Caricature Proposal

I've been really bad about updating my blog lately.  Been pretty busy with some gigs as well as some stuff of my own.  Over the next week or so I'll try to get this place up to date.  But first I'll dispense with one of the more recent events and also one of the more unique events of late.

So this guy named Gurj emails me like a month ago and starts a back and forth over several weeks.  He wants to propose to his girlfriend Neetu and he wants to do it in a special way.  His plan?  To hire me to pose as a street artist so the two of them can ask me to draw their caricature.  Meanwhile why they pose for the drawing I'm not just drawing them in any old pose, I'm drawing Gurj down on one knee in front of her with a talking bubble exclaiming the words, "Neetu, will you marry me?!"

The back and forth of emails was to figure out the details as you probably already guessed.  Location, day, time.  One major problem is I'm not actually a street artist so I don't have a busker's license.  I was a little worried about that because if I looked too much the part I could grab unwanted attention by nearby vendors who don't want me there or even the police.  My story would've probably saved me from any real legal trouble but my cover would be blown and the whole scenario would be wrecked.  On top of that I also didn't want other people lining up to get their drawings done before they got there...I didn't really think that would happen but hey you never know.  So the plan was for me to be a little more inconspicuous, just a guy drawing on the street who, when Gurj expressed interest, would offer a caricature and we'd be off and running.

The whole thing went down outside Rogers Arena near the box office where Gurj had told Neetu he needed to pick up tickets left for him by a friend.  In the meantime I was there drawing so they'd have reason to approach me when they showed up.  Gurj asked if I could be in the middle of a caricature, so that's what I did although in the end I don't think it mattered.  I didn't have any reference and there weren't any faces around me that I could get a very clear look at so I stuck with what I could maybe do from memory.  First, Groucho Marx.  Then a grizzled old Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I'm not crazy about the Arnold drawing but I do like the idea of drawing him all grizzled and geiserly so I might take another shot at that with some reference and a bit more time to play with it.

Next up of course was the main event and Gurj set up a camera for it.  He told Neetu he was trying to enter a Vancouver video contest or something.

She said yes!  I don't think she quite knew what to make of the drawing at first, I think it was just starting to sink in when she turned around and saw her now fiancee on one knee.  I think she thought maybe I'd drawn him proposing to her just to be cute, but then how would I have known her name?  That last question may have even creeped her out for a second before she realized what was going on.  Here's a photo of the two of them with their drawing.  It's a little out of focus.  You can see a better shot of the drawing at the end of the video.

The Social Networks.

Have you ever tried juggling?  I have, a few times, but I'm not very good at it.  I tried juggling bean bags, but I dropped them.  I tried juggling pieces of fire wood but I almost rendered myself unconscious.  And I once tried juggling chainsaws in Mexico and had to flee the country to avoid a manslaughter charge.  Okay I made that last one up...I've generally avoided juggling chainsaws regardless of my geographical position.  These days this is all the juggling I do...

One of the biggest things for any kind of artist is getting your stuff seen by people.  That used to be pretty much impossible to pull off unless you were lucky or had an agent or something to book appearances and gallery shows.  That was back when you had to wear a beret and a smock at all times so that people knew you were an artist.  In today's world that means the internet, and everything that comes with it.  You can only hold out for so long when a new Social Networking site crops up before jumping on the bandwagon.  Truth be told I actually have some fun with all of these sites.  YouTube lets me post my animation for the world to see.  I like writing and ranting on Blogger.  I like looking at art of all kinds on Deviant Art.  I like posting rapid project updates and smart ass commentary on Twitter.  I like the reach of Facebook and keeping it active with stuff.  And Tumblr...well I'm new to Tumblr but I'm sure I'll have fun with it too.  There's just so many of them!  And I'm sure there's more to come too.  Here they are if you wanna check out, or join or follow or what not.

You can see my official Outhouse Cartoons website here.
You can become a fan on Facebook here.
You can follow me on Twitter here.
You can watch me on Deviant Art here.
You can subscribe to me on YouTube here.
You can follow me on Blogger here.  No link for this one...you're already on Blogger you nut!
You can follow me on Tumblr here.

