Adam's Blog

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.