of his movies. All digital, done in Photoshop.

I went to get a sandwhich last night at my local deli and what I found was the next Wonder Woman. She looks more or less like like my sketch here. Truthfully she looked like she could be porn star Aletta Ocean's little sister or something. Blue eyes, the dark hair, glasses, she was perfect. Actually Aletta Ocean would be a good Wonder Woman now that I think about it, but then again, the accent probably wouldn't work for the role. On the flip side, I'm sure she'd be up for nude scenes though. ;)

I've noticed a lot of things are not only on sale this holiday season, but a lot of places I shop have been e-mailing coupons and all sorts of discounts. I guess times are still pretty tough and competitive for retailers. As I drove home in my car tonight, I started thinking gentlemen's clubs are probably in the same boat, so...

Last Monday I went to the post office and there was this girl with incredibly nice buns who either needed to pee, was really hyper, or had restless leg syndrome. Nonetheless she just shook her hips and moved her ass around the entire time she was at the window. It was nice because she made an otherwise boring visit not so boring. This pic was just me playing with a watercolor brush, she of course was wearing clothes.

I was too lazy to draw something new tonight so the perfect solution was to color something old. Actually I think I drew this last week but you get the picture. I think I just drew the rats in for the hell of it, they really don't have any kind of storytelling purpose, just fun.

I did it with Prismacolor pencils and colored it in Photoshop.

I just wanted to screw around with color. How these two came about was I was really missing some things on my drawings and I realized my line of action wasn't working. So after a few sketches I came up with these two.

This book is always late so I'm usually hesitant to experiment much. Since I saw they were introducing a new character [Cinder] who fought with fire, I knew most of the action scenes would be full of yellow and oranges from the fire. So at the end (since it's night time no less) of the book I went with all these browns and purples. I was VERY paranoid the editors or my AD would hate it and I'd have to do redo everything. Thank god I didn't have to.

I've been drawing but at the same time I'm too lazy to scan. Hmmm....sounds like a conundrum to me. Anyhoow, some sketches from a few days ago, colored in Photoshop.

Some mall scribbles from earlier this year. I did the color in Photoshop.

I usually post my live caricature work at my Facebook page now, but since this one has The Joker in it I made an exception. When this lady and her son (total MILF...I know...) came up to me she asked if I could draw her son as the Joker. I thought it came out ok but I decided to take it home and color it in Photoshop.

I have followed Marcos Mateu-Mestre's work for several years now but I had no idea he released a book recently called Framed Ink. I stumbled on it at Amazon and bought it. It is an amazing book full of information and great samples. I'd go on and on but CG Channel did a review of it you can check out. Bottom line, if you need a resource for composition or storytelling this book is a must have.

My new sketchbook premiered at Comic-con but now it's finally for sale at Terminal Press.com. It's similar to the last book but it's probably about 10 more pages. Since I worked really hard on anatomy last year it's full of naked chicks and my normal silliness that you'd find here on the blog.

I swear I've waited about two weeks to do this one. Ever since Christine O'Donnell got flack for admitting to hanging out with witches, I've been wanting to do something stupid like this. I could care less who she hung out with in high school but I had to have fun with this.

I've been going to YouTube lately to caricature and when I typed "fitness programs" this was one of the first that came up. So uh...I gestured.

My interview aired last night!

When I first saw DC was redesigning Wonder Woman's costume I thought they were kidding. I thought no way in hell was DC changing anything (or they'd do it for a book or two and that's about it). Then (and not too long ago) I read again how people were still pissed about her costume changing and I thought, "this is really happening...". Since a lot of people do not like Jim Lee's rendition I figured I'd take a stab at it. Behold, the new Wonder Woman. LOL ...not really.

I've been doing a lot of studies of plus sized women lately so I'm not surprised this sketch came about. This was a quick warm-up but I wasn't sure what to do with the broom. I feel like I should have swept the back up but I didn't want to put too much emphasis on the weight on the broom. Though I want to convey her being a heavy witch, I still want her to appear, well, hot. The broom seems kinda phallusy but would that be any surprise with my art? :)

I decided to pull a Pete Emslie this morning and draw some heads using YouTube videos as ref instead of photos.

Something quick before bed.

My art director just showed me this photo. This cover I colored was being used on the digital display in Times Square [NY]. Talk about your work in lights...how cool!

My warm-up today was Brigitte Bardot. I wanted to approach this like Jack Rickard's style-- some of his more simplified Mad cartoon/comic stuff.

