Sketch of the Week - Dexter

Sketch of the Week

Michael C Hall (Dexter)

March 29th 2015

 

Here is my sketch of Michael C Hall. Including the reference photo and steps taken to complete the drawing. I hope you enjoy this post.



 

 

Reference Photo

Rough Sketch

Inking Stage

Rough Sketch of Body

Final Inking Stage

Colour Stage

Finished Drawing

Total Time = 45 minutes

 

For those who are interested, this was drawn on a Wacom Cintiq 21UX using Sketchbookpro 7 running on a windows platform.

 

Please feel free to comment below... cheers

 

 

 

 



Sketch of the Week - John Krasinski

John Krasinski

Feb 15th, 2015

Digital Caricature

 

I'm a week behind on my sketch of the week. I was hoping to post something on this every week but alas. I should name it something else if I can't keep up to it. Nah... I'll just try harder.

 

I'm kinda under the weather this week but sometimes when I'm not feeling 100%, my drawings actually work out better. I wonder if any other artists have that happen to them. I think when you're sick, you are not thinking as clearly as you would and everything is more by feel than by design.

 

My sketch of this week is of John Krasinski. Most know him from the series The Office. I fondly remember him in It's Complicated which also starred Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.

 

This drawing was done using Sketchbookpro on a Cintiq22HD on a Windows 8 PC.

 

 

Reference photo

 

Step one: Rough Sketch

Step two: Inking and clean up

Step three: Attach shoulders and neck

Step four: start coloring process

using layers

Step five: choose background color

Step six: finished drawing

total time: approx. 30 minutes

 

Hope you liked this sketch of the week. Till next week.. really.

 

Cheers

 

Daryl Stephenson

Caricatoons

Sketch of the Week - Game of Thrones

 

 

Sketch of the Week

January 18th,2015

Peter Dinkslage

"Tyrion Lannister"

Step by Step Digital Cartoon Drawing

 

Face Sketch

Body Sketch

Ink "clean up"

Skin and Hair tone

Axe

Clothes, Cup and Wine

Finished Sketch with background

More binge watching.. this time, Game of Thrones. This show is so violent and has so much nudity and sex scenes that all I can say is awesome. :-)

I thought I'd sketch my favourite, and I'm sure most viewers favourite character. Let me know what you think of the drawing and the show.

Cheers and have a great week.

 



Sketch of the Week - Rectify



Sketch of the Week

January 10th, 2015

Aden Young

 

 

When I'm not working in my studio or drawing live at an event, which my wife will tell you, is not often. I binge watch series on Netflix or On-Demand.

 

If any of you are like me and my wife, binge watching has become our obsession. Our taste in shows differ but there are a few series we like to watch together.

 

One of these is Rectify. Currently season one and two are on Netflix and I am fascinated with this show. The story is dark and disturbing, the acting is superb. The main character, Daniel Holden, is played by Aden Young. An amazing portrayal of a convicted killer who has spent 20 years on death row only to be let out on new DNA evidence. His innocence is still in question and... well I don't want to go to far with the story. Let me say that at the time of this posting I only have 2 episodes left of season 2 to watch and I most surely will be disappointed to realise that I will have to wait to binge watch season 3, whenever that does come to Netflix..... damn.

 

My wife likes this drawing but says it is a skinnier version of him and now that I look at it, I should have made his shoulders bigger.... damn ;-)

 

When you are done with work, turn on Netflix and watch this show. Let me know what you think about it.

Social Media and Me

Social Media and Me.

I've been online since 1994, started my first website in 1995 and for the most part (minus the hiccups of life) have been online ever since.

I only recently, in the last 4-5 years, have started to get more involved with social media. I started, as most do, on Facebook. I started my Caricatoons Facebook page a few years after joining Facebook. I have joined Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube and most recently and reluctantly, LinkedIn.

Google + and Pinterest lost my interest quickly. Mainly because I didn't have the time to devote to them. My Youtube channel sucks and unless I devote more time on it, it will remain.. sucky. I blog, but too infrequently. I spend a lot of time staring at Instagram and although I enjoy it, it really does nothing for my business. I have 1500+ followers on Twitter and I am positive that at least 100 of those are real people. My facebook business page is fun and it is nice to see all my friend and family make nice comments about my drawings, but what else does it offer me?

If I broke each social media platform down and ask myself "what do these sites offer that help to boost my business?" I can honestly say that I have no freaking idea. Except for one.

Only one platform has consistently helped boost my business with the least amount of effort and that was a surprise to me, initially. After really looking at who was on this social media platform, I was surprised that I was surprised.. lol.

Yes LINKEDIN.

A lot of my work comes from the Corporate sector. Live drawing at corporate events and trade shows, cartoons for blogs and websites, caricature drawings that are used to promote teams and projects, retirement gifts, drawing live at weddings that were booked from Wedding Event Planners and caricature videos used at award ceremonies. Where does the corporate sector reside online in social media. LinkedIn!

