Chumpmonkey's Electronic Cartoonatorium

FINALLY, I exact my revenge for all the suffering and misery his tyranny has brought to me!

2012-01-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

Here's my caricature sketch of Mahatma Gandhi, for this month's E-Caricatures contest.

Kind of a niche market, but still... I'm published.

2012-01-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

A couple of teachers at Oakland Christian School, with the help of a bunch of their students, all big LOST fans, have written a few books analyzing how various aspects of episodes of LOST relate to Christian principles. They're meant as helps/ workbooks/ discussion starters in Christian studies, for LOST fans. Each volume focuses on a different season of the show. LOST Lessons 3, focusing, obviously, on season 3, has just been published. The reason I mention it here is that my caricatures of the LOST cast are used as some of the book's illustrations. So... that's cool and stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Lessons-Dr-Randy-Johnson/dp/1466461829

Three posts in one day? Don't expect 2012 to be like this all the time.

2012-01-06T17:03:00.000-08:00

My son told me after school today that, for art class, their teacher showed them the artwork of a bunch of different famous artists, and gave them the assignment to try to copy the style of one of them. The artist the majority of his classmates decided to try to copy? Yeah. Don Pinsent.

World's most distinguished comb-over.

2012-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

Here's another contest entry I did up pretty quickly today. It's Sir Richard Attenborough, for Wittygraphy.com.

I know Charlie Brown has never aged a day since the the moment Charles Schulz created him and all, but if he ever did age-- like, a lot-- this is what I imagine he'd look like.

J.K. Jonah K. Jameson.

2012-01-06T06:32:00.000-08:00

Yeah, hopefully, I'll have more caricatures to show for my time in 2012. I mean, I'm not gonna go using the word "resolution" or anything, but.... here's hoping.

For now, here's J.K. Simmons, of whom I've been a fan ever since his occasional role on Law & Order. This is for Facebook's weekly caricature challenge, Caricaturama Showdown 3000.

I thought this was the woman in that movie Madame X Vs. Sever. I was wrong.

2011-11-29T10:50:00.000-08:00

The theme for this month's E-Caricatures caricature contest is figures from famous portraits. I did this one of John Singer Sargent's Madame X:

I'm thinking it would be cool to start up a series of these.

GO THERE NOW!!!! NOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-11-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you are caricaturists, the November caricature contest at E-Caricatures just went up, with a very intriguing theme, and, for the first time ever, AN ACTUAL PRIZE!!! Click the link for the details!

E-Caricatures - November 2011 Contest- WITH ACTUAL PRIZE!!!!

ecaricatures.proboards.com

Best remembered, of course, for her star turn in "Fair Game"...

2011-10-28T19:44:00.001-07:00

Here's my caricature sketch of obscure, little-known fashion model Cindy Crawford. Done for the current contest at Wittygraphy.com.

La la la la, laughter. (Yes? No?)

2011-10-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

Jim Henson, for this month's E-Caricatures contest. I knew a lot of people were going to (and already had) included references to Kermit the Frog, he being the first Muppet and the one Henson was always best known for. But I wanted mine to pay tribute to a Muppet to whom I had always been a little more partial.

Light the Night Walk 2011

2011-10-12T20:15:00.000-07:00

K, so this is not caricature related, but I want to get this out there any way I can: My family and I are doing this walk on the Halifax Commons for Cancer Research Fundraising, on October 22nd. We're doing it in loving memory of my father-in-law, who died of cancer almost two years ago. He was one of the best men I've ever known, but cancer doesn't care.

Anyway, you can help us out by clicking the link and donating. Any amount will help. I know (Believe me, I know!) not everyone can afford a $100 or $50 or $25 donation, but if you can afford $5 or $10, it would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

Light the Night Walk 2011

Her Latfiahness, the Queen.

2011-10-11T07:48:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot to post this here! It was my entry in the E-Caricatures September challenge, Queen Latifah.

Don't try calling these guys when your house is being broken into. They don't think it's funny. Trust me.

2011-08-24T07:09:00.000-07:00

I finally finished my next full-fledged piece. It's the Police.

Click the image to see it larger.

Still me, but a bit older.

2011-08-16T07:34:00.000-07:00

So, my birthday just passed. This is the AWESOME print my wife got dry-mounted for me as a birthday present. Now I have to figure out where in our house it will "work".

PAAAARTYYYY!!!!! WOOOOO!!!!YEAH!!! MORE SPECIFICALLY, WEDDING PAAAARTYYYYY!!!!! WOOOO-HOOOO!!!

2011-08-11T07:26:00.000-07:00

I don't often post my commission work, but this was a project I was particularly happy with, and it was mostly because the client was a dram to work with. He commissioned caricatures, from photos, of his wedding party o give them as gifts. He never once haggled over price; he sent at least 5 photos of each person to be drawn, all taken from different angles; he made no unreasonable demands; and he had no problem with me exaggerating people's features. In fact, the more i exaggerated them, the more he seemed to love the results. With the exception of the first one, that is. That was the only one on which he asked me to tone down the exaggerations, and personally, I feel like that hurt the likeness somewhat, but he was happy with it, so fair enough.

Feedback is welcome.

Sketchy types

2011-07-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pencil sketches I did up for some of the contests on the various online caricature communities I'm a member of...

Liam Neeson, for Facebooks' Caricaturama Showdown 3000:

Shakira, for Wittygraphy:

and Antonio Banderas, for E-Caricatures:

Haha! Look! His eye's all funny!

2011-07-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

Wow, been a while since I've posted here. Even longer since I've posted artwork. I just haven't had time to do much leisure drawing lately. How is it that I have a harder time finding free time when I'm unemployed than I do when I have a job?

