Agent 47 Self Portrait

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.

Bill Nye

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.

Corey Taylor

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.

Deutschland Grunge

Like my “Italia Grunge” flag I created, this was done in a similar fashion. I layered high res images to created the rough and work background then found a high resolution map of Germany edited to eliminate irrelevant content. The finished product was printed on canvas at full scale which is 2 by 3 feet.

Dragon

This was incredibly fun to do. I found a dragon by anther artist on deviantArt and took a lot of inspiration from the original line drawing and made it my own by embellishing the lines and adding color. This was originally done on a sheet of 18 x 24 inch watercolor paper. I used water color paper because I knew it would hold up to the Higgins ink that I used. I applied the ink with brushes and cotton swabs diluting or layering to give variations in color. Outside of the black ink used for the outline, only red and brown ink was used for the rest of the color.

Edward Norton

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.

Fly

A friend requested this as a basis for a tattoo she wanted done. I asked for color ideas and took creative liberty after I was given basic guidelines. Blending similar colors of marker and pencil worked out well. Trying to add depth to the shaft of the feather was a challenge working in such a small space and keeping the shadows and highlights consistent with an imagined light source.

Ireland Grunge

This was requested after seeing my other flags. The font brought it together. I used a free font without license restrictions. The colors used are the exact color codes for Ireland’s flag. The map was easier to manipulate since I managed to find one where there was nothing other than Ireland in it.

Italia Grunge

Despite calling myself “Faust” and having a “.de” domain, I’m mostly Italian. I created this in Photoshop for the purpose of giving it to my dad to hang in his “man cave”. I created this to be printed with dimensions of 2 by 3 feet. The working document took up close to 4GB of disk space and the saved file size was roughly 1.5GB. I made two versions – one for Sicily (which is where both of my grandmothers are from) and one with the whole boot for all the other Italian folks out there.

Layne Staley

Layne Staley is one of my favorite musicians and this is the first entry in my “People Who Kick Ass” series of portraits I am creating. The hardest part of this were the sunglasses. In the reference photo I used, they were very shiny and the lenses also gave me a challenge too.

Lilies On Vellum

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.

Mama’s Ink

“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.

Max

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.

Mom’s Lily

I drew this for my mom for Mother’s Day in 2013. It was my first time using my Derwent Studio pencils and I think that the result came out pretty well. The color variations were a little outside of my “comfort zone” but I was pleased with how easy the pencils blended together and how easy it was to layer color.

Nikola Tesla

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.

Rose In Oil

This was my second attempt at an oil painting. I used my other rose drawing as the reference for this and but the same basic sketch on a canvas panel and filled in with paint. Working with oil took some getting used but looks amazing when it’s finished and set. The stem on this is a bit thicker than I would have liked but overall, I’m pleased with this.

Stylized “F”

My intention for this was to be the back of a very old business card I was designing for myself. Ultimately, I scrapped the business card design and ended up using this a desktop background. I took high-res images of several different textures and changed the blending options on the layers to get the old and work look.

Tiger

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.

To Fly

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.

Toy Gun

This was done for a friend for a friend and his photography project. He wanted something that looked like the old sci-fi guns you’d see in the Looney Tunes cartoons. I took ideas from old toys and the “Duck Dodgers” cartoon with Daffy Duck and Porky Pig (which I absolutely loved and immediately thought of when I was approached with this).