Adam's 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.