Anyway, I'm now spending my (good-weather) days at the Halifax waterfront, and am able to work on some stuff between customers (which sometimes means quite long periods of time). Here's my latest:

Pablo Picasso, expanded from the sketch I did some time last year, which you can see here.

This version is coloured pencil on paper, 11" x 14".

Dontest

2011-06-03T05:23:00.000-07:00

The first official Caricatures by Don Facebook Page contest is currently underway, if you don't already know. It's pretty easy, and there's even a prize involved! Get your caricature drawn by Don FOR FREE!!!! He doesn't go around doing that very often.

You have to be a "liker" of Caricatures by Don to participate, though, so if you're not already, and you want to join in the contest, go here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Caricatures-by-Don/209798192393308 first, click "Like", and you're in!

Thanks!

Update on the LOST prints

2011-05-26T11:25:00.000-07:00

So, if anyone's interested, it looks like I'll be selling the 18" x 24" prints for $30 each, plus $20 shipping. At least until I find out shipping costs me a lot more than that and I'm forced to charge more and lose everyone's interest. Haha. The smaller, 11" x 14" prints are $15 plus $5 shipping. But I honestly think the larger size will be worth the extra money if you're a fan of the show, so you can get a better appreciation for the small details. Each one, in either size, will come with a legend for identifying each of the characters. So order now! E-mail me (don@caricaturesbydon.com) if you want one.

Thanks!

A Janer Way

2011-05-24T11:16:00.001-07:00

This month's E-Caricatures contest has a theme of Star Trek captains. I went for Captain Janeway from Star Trek Voyager, just because she seemed to me to be the one everyone else would be least likely to try.

My obsession comes to fruition.

2011-05-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally DONE! Just a couple of days short of the one-year anniversary of the airing of the series finale, My LOST caricatures, all composed into one big... thing. Click on the thumbnail here to see it larger.

I'm looking into how much it might cost me to get full-sized (that's 18" x 24") prints, and how much I'd have to charge for them to make any kind of profit. In case anyone's interested, I'll let you know what I find out. I also plan to do prints the same size as all my other full-colour celebrity caricatures (11" x 14"), but I think you need to see it full size to really appreciate it.

Hope you like it. I mean, I really, really hope you like it.

I can hardly even believe I'm doing this, but...

2011-05-16T18:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, so... I've been working up the final composition. It's pretty close to done now, which I'm excited about. I've also been re-watching the entire series on the DVD set. Those tow things together ended up leading me to the conclusion that, for somewhat varying reasons, there were still five more characters I had to add. But this time, I SWEAR this is it! I am done coming up with new LOST characters to draw!

The first one seems kind of obvious to LOST fans, I'm sure: Aaron. I had always planned to include Aaron in the final composition, but I was originally going to draw him as just a quick, cartoony, generic baby. In the process of composing the final image, though, I decided that that was going to just stick out too much. So I looked up some photos of the actual babies who played him and drew an actual caricature:

While re-watching, I realized that Michael Bowen as Danny Pickett had more screen time than some of the other minor characters I had included, so I decided I'd better add him too:

Same with Brad William Henke as Bram:

Once I had composed all the caricatures I had together the way I wanted them, I had an empty space in the middle of all the Freighter People that I couldn't seem to eliminate by just moving characters around, so I decided to draw Marc Vann as Ray the Ship Doctor to fill it in:

And finally, even though he had very little screen time, Sean Whalen as Neil ("Frogurt") was just an entertaining character and I decided to add him too, for that reason alone:

Okay, NOW I'm done with them, and as soon as I'm done the big picture, I'll post it.

Do we have time for this one, Paul?

2011-05-14T05:48:00.000-07:00

Here's my David Letterman sketch I did for the latest Wittygraphy contest. It was my suggestion, so I thought I ought to participate. Unfortunately, I really didn't have time to do as much with it as I would have liked. But at least I got one done.

LOOK AT ME! SOMEBODY LOOK AT ME! PAY ME SOME ATTENTION!

2011-05-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

So, now that I finally have my new website all up and running, I can start doing a bunch of things I've been wanting to do for a while to help promote it. Th two big things I did today were to create a Facebook Caricatures by Don page and join (shudder) Twitter.

The Facebook Page is, of course, primarily there to promote my business. But I din't expect people to "Like" it just to help me with that. I wanted them to have a reason to want to "Like" it. So I'll be holding caricature-themed contests there from time to time, just for "Like"rs of Caricatures by Don. While they will be caricature-themed, they won't require you to be a caricaturist to enter them. And they'll have actual PRIZES! Woo-hoo! Also, People on the "Like" list of my Caricatures by Don Facebook page will be entitled to discounts on purchases made from my website! Awrsome!

As for Twitter-- Yeah, that's pretty much just gonna be for announcements about updates to my website, this not-blog, the Facebook Page, etc. But "Follow" me anyway! It would just be a nice thing to do for me.

NEW WEBSITE!!!!!!! WOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!

2011-05-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

If you know me personally, you may be aware that I've been hating my website www.caricaturesbydon.com for many years (which is admittedly a little odd considering how shamelessly I go around plugging it). I don't like the bland look of it, the artwork hasn't been updated for six years or so because I just didn't know how, there were a few pieces of inaccurate information on it, and it didn't list all the services I offer. Well, no more!

FINALLY, thanks to wix.com (and thanks to my friends Tara and Ron, who told me about wix.com), I was able to put together a whole new flash-based site, and replace my old one with it! It's not exactly everything I wanted it to be--yet-- but it's miles and miles ahead of my old site! If you, by chance, have been following my not-blog, Chumpmonkey's Electronic Carttonatorium ( www.donpinsent.blogspot.com ), there won't be much, if any, new artwork for you to look at, but if all you've seen is my old website, you're in for a treat!

