Steve from Mine Craft Caricature, First Fan Art of 2015

Welcome to 2015!! If you're new to my blog or have accidentally clicked on a link and found yourself back here, well hello there, we meet again.

I'm a freelance Illustrator by trade specialising in caricatures, cartoons and graphic illustrations. I also paint, sculpt and work both traditionally and digitally. Along with a whole bunch of commission artwork, I also dabble in fan art.  

I got into Minecraft last year, kind of a "let's see what all the fuss is about" type deal, I'm kind of at that age where I'm old enough to know I'm kind of not into so many things that are in the zeitgeist.

Essentially it was this episode of South Park that got me into it.

And I still don't get the appeal of the game :P

Meet Steve, initially I was confused by the character design and it prompted a few questions, for example:

Stand back from your screen and allow your eyes to unfocus for a few seconds...

• Why is he crosseyed? 
• Is that a five o'clock shadow or is his face dirty?
• Where is his nose?
• Does he have eyebrows?
• Are those supposed to be lips?
• Is he making a duck face?
• Is that a goatee or is he smiling?
• Also his shirt, is it tattered or untucked?

Now granted, I understand that when everything in retro look sandbox game is supposed to look like a pixel in the witness protection program (you can only do so much with everything being essentially a Rubik's cube with an 8 bit palette). 

 There's most definitely a wiki page devoted entirely to these nagging FAQ's

But honestly as I grew up with the original NES and Atari consoles (never owned a console but had friends and family who had them) and that I  pretty much study faces for a living I thought about it some more and after playing the game for a little while this is what I interpreted the face to look like.

This is what I see when I look at this character... And when you stare long enough into the abyss, sometimes it stares back at you... and wants a kiss apparently.

Happy New Year to all my friends and Family on the other side of the world ^___^