Monday, April 23, 2007

THE KING

TOM- Here's another portrait from that promo book. Elvis has probly been one of the hardest to do in terms of getting the likeness down. I thought it would be fairly easy at first, just some dark eyes, a curved up lip, and big hair, but there is alot more to it. He's such a specific looking guy, with such a recognizable face, that one wrong line could really fuck up the whole thing. So i leave it to you to tell me if i've a good job or not. Again, it really does take a few months for me to be able to look at my drawings with a fresh pair of eyes. By the way, this one was done with a #2 brush on typing paper(couldn't get it to transfer on to bristol and keep it true to the original sketch, so i just inked the sketch) And colored in Photoshop. Peace out.

Thursday, April 12, 2007

SILKSCREEN BOOK UPDATE 1




TOM- Heres the first three pages from my silkscreened book. There "6x9" each and mostly four colors each. The biggest problems so far has been the registration, the fact that there double sided, and simply being able to finish this whole thing on time. I have two other pages done, but theres about six or seven more including a cover, endpapers , and inside cover! don't know how i'm gonna do it all, but i'll find a way. Just wanted to post the progress so far. Let me know what you think. Later.

Thursday, April 5, 2007

MOZ!

Tom- So this is the other portrait from the promo book. Same process as the Johnny Cash one i just left the penciled drawing in my studio so i wasn't able to show it. I tried to add a 'prop' of some sort such as the band aid just to give it a little more personality and hopefully push the fact that its Morrissey.

Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Hello, Im Johnny Cash!

TOM- My friend, Edwin Vasquez and i recently put together a little promo book containing portraits of musicians. Its full color and contains all our contact info, just something nice to give out to people and potential clients. We will also be selling them at this months MOCCA festival where we will have a table. I was trying my best to get the likenesses of the musicians down and at the same time add a little bit of there personality either through color or posture, expression.
The first portrait i did was this one of Johnny Cash. I have been a fan of his music for some time now, but it seems that i have recently been incorporating him into my artwork more and more. Whether it be through portraits or through short stories about him, he's someone that i have been drawing quite a bit lately. I used photo reference, but didn't want it to look like any particular photo so i just took features from a whole range of photos.
Then I light boxed the penciled image, inked it and got it ready for color. The number on his name tag is taken from one of his real mug shots. Starkville city jail is just a reference to a song that he sings at San Quentin about getting arrested.
I colored it with a halftone affect to give it a kind of old school comic book color feel. I also tried to limit my color down to about four colors, taking some of the ideas that apply to silk screening. I've looked at this portrait for a little too long and can no longer tell if the likeness is completely there, so if theres any comments, feel free to express.