I'd love for all of you to check it out and let me know what you think. Also, let me know if you discover any problems like spelling errors, broken links, etc.

the web address is still the same: www.caricaturesbydon.com.

And here's a little promotional video I put together to help promote the NEW WEBSITE!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

It's a Bald-winner!... Bald-winner? Winner?... No?... Okay.

2011-04-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

I've been working ridiculous hours on a full-time freelance animation job, so I haven't had much time to do caricatures. And most of the extra time I have had has been spent working on a big project assembling all my LOST caricatures into one big composition. So... look forward to that. In the meantime, I was able to put together this fairly quick entry for E-Caricatures' April contest. It's Alec Baldwin, but with only a couple of minor alterations, it could also serve as a Daniel Baldwin. Or, lighten the hair a bit, and it's Stephen! But then... why would you want Daniel or Stephen when you could have Alec?

The weirdest thing about drawring this one was that whenever I tried to push the exaggerations a little more, I would end up with a dead-on caricature of Steven Seagal.

Would you just get LOST with these already!

2011-03-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so... sorry for the anticlimax, but I decided to add one more character...

Fredric Lehne as Marshall Edward Mars:

Also, I've done all my re-drawing. So I'll post the ones with significant enough changes to bother showing...

First, the ones I completely re-drew, starting with Jack. A number of people said they didn't see much likeness in the first one I posted of him, and I know at the time I said I thought it was good, but those critiques stuck with me, and over time I began to see less and less likeness. So finally, I decided to completely re-draw him:

Charlie:

and I FINALLY got one I like of Jacob:

Next, there were a few of the early ones that didn't quite match the shading style I kind of gradually morphed into as I went along. Since my ultimate plan is to put all of these together into one piece, I wanted the style to be consistent, so I went back and touched up these ones...

Kate:

Sawyer:

and Hurley ( I also altered his facial expression a little to make him look less angry):

And the rest of these are just ones that had structural problems that were bothering me. If you're interested enough to go back and compare them with my original sketches, I think you'll see the changes I made...

Sayid:

Daniel (After posting it, I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed that I'd put his far ear waaaaayyy too low!):

Eko:

Eloise:

Karl (Mostly I just un-crossed his eyes):

The Man in Black:

Miles:

Phil:

Roger:

and Walt:

There were a few others I altered too, but the changes were so minor I didn't think them worth posting.

Anyway, all there is left to do now is to assemble them all into one big poster. I look forward to it, but I make no guarantees about how long it will take me to get that done.

Thanks for looking! Comments and critiques welcome.

Sometimes, even I get busy.

2011-03-11T11:16:00.000-08:00

Wow, has it really been almost two months since I've posted here? And to make it worse, I'm afraid I don't even have much caricature work to show for it!

I did, however, finish this one recently. It's my entry for the Bob Dylan contest at Wittygraphy. I thought I was just doing another quiick (relatively speaking) digital sketch, no differenter or specialer than my usual stuff, but several people have now praised it as being one of my best works ever. Makes me wish I'd done it in higher resolution than 100dpi.

Oh, and I also did this one of Karl Malden for Wittygraphy last month:

And, in case anyone's interested to know, I won the Glenn Close contest (see previous post), which was unexpected. So... Yeah, that was all cool and stuff.

Gettin' all contest-participatey!

2011-01-26T14:06:00.001-08:00

J.K. Rowling, for this month's E-Caricatures contest:

And Glenn Close, for Wittygraphy:

LAST

2011-01-24T12:42:00.000-08:00

Okay, here it is, the final LOST caricature:

It's Madison as Vincent.

Well, there you have it. That's all the LOST caricatures I'm going to do, unless someone gives me a really compelling reason why I should add some other characters. I'll still be posting here a little bit more, though, since there are some I wanted to go back and make some alterations to. Some, in fact, I want to re-draw entirely. I've already started that stage, and I'll post my progress as I go along, all building up to the big, final all-the-characters-in-one thingy, of which I'm thinking of making and selling copies, if anyone's interested. So, if this collection has been of interest to you, feel free to keep checking it out and following my progress.

Oh, and I hope that Vincent ending wasn't too anti-climactic for you, and didn't leave you unsatisfied about any unanswered questions.

aLmOST done...

2011-01-19T14:46:00.000-08:00

A few characters introduced in the last season:

Hiroyuki Sanada as Dogen:

John Hawkes as Lennon:

And Sheila Kelley as Zoe:

ONLY ONE LEFT!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Any Lost fans care to guess who the last one is going to be?

Just as well I'm almost done the LOST caricatures, since I'm running out of plays on words using the word "lost".

2011-01-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Two more--

Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana:

and Said Taghmaoui as Caesar:

Just something cool... Except, not in a "cool" cool way, more in a "geeky" cool way.

2011-01-12T05:47:00.000-08:00

So I got this Facebook message yesterday (I've been posting these LOST caricatures on Facebook as well) from Eric Lange, who played Radzinski on LOST's fifth season. He said a friend of his had sent him a link to the caricature I'd done of him, and he "LOVED it!" So... yeah. That was pretty cool. As a LOST geek, I'm walking on air about this.

Just thought I'd let you know.

I'm so LOST!

2011-01-10T18:44:00.000-08:00

A few more LOST caricatures-- some of the Dharma folk from Season 5--

Eric Lange as Radzinski:

Patrick Fischler as Phil:

and John Gries as Roger "Workman" Linus (Darn near unrecognizable in this role to those of you who know him better as Uncle Rico from "Napoleon Dynamite"):

Only six left! I'm so excited! Also, such a geek!

charles dickens and basketball. naturally.

