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 ^___^

Caesar from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

It seemed fitting Caesar would be motivated by a banana.

Played masterfully in a motion capture suit by Andy Serkis, the rebooted movie franchise does away with most of the practical effects to bring us more from the depths of the uncanny valley.

Ghosted Marshmallows

Enter the Dragon, a Caricature Tribute to Bruce Lee

I wanted to make something badass for the next up coming conventions, one of the good things about winter time and having so many conventions happening within comparatively short gaps from each other, you find yourself cranking out new stuff and not having to worry too much about heading outside. This one I used the Colour Half Tone to get the speckled comic book print look vaguely similar to Roy Lichtenstein.

Morrigan Bewitched a fan art

Every minute of every day inspiration can and often simply lunges from out of nowhere; usually in the form of a day dream or even as I'm trying to drift off to sleep (which is even worse).

So up until the time I had a phone on which I could keep and record notes this quite often resulted in some kind of panicked search for a pen and a scrap of paper.

I'm a big fan of fighting games, I'm not terribly good at playing them though the "Angry Button Mash Combo" and the "Rage Quit" are some of my specialities. If you've ever played one of these games you know exactly what I mean, one minute you're using muscle memory and reflexes to play then all of a sudden BOOM! Calculous Pop Quiz!     

Darkstalkers is one of those fighting games that is pretty close to having it all, take some awesome anime re-imaginings of classic monsters and have them duke it out Street Fighter style. Like the accidentally discovered recipe for chocolate chip cookies, there's a justified sublime genius to it. 

DAREDEVILS mascot design fan art

The red hallow around Matt Murdoch's head symbolises his extra sensory perception kind of a sonar.

I have a background that includes a bit of graphic design, and particularly illustration. I was more inclined to cobble together my education from bits and pieces rather than a nice standard package, so as it would be a few years until Pinterest became available naturally I was drawn to books with lots and lots of pictures and in this occasion, symbols and masks. 

Some of my earliest memories was making wearable masks as a kid, I found it brought more to the whole imagination experience, plus decent eye protection for when my brother and I would battle with sticks.

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Zee Brush

I began teaching myself how to use Zbrush after seeing some amazing work done online using the program. I've always been an avid sculptor since my days studying fine art and clay, is my medium (with sculpty a close second) so when I discovered software like Maya and 3Ds Max used digital clay I was to say the least intrigued, then along came Zbrush and I knew I found it. :)

This is the first completed painted head sculpt I've made so far, it's a fan art piece of Batman villain Killer Croc. 

The character has a great unusual face to create as he has been reimagined as everything from an MMA fighter with a bad skin condition, to a talking dinosaur so though there's a few parameters the characterisation is a free for all .   I've done other pieces which I'll be posting soon to show my progress. 

Voldemore or Less like him...

I honestly liked the first movie version better.

I never found the final version of Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter movies all that intimidating, actor Ralph Finnes did a great job bringing the character to life but honestly I felt the makeup held back a lot when it came to making the main villain of the story more badass. He just didn't seem nearly as scary or snakelike enough. Though I never quite joined the Harry Potter band wagon my favourite character was Voldemort, but like with a lot of pop culture movie adaptations the live action films quite often fall short of their animated counterparts and honestly I felt the central antagonist of the movies could've been more cgi than simply just his nose.

These movies will be remade someday no doubt.

How does he smell? Awful?

One of the best parts of being a caricaturist and/or police sketch artist.

This is one of the weird quirks and anxieties of being a caricaturist, the old "it looks nothing like me" which happens every now and then (especially when someone's watching you behind your back) because honestly you never know how someone's going to react to a photo of themselves, much less a purposefully  exaggerated portrait, drawn by a stranger. When someone laughs out loud at my work I usually know instantly that the drawing was a hit, because that's what we do as caricaturists essentially we're telling a joke at someone else's expense like a roast, and if they get it, all the better. It's when you're met with a stunned silence or worse, blank indifference that's when it kind of hurts a bit. When all your practice, dedication and hard work is greeted with a "meh" reaction. Ah well that's the process.

You know who's viewtiful? You're Viewtiful!

Viewtiful Joe is one of those characters that tends to jump out at you, I stumbled upon his original game back in '03 and later in Marvel vs Capcom 3, which in terms of the fighting game genre, is like peanut butter and chocolate i.e. Some things just belong together! :D 

The game pits the established classic line up of well known and assorted obscure characters of the Marvel universe against the mixed bag of awesome that is the Capcom universe, which is a series of arcade tag team fighters that followed the Xmen vs Street Fighter game I remember playing when I was 12. 

It was a big deal conquering it for the fist time with Gambit and Dhalsim (up until that point I had been quickly annihilated in the single player tournaments, never being able to make it to the boss) I found the combination of the tag-team and easy to execute super moves not only made the game playable for the casual rookie, but truly awesome to watch. 

A perfect, subtle blend of pure nostalgia and adrenaline.

As he already has a big head and a little body caricaturing him is somewhat redundant, but is still a lot of fun to draw and as a spare piece of card the size of a largish coaster was around I had to make a piece for the helmet and pink chiffon scarf wearing superhero.

Rico Genest caricature

Mr. Skullhead show.

Hey there Zombie Boy! Rico Genest is the real name of the guy who tattooed his entire body to look like a zombie, which, as far as cosplay goes, has to be admired. Whereas most facial tattoos usually "unemployable" this guy's says "movie star" guess it depends on the design. 

Parklife Dec 2013

Daryl Dixon caricature

I finally got around to watching The Walking Dead, nothing like the captive audience of a nonstop flight from Sydney to L.A.

During my first long haul flight and international trip I had to figure out a way to keep myself entertained so I ended up watching the entire 2nd season of The Walking Dead, an awesome show with a self explanatory title. As I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible (being a little over 6  foot is not easy) I settled into a compelling show about what best to do during a zombie apocalypse (turns out arguing and splitting up is never a great option) and one character stood out for me, being motorcycle riding, crossbow toting redneck survivalist Daryl Dixon, played by Norman Reedus.

Pictures of me