Originally when I started Caricature Me Super (CMS), I didn't want it to have its own website, it made sense to me to have everything go to my adamstreet.net address. That was contingent of course on me remodeling the site with a section specific to caricature. Well, three months later and still no caricature section.

Before I get too many people wanting to see samples and being forced to dig thru my other work I figured I would make a Facebook page dedicated to CMS. I'll still post some here (especially my sketches) but the bulk of my work will be on the CMS Facebook page.

This was my warm-up sketch this morning but I didn't have time to color it earlier so I painted it tonight. I'm not communicating the story of the rat very well here but I ran out of time because I had a heavy workload today.

A couple of weeks ago I realized I haven't uploaded any babe-centric stuff in a while. Between being too lazy to scan and doing a lot of caricaturing I just haven't uploaded much. So finally, an update with boobs.

I came across a few artists that were doing these influence maps and I thought I would give it a whirl. I mainly did it to reflect on artists that directly influenced my style. There's many I'm probably leaving out (because I find great artists every day) but these guys (and girls) are a list of people who did and still do blow me away. After reading some of Neville Goddard's work on imagination, I realize these are artists that took my imagination to the next level.

These are in no particular order.

1. Jason Chan turned me on to Bouguereau. He talked about his flesh tones and many other elements to his work and I fell in love with his paintings.

2. I wanted to do more painting and fine artsy stuff in comics but I thought it would never fly...then I saw Alex Ross' work. Nuff said.

3. I prefer more of Joe Chiodo's more exaggerated pinup stuff but his draftmanship and mastery of color is insane.

4. Designers usually blow me away but Ryan Church is in a class by himself.

5. Hyung Tae Kim paintings are stunning. He's a designer but his finished illustrations are sick!

6. I always thought Adam Hughes' work was brilliant but when I saw how he could fuse his sense of humor with art my work was changed forever.

7. Years ago I used to call Linda Bergvist my favorite 'digital' painter and soon I realized media didn't matter. She was one of my favorite painters--period!

8. Like Ross, Ignacio Noe does beautiful comics. Most of his stuff was watercolor then he moved on to digital but it is all amazing work.

9. You can see some of the Dean Yeagle in a lot of what I do. Whether it's cute, funny, or downright sexy Dean is the man!

10. Don Flowers' work is priceless.

11. There's nothing you can't learn from Frank Frazetta. It doesn't matter if it's pen and ink, an oil painting, or a pencil sketch, Frazetta was a living legend in my lifetime.

12. To this day I still don't know how Craig Mullins does it. No matter what the media is, his genius comes thru.

13. Mort Drucker is well...Mort Drucker.

14. J Scott Campbell is the person who steered me towards studying animation. His work was always an inspiration to me but he also helped open my eyes to other artists in and around animation.

15. To this day I still draw my noses kinda like John Byrne. I can honestly say I got into comics because of him.

16. Bruce Timm is "one of those". He can go cartoon, realistic, 'comicy', black and white, color...it doesn't matter. He will pull off what you wish you could do--and with minimal lines usually.

17. Barbucci blew me away with Sky Doll but I have to give some credit to Canepa as well because the color palette in Sky Doll was genius. Nonetheless I did and continue to learn a lot from Barbucci.

18. There are lots of illustrators from the last 100 years that I love but Robert McGinnis has a special place in my heart and style.

19. When I was a youngster Boris Vallejo was the first painter I really gravitated to. His female subjects were beautiful and brilliantly painted.

I also did a reunion this weekend but I was so busy I didn't take a single picture. Usually I just forget the damn camera...

Ray Tate over at Comics Bulletin gave Spider-man a nice review. He even said a nice thing or two about my color. How nice...

It's late and I should have turned my computer off two hours ago. So what do I do, a sketch of Lawrence Fishburn's daughter. Is your daughter doing a porno really that bad? LOL The funny thing is when I first heard of this story they said Fish's daughter made a "sex tape". No, Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee had a sex tape, Montana is MAKING PORNO. Big difference. And she's actually pretty good at her new job...that's what I hear anyway. Ahem....

I had to break out some of my Walt Stanchfield notes and I came across this quote.

"Reading and observing are two emancipators of the dormant areas of the mind."