2010-12-29T10:57:00.000-08:00

not much happening, caricatures-by-don-wise, during the christmas holidays. but i did have time to knock out a couple of contest entries:

the december contest at e-caricatures is any actor who has played ebenezer scrooge. and the week's contest at caricaturama showdown 300 was michael caine. so... two birds, one stone, i did michael caine as scrooge from a muppet christmas carol. i did it quite quickly, and i imagine i could have done a considerably better job of it had i taken more time.

and the december contest at wittygraphy is mutant basketball giant yao ming. so... i drew yao ming.

she's really hot... provided you're into women with huge, manly jaws, wide, clumpy noses and tiny, pig-like eyes.

2010-12-12T23:37:00.000-08:00

jennifer aniston, for caricaturama showdown 3000. something's not quite right about this one, i think, but i'm leaving it, at least for now.

lost art.

2010-12-08T08:14:00.000-08:00

that can't really be the first time that pun has occurred to me, can it?

here's the next batch, the remainder of the season fours.

marsha thomason as naomi:

lance reddick as matthew abaddon:

fisher stevens as george minkowski:

and kevin durand as martin keamey. unfortunately, i'm not entirely happy with this one. can't quite put my finger on why, so if anyone has any suggestions, i'll take them. i say "unfortunately" because, although he was only in a handful of episodes, keamey was one of my favourite characters, and, in my opinion, one of the most terrifying villains in tv history, because, aside from being absolutely massive, he was just psychotic and unpredictable.

hard to tell whether i'll be able to hit my goal of getting all of these done by the end of the year, but this post officially drops me down to the single-digits as far as how many i have left. so.... that's exciting.... for me.

parental advisory warning: this post contains a naked gun.

2010-12-04T12:18:00.000-08:00

leslie nielsen, drawn for the caricaturama showdown 3000. and to pay tribute to a guy who made me laugh a lot.

what the... a sports guy? just whose electronic cartoonatorium is this?

2010-11-26T16:14:00.000-08:00

it's hockey guy, sidney crosby, for this month's e-caricatures contest. i decided, for this one, to go back to sketchbook pro's airbrush tool, which i haven't used for quite some time. i've been holding onto this one for a while, hoping i'd have time to tighten it up a bit more before month's end, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen (and this being a sports guy, i can't say i really care enough to prioritize it), so... here it is.

can you smell what the caricaturist is drawing?

2010-11-24T21:53:00.000-08:00

if not, consider yourself fortunate, as it smells a lot like dwayne "the rock" johnson. i did this one for the monthly contest at wittygraphy. i was originally going to do just one of my usual pencil sketch-style thingies, but something about it just made me feel inspired to keep going with it. so i've been working on it all month, ten or fifteen minutes here, half an hour there... and there were several times when i started to feel like i had blown it, it wasn't working and i should just scrap it and start over. but i kept working it, and eventually got something i was quite happy with. except i'm not 100% committed to the background. i'm so bad at backgrounds! i'm wide open to suggestions on that.

livvin' it up.

2010-11-19T11:09:00.001-08:00

okay, that's basically the same joke title i gave the last post with a liv tyler caricature in it.

i just looked at my old caricature of liv, and man, it really kinda sucked, didn't it? the caricaturama showdown 3000 group on facebook has liv tyler asa their current contest subject, so i did this one up quickly. i like it a lot more. like, a lot more!

klaatu, verada... necktie...

2010-11-03T21:32:00.000-07:00

here's bruce campbell, for the current caricaturama showdown 3000 contest on the facebook.

in retrospect, i wish i'd gotten this one done in time for halloween...

2010-11-01T10:30:00.001-07:00

it's helena bonham carter, who apparently some men find attractive. to each his own, i guess.

the lost caricatures of don pinsent

2010-10-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

it's been pretty slow going on these lately, because i've been insanely busy, and have only been working on them at the very end of the day, for about ten or fifteen minutes at atime, right before going to bed. but i finally have more to put up.

here are the people off the freighter from season 4:

jeremy davies as daniel faraday (i had a much harder time with him than i had expected. this was developed from sketch #8, and i'm stil not completely happy with it. something is off, and i can't tell what it is. if anyone has any suggestions, i'd really appreciate them):

rebecca mader as charlotte:

ken leung as miles:

and jeff fahey as lapidus ( i know he spent the last two seasons looking much more cleaned-up than this, more, as sawyer put it, "like someone from a burt reynolds movie", but this was the look he had when he first came on the show, which was when i found him the most entertaining):

by the way, in case anyone's interested, i did it again, but this time i swear for the very last time: i upped the number of characters on my list. i added two more i decided deserved some attention, bringing the final number up to 60. this makes 47 down, 13 to go!

happy hallamoween, yo.

2010-10-25T20:25:00.000-07:00

in honour of halloween being this month, the e-caricatures contest for october is jamie lee curtis. this is my caricature of jamie lee curtis. i hope it looks like jamie lee curtis.

sorry, non-lost fans. this one's not for the non-lost fans. it's just for lost fans.

2010-10-20T05:14:00.000-07:00

thought i'd throw in a few more minor characters before getting into the more major fourth-season additions. so here's...

april grace as mrs. clugh:

kimberley joseph as cindy:

and brett cullen as goodwin:

even more lost than before!

2010-10-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

i touched up the eyes a bit on m.c. gainey:

and i've done a bunch more relatively minor characters...

kiele sanchez and rodrigo santoro as fan favourites nikki and paulo:

daniel roebuck as dr. arzt:

doug hutchison as horace goodspeed:

blake bashoff as karl:

and, my favourite of this batch, francois chau as pierre chang/ edgar halliwax/ marvin candle/ mark wickmund/alias/alias/alias...

loooooooooooooost.