And while I'm at it too.  You can also follow my twice weekly webcomic, "Cowman" via Blogger here.  And become a fan of my film, "The Case of the Midnight Murderer" on Facebook here.

Ellen Meets Twain

     A couple weeks ago I was trying to decide on a movie to watch.  I can't remember exactly what was on when I turned on the TV but it was annoying so I changed the channel to something while I was thinking about film choices.  I ended up flipping to PBS' broadcast of Ellen Degeneres receiving the Mark Twain Prize for humour.  My intent was to just watch 5 minutes while I looked at the PVR but I ended up watching the whole damn 90 minutes.  It was hilarious.

     So anyway, I drew this the next day.  Just got around to colouring it.  I've always liked Ellen anyway, but I had been thinking about watching an action movie or something bloody...so the fact that a PBS award ceremony stole my attention is pretty damn impressive.  

     Mark Twain himself didn't actually attend the ceremony  which I thought was kinda douchey of him.

The Bro Jake Show!!

So a month or so ago I posted a drawing I did of the Bro Jake Show.  Turns out they liked it, Alece from the show got in touch with me and they asked me to add in Nikki Omen, their board guy.  Here's the updated pic.

But wait!  That's not all!  There's a reason they wanted this updated...cuz they liked the drawing so much they printed on t-shirts for themselves...check it out!

This was cool for all kinds of reasons.  I was pretty stoked to see Outhouse Cartoons tagged in photo on the Bro Jake Show's facebook page.  This...pretty much made my week last week.  Thanks guys!

Republic of Doyle

Got into "Republic of Doyle" last summer.

It's a Canadian show, for anyone who doesn't know, about a P.I. in Newfoundland.  This is the cast if it wasn't obvious.  I really like the drawing, but I'm a little so-so on the likenesses.  I think Malachy's bang on and Rose is pretty good.  Tinny's not bad but maybe a little more cartoony compared to the rest of them which makes her look a little younger by comparison maybe.  Still like the drawing though...I'd just be doing some more tweaking before I'd pitch "Republic of Doyle: The Animated Series."  I like that Canadian TV's been getting better respect in the last few years.  I think if you asked about favorite Canadian shows twenty years ago, the response would pretty much start and end with SCTV.  SCTV will forever be a classic(and maybe a future blog post) but I think we have more to add to the list.  Doyle is one of them.  Props to my cousin for introducing it to me.

Samsung Galaxy Note

So like two months ago I applied to an ad on Craig's list to be a caricaturist for a Samsung event.  I thought maybe it was gonna be a booth at a trade show and maybe the phone had facial recognition or something so they were using caricaturists as a marketing gimmick to draw people to the booth.  Turns out no.  The Samsung Galaxy Note is like an ipad-iphone hybrid with a stylus pen and they wanted me and a bunch of other artists to draw people's faces on the phone itself using an app called Smemo.  We were stationed at traveling booths in malls all around Vancouver.  First was Metrotown, which was craaaaaaazy busy, then was Pacific Centre which was surprisingly dead, then was Park Royal which was somewhere in between.  We were hooked to TV monitors so that Looky Lous could watch us draw and people seemed to think that was pretty cool.  After the first 3 weeks they extended it for a month but this time we were fanned out, each artist was on his own and stationed in stores that sold the Note.  It was an interesting, sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, and often tiring experience.  Here's some of the stuff I drew on those phones...

These ones above are some of the first ones I did, before I really figured out the best way to use the drawing tools in Smemo.  Drawing's kind of a neat gimmick but the app isn't really meant for it and you have to figure out the best way to cheat with the options you have.  These were coloured with the pencil tool.  You can't do layers in the program so you have to really focus to keep the colour in the lines.  Kindergarten all over again.  Once I figured out the better way to approach it I started to loosen up and get some better results.

