Number four in my “People Who Kick Ass” series, Ed Norton is a talented actor and was really impressed by his versatility when he did “American History X”, “Fight Club” and “Keeping the Faith” in succession. The trickiest part about this was the 5 o’ clock shadow – I had to not make it look like I just shaded in an area and not make the stubble to pronounced so as to end up giving him a beard.
The purpose of this was to educate myself on how to draw animals and specifically, get colored fur to look like it has texture. The Prismacolor Premier pencils I used have a soft lead and don’t hold a sharp point very well so I used those when I needed to lay color down and went back over top with Prismacolor Veritihin pencils to give the colored areas texture.
Bill Nye The Science Guy! Watching old episodes of Bill Nye is something my son and I enjoy and so I drew this for him as part of my “People Who Kick Ass” series. Same as my other portraits, this was done on vellum with a reference photo but I went heavier on the shading than I normally do.
One of my favorite game series is “Hitman” and I really like the movie based on the games as well. This was just a fun one done on a whim one night when I was bored. I took a picture of myself posed in this position to get the proportions right and dressed myself in the suit and added the weapons.
My first foray into oil painting, I did this for my son. Initially, this was just supposed to be a learning experience in figuring out how to blend colors and create gradients. The brush I used for the character in the middle is similar to the kind of brush used in Japanese calligraphy and trying to get each stroke right on the first shot was a challenge in its own right.
Corey Taylor is another musician who I really admire and is a brilliant artist. Trying to keep the shadowing consistent on the left side of his face and jacket was a challenge and since his shirt and coat are black, I didn’t want to make it too dark overall to take away from his face.
“Old school biker tattoo” was my theme for this. I had a tattoo I wanted to get covered on my shoulder and I thought this was a fitting piece since I’m a self-admitted mama’s boy. The paper I used had quite a bit of tooth so the soft graphite sank into the paper and the dark areas are where the really soft leads were used to get a thick covering.
This was an experiment with vellum – specifically, layering multiple sheets to create depth. The lily in the foreground is one the top sheet, the one on the left is on the sheet below and lastly, the lily on the right. Shading was done on the back of each sheet to further try and create depth. The scanner muted the effect as the original really pops out and better shows the result I was going after.
Commissioned by a friend, this handsome pooch is named Maximus Decimus Meridias which is about the coolest name for a dog I could ever think of. This was difficult because of the angle the reference photo was taken from and because fur poses a whole different set of challenges as opposed to skin on people. Other than that, it was standard portrait procedure.
Nikola Tesla was a brilliant scientist and an eccentric fellow from what I’ve read. His work with electricity and his ambitions for wirelessly delivered power is fascinating and so far ahead of his time. This is the second addition in my “People Who Kick Ass” series.