2010-10-01T20:25:00.000-07:00

here-- finally-- are a few more i've been very gradually working on over about a month now.

m.c gainey as tom (non-lost fans may still recognize him, if i've drawn him well, since he's had supporting roles and bit parts in countless movies and tv series):

andrew divoff as nikolai (this one probably has structural issues i haven't yet picked up on. usually, when i attempt any kind of head tilt, i end up with them):

and tania raymonde as alex:

i still like "lost". how about you?

2010-09-10T16:52:00.001-07:00

while i still stand by my earlier statement that boone and shannon were the least interesting characters this show has offered, they are still not my least favourites. the one i hated watching the most was michelle rodriguez as ana lucia. her angry-at-the-world tough chick routine was already tired by the end of her first episode, and i just dreaded every time she came on screen thereafter.

anyway... here she is:

to counterbalance that, i also present one of my very favouritest characters on the whole series, adewale akinnuoye-agbaje as mr. eko:

and finally, cynthia watros as libby, about whom i never really had a strong reaction one way or the other, but i have to like her just for her association with hurley, who is awrsome.

she's not as exaggerated as some of the others, simply because i had a hard time even finding any features on her worth exaggerating!

okay, enough of the not-"lost" stuff. here's more "lost" stuff.

2010-08-27T11:32:00.001-07:00

it's been a long time since i've had time to do any of these (july and august are always extremely busy for me), but i finally have a few more to toss in (an unintentional old people theme this time around):

alan dale as charles widmore:

john terry as christian shephard:

and fiona flanagan as eloise hawking:

me do live stuffs.

2010-08-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

i finally remembered this summer to start bringing my camera with me down to my caricature stand at the halifax waterfront and get some pictures of some of my favourites of the live caricatures i've done. i offer two options: for $10, people can get a 5-minute marker caricature; for $20 they can get a 15-minute pencil sketch. as you can see here, the huge majority of my favourites tend to be the pencil sketches, as i am able to take more time and make sure they look more like the subjects, and are more structurally sound.

the main things i've been concentrating on improving this summer have been: 1. pushing my exaggeration in my live work, trying to get it more like that of my "studio" work; 2. composition of caricatures of more than one person, and 3. better observation of the "topography" of individual faces, if you get what i mean by that, rather than just drawing what my brain automatically tells me it should be like.

this guy was a caricaturist's dream! i only wish he had gotten the pencil sketch. i would have pushed it a lot more!

this kid couldn't stop laughing at his caricature! he loved it!

i can't remember whether i've ever caricatured them before...

2010-08-23T19:34:00.000-07:00

the beatles, each from a different era of their career:

contestin' it up.

2010-08-23T19:31:00.000-07:00

jerry seinfeld, for the caricaturama showdown 3000 contest:

and salma hayek, for e-caricatures:

but i'm not 100% committed to either one of them.

I'M brian fellow!

2010-08-02T18:07:00.000-07:00

i did this tracy morgan foe caricaturama showdown 3000, but stupid facebook, for some reason, wouldn't let me upload it to the group page. stupid facebook. oh well, i wouldn't have won anyway.

andy warhol looks a scream! hang him on my wall...

2010-07-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

i did something for this one that i haven't done in probably twenty years or more... i broke out my old acrylic paints! it was a lot more work than i expected, and i'll never again paint outside in the summertime. the sun dries up the paint on the palette faster than i can finish with it! stupid sun!

wouldn't it be cool if rap went missing in action?

2010-07-23T18:25:00.001-07:00

so, evidently, there's some girl who goes by the name "m.i.a."? apparently, she does this "rap" stuff that the kids keep mistaking for music these days.

this is for facebook's "caricaturama showdown 3000" challenge of the week.

i'm probably the only one who still cares, but...

2010-07-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

three more "lost" sketches, and i'm not done yet:

mira furlan as danielle rousseau:

titus welliver as the man in black:

and william mapother as ethan rom:

FIVE lads from liverpool? what the--?

2010-07-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

i wanted to do a new caricature of the beatles, but i wanted to do something i hadn't seen done in a beatles caricature before. tall order. this was what i came up with. it's the silver betales. which is to say, the beatles before they were the beatles, with pete best instead of ringo, and stu sutcliffe instead of... no fifth guy.

shucks, she shore is purdy.

2010-07-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

eva mendes, sketched with an actual, three-dimensional pencil, on real, live paper! for this month's contest on wittygraphy.

a little more lost.

2010-07-06T20:05:00.000-07:00

here's sam anderson as bernard and l. scott caldwell as rose.

the good-looking ones are often the hardest to caricature.

2010-07-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

a relatively quick caricature sketch of myself. the caricaturama showdown 3000 group i'm a member of on facebook recently reached 1,000 members, and they decided to celebrate that milestone with a one-day-only self-caricature contest. the rules state that it has to be a new work done just for the contest, so my old self-caricature didn't qualify.

hey, remember that show "lost"?

2010-07-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

...well, here's a couple more characters from it. possibly my two least favourite characters of the whole series. though, i'm sure reading that will prompt someone to suggest someone even less interesting, about whom i've forgotten at the moment, and i will be forced to retract that statement.

ian somerhalder as boone:

and maggie grace as shannon:

king of the vulture people

2010-06-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

i'm guessing cnn is still trying to think of the most tactful way possible of firing a well-known, experienced, trusted reporter just for becoming a crazy old man.

it's larry king, for this month's wittygraphy contest. the real challenge here was to come up with something that didn't look just like a hundred of the other entries. no offense meant to the other artists, there are a lot of really good entries. but it's honestly hard to tell a lot of them apart. there are a bunch of them that all from the same reference photo, all done with photorealistic rendering. i wanted to think of a more unique approach. so i went with this 3/4 angle and tried for a more cartoonish render.

losty-lost-lost

2010-06-17T19:30:00.000-07:00

malcolm david kelley as walt:

nestor carbonell as richard (those of you who aren't "lost" fans but are still geeks may recognize him better as the mayor from "the dark knight" or batmanuel from the live action version of "the tick"):

what the--- that guys' not from "lost"!

2010-06-17T07:28:00.000-07:00

harry shearer, for this week's "caricaturama showdown 3000" competition.

eeexcellent...

hey, look! LOST!

2010-06-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

okay, some changes:

first, i took the suggestions offered on a couple of the message boards i frequent, on juliet, and made some minor changes of my own, and i think they really saved the caricature, so thanks for the help, guys.

i also took some advice on jacob, and i'm still not sure. why am i having such a hard time with this guy?!

and finally, my sister, who goes in for all that romantic stuff, said that the only thing wrong with my drawing of desmond was that he wasn't with penny (sonya walger), so here's an update on him:

more lost caricatures (by which i mean not that the caricatures were ever lost, but rather... well, you probably get it.

2010-06-11T17:55:00.000-07:00

elizabeth mitchell as juliet (once gain, after multiple attempts, this is the closest i could come, but i'm still not completely satisfied with it. i can't figure out what's not right about it, and would appreciate any input):

mark pellegrino as jacob (once gain, after multiple attempts, this is the closest i could come, but i'm still not completely satisfied with it. i can't figure out what's not right about it, and would appreciate any input):

and harold perrineau as michael (this one, if i may say so, i am fully satisfied with):

blue. period.

2010-06-11T05:31:00.000-07:00

i've had this idea in my brain for at least a year now, and have just recently discovered another internet caricature contest that gave me an excuse to put it down. caricaturama showdown 3000 on facebook is a weekly ([i]weekly![/i]) caricature contest. this week, the subject is pablo picasso. i do plan on doing this up as a finished piece, hopefully this summer, but in the meantime, here's the digital sketch:

two greatest obsessions, blah blah blah.

2010-05-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

here's three more, but to be honest, i'm not solidly committed to any of them. all three seem a little off in likeness to me, but i can't quite seem to place why. so if anyone has any suggestions, i'm open to them.

henry ian cusick as desmond hume:

dominic monaghan as charlie pace:

emilie de ravin as claire littleton:

my two greatest obsessions... the continuing story.

2010-05-14T20:25:00.001-07:00

i was liking my locke drawing less and less every time i looked at it, so i started over, this time scrapping the "gag" and the hack colour job and sticking instead with my usual pencil (tool) sketch style:

terry o'quinn as john locke:

and here are yunjin kim and daniel dae kim as sun and jin kwon:

my two greatest obsessions collide!

2010-05-12T07:41:00.000-07:00

well, that drawring i did of locke got me wanting to try again on as many "lost" characters as i can. i drew a bunch of them a few years ago, and thought they were pretty good at the time. looking at them again now, i disagree with me. so i started over. here are the ones i have so far:

matthew fox as jack shephard:

evangeline lilly as kate austen:

josh holloway as james "sawyer" ford:

jorge garcia as hugo "hurley" reyes:

naveen andrews as sayid jarrah:

michael emerson as ben linus:

don't tell me who i can't re-draw!

2010-05-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

i made some changes to my locke caricature, based on suggestions from some fellow caricaurists at the drawingboard.

DON'T TELL ME WHO I CAN'T DRAW!

2010-05-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

for those who don't watch tv history's greatest television show, "LOST": 1. what's wrong with you? and 2. this is the brilliant terry o'quinn in his role as john locke. let me know what you think.

don't tell anyone i did a funny drawing of him.

2010-04-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure it's actually legal to do a caricature of someone this massively respected. oh, well. it's what i do. i can't stop myself.

nelson mandela:

hee hee! he's got a funny name!

2010-04-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

here's what i know about archbishop desmond tutu:

1. he's some kind of bishop. i think an arch one.

2. he's funny-looking.

that'll about do it.

streeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

2010-03-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

another month, another e-caricatures contest. this month, it's annual automatic oscar nominee meryl streep. i admittedly got kinda lazy on the hair. so sue me. except don't really.

he's a real heartbreaker.

2010-02-27T07:50:00.000-08:00

haven't posted much lately. february got insanely busy at work. but now another layoff has officially begun (hooray for the animation industry!), so maybe i'll be slightly more productive in my caricatures for a while.

i was able to do this one up quickly, though. now, for those of you reading this who aren't artists, here's a little trick artists often use to check the accuracy of their work: flip it. that is, hold it up to a mirror, or, in the case of digital creations, all drawring programs have a "flip" function that allows you to see your drawring backwards. you'd be surprised how different it makes the artwork look. mistakes the artist hadn't previous noticed become immediately apparent...

don't do that with this drawring. i drew it very quickly (in flash), and, even though i didn't have time to fix any problems i might find, i tried flipping it anyway, out of curiosity. it looked hideous! i mean, it looked like a really, really bad caricature. it was weird. so don't do that. just look at it the way it is, because this way i'm actually rather happy with it. it's still not a great piece of work technically speaking, i guess, but i'm very pleased with the likeness.

anyway... here it is, for the e-caricatures monthly contest, tom petty:

and now, because you demanded it: a caricature of some guy you've never heard of!

2010-01-27T08:44:00.000-08:00

k, so my friend (don't tell her i called her that) caroline and i have gotten back into doing our lunchtime caricature challenge thingy. we agreed to pick a different theme each week (or something) and draw caricatures of people who fit into that theme. our first theme was people who are famous pretty much in halifax only (or "halifamous", as annoying reporters around here like to say). our first subject was a local comedian named mark little, from a comedy troupe called picnicface (though his stand-up stuff is, in my opinion, much funnier than the group's sketches). it's just a rough sketch, with no shading added or anything. here it is:

what's na'vi for "man, that indian chick is hot"?

2010-01-22T19:56:00.000-08:00

these are my entries for two contests going this month:

wittygraphy's contest: bollywood actress aishwarya rai.

and e-caricatures' contest: pompous, self-aggrandizing film director james cameron.

evidently, "the f-word" is "forehead".

2010-01-02T19:23:00.000-08:00

forgot i hadn't posted this here. it's my entry for december's e-caricatures contest, that loveable teddy bear, chef gordon ramsay. the kind of guy you can imagine nursing a baby bird with a broken wing back to health. then feeding it live to his cat. then eating his cat.

EDIT: so... turns out i won. cool.

it's calendarific!

2009-12-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

k, so i'm a member of an online social networking thingy thing for caricatuists, called wittygraphy. and they took the twelve most popular caricatures of 2009 on the site, and turned them into a 2010 twelve-month calendar, published on lulu, the self-publishing website thingy thing. my amy winehouse was one of the caricatures selected. just in case anyone's interested in ordering a copy of the calendar (it's $19.95 + shipping), i thought i'd post a link to where you can do so. you can find that here. all proceeds go to Dominican Sisters Orphanage in Can Tho (Vietnam) for 17 children in great need. if that helps any to convince you. there are a lot of other really great caricatures in there too, some of them by some of my favourite caricaturists around, including ireland's niall o'loughlin and the disturbingly young william appledorn from the far-away, exotic land of the united states of the americas. i've ordered my copy! you should too! that way, you can be like me, and what could you want more than that?

other people who also ace faces

2009-11-18T08:17:00.000-08:00

over the last five or six years, i've been a regular poster on several caricaturist message boards. some of them are now extinct, but a couple (most notably the drawing board and e-caricatures) are still going strong. one of things we often do on these boards is post our own photos so we can draw caricatures of each other. i thought i'd post on here (since i haven't had much time for new artwork lately) some of my favourites of the ones i've drawn over the years. some of these are several years old, some rather more recent; some are digital, some are pencil-on-paper; and some clearly have more time and effort put into them than others. nothing personal.

hope you like them.

alison (i don't know her last name):

ewan mactavish (sorry if i've spelled the name wrong):

chris marie (all the reference photos she posted showed her in low-cut shirts):

a guy who posts under the screen name maester:

a guy who posts under the screen name stilltoon:

william appledorn:

sagan lacey:

chris neuenschwander:

gord macdonald:

juanjo baron:

kaya (i don't know her last name either-- i thought this looked like her, but i'm not sure she agreed. maybe if i were to meet her face-to-face i'd draw her differently):

chris wahl (who drew my favourite of all the ones that have been done of me):

mike hasson:

a guy who posts (or used to) under the name neo noaide:

simon, whose last name i don't remember:

frank zieglar:

people are actually following me!

2009-10-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

look at that, i officially have one quarter of a hundred "followers" on the cartoonatorium! woo-hoo! thanks to those who have signed up, and for those who haven't.... it's easy! go ahead, try it!

sorry there hasn't been any artwork posted in a few weeks. busy busy busy. soon, hopefully.

thanks again!

oh yeah, so...

2009-10-10T19:19:00.000-07:00

here are the identities of the people in my previous post, for anyone who couldn't tell, and cared:

marty feldman
bruce lee
jeff probst
billy joel
nancy grace
marc singer
anthony stewart head
billy bob thornton
kristen schall
gwen stefani.

bunch of pencil (tool) sketches

2009-10-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

hey. been back to work at an animation studio since late august, after an eight-month layoff. more than the work, what i really missed was getting my lunch breaks to do some celebrity caricatures in sketchbook pro. so i've been doing some here and there wherever i can get time. for no apparent reason, i decided with these ones to (1) do them all using only the pencil tool, and (2) hold onto them until i had a big batch i could post all at once. so here they are. they range, in terms of their degrees of fame, from pretty obscure to famous enough that they should be easily recognizable if i've done them right. so see if you can tell who they are. if anyone can guess all ten of them... well, there's no prize, but i'll be fairly impressed, i promise.

it seems she kised this girl, right? and then, uh... yeah, i guess she liked it or something.

2009-09-08T08:38:00.000-07:00

a very quick (as i'm sure you can tell) katy perry for this month's contest at e-carictures.

sing along if you know the words: baaaarrrrrump dumpdaadump, badump, daadump, barrump dumpdaadump, badump, daadump...

2009-08-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

alfred hitchcock, for the e-caricatures monthly contest. i was trying really hard to find different things to exaggerate than every other caricature i've seen of him... it didn't work. so i threw in the blood spatter just to try to make it different. looking at it again, though, i'm not sure i like it. it's kinda distracting. oh, well. it's just a sketch. i think i might like to take this one further one day, and if i do, i'll decide then what to do with it to separate it from the others.

very witty, wilde. very witty.

2009-08-05T14:52:00.001-07:00

i noticed that i'd gotten the nose all wrong on my original sketch for this one, so i changed that in the final drawring. other than that, it's largely the same. i didn't really want the textured paper, but it was the only thing i could find at the art supply store that was the colour i wanted, so i went with it. in the end, i quite liked the effect it gave. all comments welcome.

it's oscar wilde, by the way.

here's tonight's "word": charracctuaterturre.

2009-07-29T19:55:00.001-07:00

here's the next one: jon stewart and stephen colbert. pardon the seam. my scanner's not big enough for me to scan these in one piece, so i have to patch the halves together in photoshop, and for some reason, i couldn't get the halves to blend together on this one. i'll have to see what i can do about that. when i'm a billionaire, i'll get me one o' them big scanners, and never have problems like this again. also, i'll have my servants do the scanning for me.

so, apparently there are these people who study these things called "oceans"...