I find that a lot of the commissions I get for other "gift" caricatures and personal live event bookings also come from individuals seeing my work on LinkedIn. This is where I need to be and focus most of my limited social media time here.

Having said that, not all of my work comes from LinkedIn. Most of the work I get from using social media comes from LinkedIn but that does not mean most of my work comes from LinkedIn. Most of my work comes from 2 other "places" which have nothing to do with social media.

One of these is internet search engines. I code my own website, and even though it is just a basic site with nothing fancy, I am able to use meta-tags and descriptions properly so that when you search for "Caricatures Vancouver" or something along that line, I usually pop up on the first page.

The last and most important thing is something everyone needs to strive for if they want to succeed in anything. This is where I get most of my work from. It's taken a while to build this up but it is something that I am most proud of.

Most of the commissions that I draw and most of the live events that I work, come from someone talking to someone else about something that I drew for them or from the experience that they had with me at an event where I was drawing at.

I'm no social media expert. Far from it and most of my work doesn't even come from my involvement with social media. I can only comment on my own personal experiences so far. Maybe in the future I will devote more time to other platforms, but for now, I'll keep doing what works for me.

A little bit of everything...

Cheers

Drawing Live at Corporate Holiday Parties

I love drawing live at events. The digital caricatures are so much fun and people are so amazed with how I use the technology. I still like to draw traditional (pen on paper) caricatures but digital is so much fun.

One of the best parts is the interaction between myself and the person(s) being drawn. Sometimes it is difficult due to noise. I ask to be set up away from loud music and speakers but sometimes this is not doable for the client due to limited space so I make due as best I can. Most of the time people let me decide what do draw them doing and I will ask some questions to get an idea of what they may be interested in. If that doesn't work, I go for random. Usually works.

I print the drawings out on letter size high gloss photo paper. This really makes the colours jump out at you. When I show people the finished product on my cintiq tablet (google cintiqHD22) it looks awesome and they get excited but when the finished drawing is printed out and they can hold it in their hands, they seem to get more excited. I also protect the drawings in clear envelopes with a cardboard backing to allow people to show off the drawing and not having to worry about spilling something on them.

My setup is the following. I draw on a 22 inch Cintiq art tablet, powered by a small PC running windows 7. I display the drawings, as they are being done, on a 32 inch flat screen for the crowd to see. Both the screen and the tablet are set up on portrait mode (sideways) so I can use more of the "real estate" on the tablet for drawing. This setup also takes up less space. I use a higher end HP inkjet printer.

The software I run is called Sketchbookpro and it is a Autodesk program. I would recommend this software as it is easy to learn and works... well awesome is about all I can say without getting too technical.

People are sometimes surprised that I don't use an apple computer to run the tablet. Most people associate apple computers with artists and design. I do use an apple computer (mac-mini) as my back up, along with a smaller version of my cintiq tablet (cintiq 12ux). I take this back up system along with me to all events just in case something goes wrong with my main equipment (knock on wood).

Now that the holiday season is over different types of gigs come up. I have a bunch of weddings and dry grads already booked in 2015. Also have some corporate gigs such as conferences and trade shows.

If you are interested in hiring me, please visit my CARICATOONS WEBSITE. While you are there, click on live events, check out my digital or traditional caricatures for more examples. Most of the questions I get can be answered on my FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS PAGE.

Thanks for checking this out. If you are into social media you can find me on twitter and instagram as @daryltheartist or check out my CARICATOONS FACEBOOK PAGE. You can also e-mail me at theartist@caricatoons.ca

I'll end this blog post with a few more of the live drawings I have done this past holiday season.

Some Christmas Commissions for 2014

It has been a busy holiday season. I figure I had around 13 live event holiday parties and multiple gift caricature commissions. Now that Christmas is over, I find that I can sit back and relax for a few days and think about what 2015 has in store for me and my cartooning business.

Here are some of my favourite commissioned drawings from this season.

The first was commissioned by a wife and mother of her husband and her children. Apparently, they like hockey. 11X14 digital

The next one was commissioned not for xmas but by someone for a friends birthday. A crazy cat lady, martini drinking tourist. 11X14 digital

More of a portrait than a caricature. This one was commissioned by a lady for her friend who seems to be obsessed with Keanu Reeves. 11X14 digital



 



 

This one is of one of PLV Radio's bright Stars children. She interviewed me for her radio show and also commissioned me to draw her kids for a xmas present. 11X14 digital

 

The last one here is for a Starbucks Manager that wanted to do something special for her employees. 19 drawings in total, each one done separately and printed separately. All 8X10 digital

This is not all of the commissions I have received, only a small amount that I have chosen to share here with you. Next post will be about the live events I have had the pleasure to attend over this holiday season.

 

Cheers, Merry Christmas and Happy 2015