This really hit me because I've been spending my last two weekends caricaturing at the mall. Even though I'm not doing my life studies or sketches or anything while I'm there, I'm soaking up everything around me--how clothes fit, stance, body language, etc. So even though I'm not drawing I've been feeling like I'm learning something.

I have business cards, but I want some that are specific to Caricature Me Super (my caricature biz). A lot of caricature artists use their own caricatures on their website, marketing materials, etc. and I thought it would be a good idea too. Originally I wanted to go all Jason Seiler on this pic but I ran out of time. So I may start messing around with the file later and spruce it up some. But in the mean time, here I am.

Sketched with a black Prismacolor pencil, colored in Photoshop.

At first I was going to ad a little background and just draw her with tattered clothes (to show she was in combat) but I decided it would sell the idea better if she hauled a bad guy in with her. Plus it shows she couldn't wait until after she dropped off the thug. When superheroes need chocolate, apparently they want it ASAP. ...talk about comfort food.

When I approached the warm-up section in "the book" I almost glazed over it because I was thinking I already do warm-up sketches, right? Well, McDonnell talked about having a "predetermined area of focus" and in essence make it a mental exercise just as much as an artistic one. I realized I was lacking all of that in most of my warm-ups.

While I was at Comic-con looking at average people dressed as superheroes, it got me thinking about comics. Usually I make up my own but this time I felt like using an existing character. This is the first sketch I did of Ms Marvel going to a Godiva Chocolatier after fighting crime. Unlike the last sketch I did where I just did an over-paint in Photoshop, I drew a second version of this that I will post tomorrow. ...probably.

While walking to my room I cracked up when I saw that action figure packaging sitting with the pizza box and water. I thought, "only during Comic-con". The gay Storm Trooper was even better.

Now that I have a copy of The Art & Feel of Making it Real I want to start putting this book into practice immediately. First I read the book from front to back now it's time to start doing exercises etc. When I teach I always tell people if you really want to learn something you should apply the information immediately, and you should teach it to someone else. That's not original material, I actually think I stole it from Stephen Covey, but nonetheless it's effective. So in addition to reading the book I'm going to post some of my WIPs.

This is a drawing I did yesterday. This is a quickie but the message is someone grabbed her butt and she's not happy about it. There's plenty of anatomy to fix but the main thing for this exercise is telling the story. I first went into Owen Fitzgerald mode and stretched her a little further out. Speaking of stretching...I also gave her a longer neck and tilted her head a little more. By lengthening her a little and tilting her shoulders the other direction it pops her boobs more and shrinks her waist--which is usually a good thing. :) I also moved her right hand a little so it looks more like she's massaging her bottom versus resting her arm.

A little practice from the ISCA site. I managed to meet Court Jones this weekend at Comic-con and he gave me some good pointers for my live caricature. I originally approached this like a live caricature and it did it pretty quickly on paper. Later I scanned it in Photoshop and did the paint.

I had a blast at Comic-con this past weekend. It's always more like a family reunion when hanging out with the Terminal Press crew versus just 'selling stuff at a con'. Both Good Artist Gone Mad and Epiphany sold well over the four days. Since I haven't been to a con in two years it was really nice talking to people. I had some realizations though.

1. I'm getting old, or at the very least I'm becoming more of a parent. My low point was missing Hoops and Yo Yo and Dora the The Explorer. Do you know what kind of street cred I would have at a preschool to say I hung out with Dora and Boots?

2. It is hella entertaining to watch a nerd pick up a totally hot chick with World of Warcraft jargon.

3. Mark McDonnell is an amazing human being.

I'm always coloring over pencilers and inkers in comics so I figured it was time to color one of my new favorite artists--my four year old daughter. I stole the idea originally from another artist, I just can't remember which one it was. I think it was one of those bad-ass animation guys like Sam Nielson or Todd Harris but I don't remember.

As my daughter would say regarding Plakton and this jelly fish, "they are happy."

I will be attending San Diego Comic-con Thursday July 22 to Sunday July 25th. I will be at the Terminal Press booth (1221) pimpin' my stuff and doing caricatures and random sketches.

I don't mind anyone shopping the price of lettuce let alone multi-million dollar salary deals but I cannot wait for the Lebron sweepstakes to be over with. The only thing that really bugs me is that Lebron says he's looking for a playoff contender. Well, the reality is Cleveland is a playoff contender. They probably would have won the East the last two years if Lebron himself hadn't kept choking. Yeah...I said it. That's like me thinking my coloring will improve if I move to DC comics.