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....

Mo' junk frum da sketchbook

Blackafroamericannegroafricanamericanpeopleofcolor are just plain fun to draw. You get such a diversity of very EXTREME features already with noses lips and headshapes. I've met a lot osf white caricature artists who can really draw who somehow get a little shy when having to draw a black person for fear of "offending them" While its TROO that you will sometimes get gripes about "you made my nose too big," "my lips aint that big!" etc. Just think, these are the gripes that EVERYONE gives us regardless of race. I say if theres an outstanding feature , GO FOR IT! I always do....

Junk from the sketchbook!

a few gems I found! It's all coming back.... I drew that long nosed frenchmen on a brooklyn bound L Train . He had to be about 6 ft 4 inches and towered over everyone else in the crowdd train during rush hour. All you could see was that nose the chin and that hat. The curly red hair added a nice touch to him. Lucky I had a seat....

While meeting with my art director for the Snidetv project, I saw this yuppie milling around in the NYU Campus Hallway carrying a latte and trying to look Cool.There are few things in life quite as amusing as a 50 something hipster trying desperately to look cool.... I did this quick gesture drawing while his back was turned.

While Riding the A train Im always amazed at how much homeboyz always dress like they're either going to or returning from a music video. This guys face, body language and dress practically screamed DRAW ME NOW!!! so I did.

Sweet exaggeration!

I revisted , as promised!, the picture I did originally on Jan 17th. I did it in blue and used a more modeled approach. I love the result and kicked up the exaggeration on it a bit.

Since I was already drawing, decided to do this one too! MANNNNNN he sure IS UGLY!!!!

3 teens

dont ya just love the distorted faces of teens? ah... youth!

Funny humans and animals...

No commentary. just felt drawing a cartoon...
Now THIS other guy is a different story! he just had one of THOSE faces...

Random Sketches

Sometimes when Im sketching on the subway, some people just remind me of animals. Maybe its something about the way they gesture or move, mabye its just a crazy vibe they have. The top guy kind of reminded me of a subway Ratt. His looked intense and suspicious, cunning... dangerous and a little scuzzy at the same time.


I really HATE starbucks coffee! the coffee is TOOOOO strong, it burns your insides and i cant seem to stop drinking it!! lol! I did the caricature of one of the guys wo always serves me in the location across the street from Brooklyn College. I often would meet clients there drinking gallons of this nasty coffee...

Its actually pretty rare to see "older" businessmen types during rush hour, like the guy I captured here. It seems that all you see in suits these day are twenty or thirty something CEO's , and this guy seemed to be a throwback to the "old skol" businessmen I remember from "back in the day." He even had the "black power suit" on...

Some people dont like being drawn....

Some faces and expressions are so irresistable that you are COMPELLED to draw them. This man had such great angles on his face, I was almost giddy not knowing WHERE to start drawing.Fellow Caricature artist, and teacher, Chris Collins ( you can find his blog here on my favorites list http://www.chriscartoon.com/) told me once that you want to be able to see those angles and exploit them! Caricature Master Court Jones also said that you want to see the face as a landscape. Its not always easy for me to get that focus, but when i do, its wonderful!
I did another study of this face using a more modeled approach, in blue colored pencil. I'll post that at a later date.

sometimes less is more

This guy wouldve made a great bodybuard. He was about 6ft 6 inches and wide as barn door. No fat solid muscle. To top it off he had these thick dark eyebrows and that combed back 1950's "greaser" hair. I didnt want him to catch me drawing him so I VERY quickly did this gesture of him (outlining in blue first) and was more satisfied with this stylized rendering than I would've been with a detailed drawing. Sometimes less is more. It's all in the line and attitude. Hirshfeld would have loved this sketch, and after all he is my caricature inspiration.

sadd faces

The overall mood of everyone in this post is sad, pensive, introspective. The first one is of this dude on a Queens Bound A train To Mott Ave. He seemed to alternate between melancholy and anger even behind those shades. What caught my attention was the hair. The angles were bold , daring, outrageous, and ... odd. Ho in the world did he get his hair to behave like that? truly ANYTHING goes in the world of fashion these days. The woman on the bottom seems so lost in thought and das like she was dealing with some bad news, trying to hold emotion in check until she got home. I felt like I was almost intruding when I drew her, but wanted to capture such a tender human moment. The guy in the middle just needs a toothbrush....

"you made me look STOOPID"

I was actually scanning this wrong but liked the result of having it off center better to create a mood.
The was what I considered a great caricature of a young lady who posed for me while drawing on the street. She thought the exaggeration made her look "stoopid" and promptly left without paying. Funny thing is, I really wasnt going for "killer exaggeration" on this one. I still thinkIt makes her look kinda cute. This is the frustrating thing about drawing young women. SO many of them as SO caught up in theri appearance that they literally seem to define themselves by how they look from moment to moment, never stopping to laugh at themselves even for a caricature, which by its bery nature is ... humorous.
No wonder Plastic surgeons are making millions....

Mom... the strange man is drawing me....

This kids face said it all, and I was really lucky his mom didnt take offense! LOL! The kid would look up periodically from his book and catch me staring at him. Usually when i do my subway sketching I try my best to do it on the sneak so that people are natural and dont "pose" or look away. Most people are off in their own world or oblivious. Children, I find seem to have this 6th sense when they're being watched, and this guy's 6th sense was working overtime. I had invested too much time to stop though.

Frat boyz!!

I did a massive 25 person caricature last year of a group of Frat Boyz from a local Brooklyn College Fraternity. -duh... if I could only remember the name! ARRRGH!!! -anyways, out of all the faces these three here kind of spoke to me.