2009-07-24T07:43:00.000-07:00

i have this ongoing thingy-thing with the oceanography department of halifax's dalhousie university: they have a decades-old tradition of honouring students who are defending their theses with caricatures of themselves. the backgrounds of these caricatures are generally full of details and visual puns referring to the topic of the thesis in question. they've had several different artists over the years doing them, and i'm the current one (since late 2008, if i remember correctly). i don't claim to understand any of the visuals. i just draw what they tell me to draw. don't try to "get" these. you'll hurt yourself. but here are just a few of my particular favourites:

warning: disturbing image. but look at it anyway.

2009-07-20T19:48:00.000-07:00

here's another finished one: frank zappa. i originally had something much different in mind for this, but when i sat down to start it, i realized i didn't have it fully conceived in my mind, and couldn't seem to visualize exactly where i was going to go with it, so i abandoned that idea and went with this one. anyone who doesn't understand this image, check out this zappa album cover:[url]http://intergalacticfunhouse.com/Weasels_Ripped_My_Flesh.jpg[/url].

comments, as always, welcome.

lady? by what definition?

2009-07-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

normally, i don't like caricaturing flash-in-the-pan flavours-of-the-month who will be nothing but punchlines in five or ten years, if, indeed, anyone remembers them at all, but this one is the subject of this month's contest at e-caricatures. so... i did.

it's lady gaga.

more people you don't recognize.

2009-07-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

just a couple more of the non-celebrity commissions i've done recently, with which i was particularly pleased.

insert political joke here. i have none.

2009-07-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

i very seldom caricature political figures, for two reasons: 1. politics bore me. 2. they're so frequently done that i don't see much point in adding another one to the pile, being unable to really bring anything new to them.

but, for some reason, i felt i should have one or two for my sample book at my stand down at the local waterfront, so i did these up. comments welcome.

weird-lookin' chick with a funny name.

2009-07-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Finally! another one! i was originally planning to do these in the alphabetical order i did the original sketches in, but then... i didn't.

didn't change much, if anything, from the original sketch for this one. people seemed to like the sketch. hope you like the final as well. comments welcome.

uma thurman:

sketchy types.

2009-06-18T07:33:00.001-07:00

i haven't been posting much new work lately, because i've been very busy with commissions and this temp job i've been at to help fill time between animation contracts. but every now and then, over the last couple of months, i've been taking ten or fifteen minutes to whip up some caricature sketches. i've been trying to go for celebrities of whom i've seldom, if ever, seen caricatured. i guess mainly because they're not exactly yer a-listers. all comments welcome and appreciated.
comedian brian regan:

cat deeley:

harry connick, jr.:

howie mandel:

folk-rock singer-songwriter josh ritter. again, this guy's not hugely famous, but he's become one of my all-time favourites. i highly recommend him to anyone who likes... say, bob dylan or cat stevens:

kyra sedgwick:

and nathan fillion:

how does a treasure troll get to such a position of power?

2009-06-11T05:18:00.000-07:00

sorry posts have been so few and, as they say, far between of late. been very busy.
i very seldom draw political caricatures, but this guy was the subject of the monthly contest at e-caricatures, and i've never been one to pass up the chance to caricature a crazy, evil, bomb-weilding dwarf.

kim jong il:

we got a bogey at 12:00!

2009-05-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

the latest caricature contest over at the e-caricatures forum is humphrey bogart. i hoped i might have time to do more than just a quick, rough sketch, but it doesn't look like i'm going to. so here's what i've got. i was trying to exaggerate him differently from what anyone else has done without losing the likeness. whether i was successful in that or not, i leave up to you to decide.

some flights of some conchords

2009-04-16T18:01:00.001-07:00

wow, this one a month idea is really not panning out, is it? over halfway through april, here, finally, is post #2: flight of the conchords.

those of you (if there are any) who remember my sketch of these guys from the a to zed thread may recall that the pose was very static and dull. i wanted the final to be something funny, what with them being comedians and all. my original thought was to draw them as the two-headed creature from mel's drawring (fans of the show will know what i'm talking about). but i couldn't find any good reference for that image, so i had to come up with another gag. this was it. people more versed in drawring the human form will doubtless find myriad inaccuracies to pick apart here, and feel free to if you wish, but just know that... well, i don't care. i didn't want to put too much time or effort into anatomical accuracy, i just wanted it to be funny. hope you like it. let me know what you think.

world's handsomest caricaturist. as far as i know.

2009-03-17T19:22:00.000-07:00

the main reason i haven't been posting much lately is because, being between animation jobs, i'm using most of my time working on five or six different projects that i never have time to do when i'm working. one of the main things is creating 9with a lot of help from a good friend of mine who does this stuff professionally) a whole new caricatures by don website! i'm excited about it and hope you'll like it. in connection with this, i felt i needed to do a new self-caricature to grace the front page. this is it.

hey, that's not a caricature!

2009-03-10T08:32:00.000-07:00

i know, i haven't been posting much here so far this year. been busy with several projects i'm trying to finish before work in animation starts up again. including putting together a whole new caricatures by don website! so that's something for all you huge, rabid fans of mine (donheads, as i understand you like to be called) to look forward to.

in the meantime, speaking of animation, i thought i'd take this opportunity to show you what else i do besides caricatures. this is my animation demo reel, made up of flash animation scenes i did while working at the now-defunct (what a great word!) collideascope animation. it has scenes from the shows "olliver's adventures" and "delilah & julius", as well as my contribution to an experimental project done for cbc's "zed tv", called "exquisite bunny". the reel is a little out of date, since i've worked on several shows since then, but until i'm able to work any scenes from those shows in, this is my demo as it exists.

the music, by the way, is "weird al" yankovic's "fun zone", from the movie "uhf".

enjoy.