These are randomly picked from the first 3 weeks.  If you use the pencil tool with a light gray colour you can sketch really loosely and get your construction lines down.  Then if you use the highlighter tool with a low opacity you don't have to worry so much about running over the lines and you can build it up by going over certain areas to add shading.  Then you can add your darker lines on top to finish it off.  In Metrotown we had so many people lining up that the phone was struggling to keep up with me, I was drawing so fast.  As I got more comfortable with it I was able to get more cartoony and exaggerated with the faces.  The early ones were a bit more static and realish cuz I was too focused on getting them done to experiment with the proportions.

This was the first one that I was able to go more cartoony with and he didn't even know I was drawing him at first.  He was watching in awe as Sujan, the artist next to me, drew somebody.  I saw his face and immediately had the cartoon version in my mind so I had to draw him.  Eventually he caught on to what I was doing and loved it.  He said he looked like the Pope of Africa and started showing random strangers as they went by.

This was another guy that didn't know I was drawing him.  He came over to ask if I could draw him, saw that I was already half done and couldn't stop laughing.  He was pretty stoked and said he wanted to use it as his passport photo.

This was a creepy, drunk teenager that was hassling the girls at the booth in Park Royal.  I drew him accordingly.

Here's a couple couples.  I did a lot of them.

Whenever I was stationed on my own in a store it was really dead and I rarely ever had anyone ask for their drawing.  So sometimes I just drew their staff...sometimes they didn't even know it till I was done.

My second to last week was at the Vancouver Celtic Festival.  I was really popular there and unfortunately didn't have time to email myself very many drawings at all.

My last day was in a store in Coquitlam and it was really dead.  I drew Ellen Pompeo and Sandra Oh from a Gray's Anatomy still in a BellTV poster in the store.

And Ghost Rider.  I also drew Ghost Rider...and Yoda and Cowman.  That is all.

Howard Stern

After drawing The Bro Jake Show a couple weeks ago I thought I should do a caricature of the other DJ I listen to regularly.  For this one I decided to do another pencil rendered one, I don't think it turned out as well as my Vincent Price one I while ago but it's not bad, he's weird looking, maybe even a little creepy but that's not necessarily a bad thing in caricature.  Stern's the self described 'King of All Media,' now he's a penciled cartoon...this probably isn't the first time though.

Rock 101

I wake up to the Bro Jake Show every morning...

I love classic rock and 101 is my station.  When I worked at the Animation Brewery I used to have it pouring out of my headphones all day, every day...and some of those were loooooooong days.  I'm not quite as religious with it as I used to be...I discovered a few podcasts among other things, and I'm a Stern fan too so I mix it up a bit now but my clock radio still plays the Bro Jake Show every morning.  These guys here?  This is Jake, Mike and Alece.
I used to animate shadows and highlights at Ooga Booga Studio, and just before I scanned this drawing I got the idea to approach this the same way those commercials I worked on were done.  It's a neat effect with those harder shadows.  It's done by drawing the shadow shapes on another piece of paper and the hightlights on another piece of paper again.  The shadows are painted black, the highlights white, then you drop the opacity and layer them on top of one another.  This is only one drawing...imagine doing 24 shadow and highlight layers for every second of animation.  I don't have to...I did it.

Vincent Price

      
        Vincent Price was a cool guy, and underrated comically too.  Have you ever seen "His Kind of Woman" with Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell?  I don't love the movie, but it's not bad and Vincent plays Jane's clueless husband in it, he's hilarious and the best part of the movie.  A far cry from the more ghoulish roles that he was most famous for throughout his career.  He also voiced one of my favorite all time Disney characters, Ratigan from "The Great Mouse Detective."  He's a big mean and nasty looking rat with this flamboyant Vincent Price personality.  Awesome.  The ghoulish stuff is cool though too, I love those old B-horror and sci-fi flicks. 
       I like drawing caricatures but I don't do it too often and I've been wanting to change that.  I also realized I don't very often do fully rendered pencil sketches any more so I got it in my head to tackle both with this drawing.  Here're some of the quick sketches I did to get the ball rolling: