Alberto Gonzalez(bert5693) Caricature

After calling my style "Badass" Fellow Caricature artist, Alberto Gonzalez(check his blog out HERE http://bert5693.blogspot.com/) asked-slashe-challenged, me to do his caricature. After going to his site, I found a face that was hard to resist!It wasnt as easy as I thought it would be though and took a couple of drawings to get it just right. Hope ya like it Al!
I drew this with a 6b woodless graphite pencil, a number 2,and a q tip!

Good hunting today

Man I was reallllllly in the caricature subway drawing zone today! I took me minutes to knock out these caricatures complete with shading once I had the predraws done. After pencil drawing for so long, I finally got a workable method down I think.... now I can start REALLY drawing!

those ears

Almost didnt capture this guy. He kept catching me drawing him and I literally had to do a quick gesture and then move away to another seat.

How could I resist those ears they stuck out like car doors.

Pencil caricature series Todays catch by subwaysurfer

fergot this one.....

I was riding the "L" train at 3pm. it was loaded with loud obnoxious teenagers and this guy was looking around suspiciously at them every now and then. He seemed really uncomfortable.

Feb 6 Do OVER!

I looked at two sketches from a previous post from Feb 6, and decided I could do it a little better by taking time on the shading and modeling. I really like the results.

Rush hour AM Rush hour PM

Im Red hot... the original

This is a picture I did of RED, the dude with the shades and all that hair pictured in the previous "Im Red Hot,"Post. I did this orignial post in the summer of him while he was waiting for the SAME bus that we both boarded just days ago. If he's checking this out, here's lookin at YOU red! I TOLD ya that you wuz a "character!"

Gerard Issac Bolling

Ive been LITERALLY drawing my son , Gerard before he was born. (as wierd as it sounds I actually drew a picture of EXACTLY what he looked like as a little kid while my wife was pregnant!) Gerard has one of those faces that artists love to draw full of expression and power. He's tall dark and handsome, everything Im not! (which is why its such a joy to mess up his face!!! heh, heh!)He left today to go on a college visit and I was missing him and decided to try my hand at a memory sketch. Roddie personally hates how I depict him in caricature, but hey! Im STILL his father , even though he towers over me....

Im red hot!!!

The dude with the glasses is a local neighborhood residnt, named Ray who looked over my shoulder while I was at the bus stop today drawing my picture of my son, Gerard, feature above. I recognized Ray's face from 3 years before when I drew him one summer and commented on what a character he was! He laughed, and talked for the next half hour about cartooning and animation, two interests he had. I promised ray that I would draw another picture of him, featured here, of course, and that I would track down the original one and give it to him.

While trading in my cell phone at the Sprint store, one of the workers walked in from his break and had the most interesting expression, I captured hi immediately and worked on it on my train ride into the city.
Im starting to use a blending stomp with my pencil work now and liking the nice "airbrushy" effect it has. What a satisfying tool, pencil is!

bakk to the pencil

Did these TWO GREAT sketches today and was so excited i could hardly wait to get home and scan them. The first one caught my eye immediately. SHe had this MASS of hair that literally hid her face from the side view. Evey now and then you could see her profile "peek out" from the mound of hair as the train moved. Her whole look had a geometric feel about it and I spent about 20 minutes drawing her from start to finish.
On the return commute home i noticed this yound man had a bulbous nose alost like one of the muppets, and very very tiny eyes. He was trying to look "tough" giving me the "stare" but ended up looking more and more hilarious. It didnt help matters that he had the WILDEST most untamed goatee I'd ever seen on a person his age.

BAKK TO THE PEN!!

I've been lovin the pencil, but I just CANT let my penmanship skills slide! I worked TOO hard at getting the perfect line quality. These were done with my fave pen, the PITT artists brush pen! I LOVE the lines it makes and this particular one was nice and sharp! I see also that being away from the pen a while actually HELPED my line quality a little more.

Mark Z Man

I went to Fellow NYC Caricature artist/cartoonist, Mark Zman to get some much needed Flash lessons, and snuck this sketch of him while he was busy looking at the monitor. Mark and I have worked together a lot at SARDIS Restaurant, the New York "Mecca" for caricature artists.

numba too pencil sketches

I couldnt find my usual 6b pencil, so I had to rely on the ole number two pencil to do thiese. you really goatta press hard on em just to make an impression.

EEE HEE HEE!! It's Wacko Jacko!

Always Wanted to Do Michael Jackson, but until now never had an "excuse". I found a site called the Caricature Challenge, and one of the challenges was to draw Michael Jackson. They provided the Photo, and even though you could use your own I wanted to draw Michael in his "wacko jacko" mode.
The thing that hurts is that even though he's nuts I really do love his music. He is one heck of a performer.
Here are the various stages of the drawing.

Got cha game face on.

I got caurght riding the L train during school hours at 3pm today. This is something I genrally try to avoid as there is usually too much...energy and "drama" on the train arond that time and I just prefer a more relaxed risde when Im drawing.

Still... if one MUST draw....
I found myself drwn to the ONE guys face. (pun unintended) He was alone and had this scowling "game " face froxen in place. It seemed to say, "Im a tough guy! Dont bother me!" " I dont need a gang!!" I felt a little sorry that some teenagers have to play this role just to survive their afternoon commute and get home unharmed.

This other guy.. ha! he wuz just FUNNY to draw! Loved that unibrow, even from the side view!

Another Raving Beauty

This lady reminded you of one of those gigantic female soviet athletes you sometimes see in the olympic games who are usually named Olga. What made her funnier was that in contrast to her size, she had a rail thin, veeery tiny husband(not pictured here) and a kid would had mastered the art of screaming. Her obnoxious child kept up this constant racket, and every now and then Olga would hell at the bratty child , "NO SCREAMING!!!"

I drew this on offwhite staples coverstock using a 6B pencil using an old piece of tissue paper to shade it. I've hunted down an old blending stump tool that I'll start carrying around with me so that I can do my shading with more precision.
I'm having such great results with my new found love for pencil drawing, that it seems unlikely that I will go back to pen anytime soon.

Ordinarily I prefer drawing a subject in three quarter view so that i can see the more interesting lanscape of the face. I'm starting to appreciate profile shots more and more, as often times its the only view you get of a subject while riding the train. This face was so compelling that I didnt feel a need to draw the body even though it was equally compelling.

Big lipped Diva gurl with the nice "Doo"

You couldnt tell this Diva with the sunglasses and Da Lipps dat she didnt look good! she even got her hair did!! Dat lipp gloss iz poppin!!

Morning rush hr Evening rush hour...

Havent done a photo montage in a while... these were fun to do.

Im with the band

Once they boarded the Manhattan Bound A Train at the Howard Beach JFK Station, I knew just from lookin at them that they were in a band.
The fiveaway was the hair. Brightly colored hair , electric blue, Neon Yellow , Lavender, and of course leather. One of the band members literally stumbled into me and I introduced myself. He said they were in from California, and their name was vyncentflaw. I didnt have time to inquire about the name, but the were a band that stuck togehter through High School, and were going to perform in NYC for a couple of days.I drew a quick caricature of all three of em, Max, Mike , and Brandon, and left the door open to do a more detailed one of them at a later date, maybe even do their CD cover. Who knowss. These guys might be really famous one day, or maybe they already are!

http://www.myspace.com/vyncentflaw

bakk to basics....

While drawing at a gig with fellow caricature artist, Ed Steckley, (http://www.edsteckley.com/links.asp) I noticed that instead of drawing with a marker, like I, and other caricature artists normally do, he was drawing people in pencil. After the gig i asked him why he did this. the asy answer was that he liked it, but was also to plan out exaggeration a lot easier with it than with pen, where you had to commit to a line. That made total sense to me , so I ''ve started using it also. I already can draw FAST with pen, but at a previous gig i drew 30 caricatures in 1 hour and 30 minutes, a personal record for me. The pencil puts you more in a "relaxed, sketching " mode, and it sure is economical! No tool is as basic as the old reliable pencil!

Here are a few subway pencil sketches done on 8x11 off white coverstock that I purchad at staples . Im using a thick creatacolor model pencil.

More sketchbook junk....