i guess you could say she "stole" my heart, a-ha-ha.

"w" female: winona ryder. okay, i may be pushing it calling her famous these days, but dangit, i've been kinda in love with her ever since beetlejuice!

wwwwwwwwwowwwwwwww! that's a lot of doubleyous!

i just couldn't decide on one "w" male. there were too many i really wanted to do. i managed to narrow it down to four. it's been a busy couple of lunch hours these last few days.

first, you probably won't be able to comment on likeness on this one unless you have small children, or possibly, if you're just australian (elliot? do you still show your face around here these days?)

it's the wiggles:


second, one of my all-time favourite comedians, steven wright. i'm not quite sure what his look is these days, so i just went with his classic appearance:



third (i think my favourite of the bunch), eagles guitarist and seriously underappreciated solo artist, joe walsh:



and finally, because my friend ian practically begged me, down on bended knee and with tears brimming in his eyes, in a pretty pathetic display of emotion and desperation (read: "casually suggested it"), tom waits (though i'm afraid i don't feel i really brought much to this one that you've never seen in any other tom waits caricature) :


all comments welcome.

i don't normally do caricatures of space aliens, but...

decided to slap a quick (very quick) colour job on this one, since i haven't done colour on any of these in a long time.

i know a lot of guys think she's pretty hot, but i see that glassy stare, and i'm just creeped out more than anything else.

victoria beckham:

an injection of the diesel

"v" male. vin diesel.

aaaaaannnnd... that's all i've got to say about that.

no, really! i swear i'm not starting a new style where i draw everyone with their noses down over their top lips! it's just a coincidence!

kid rock, for the november contest over at e-caricatures.

that is one dirty, greasy-lookin' redneck.

no, i'm not starting a new style where i draw everyone with their noses down over their top lips.

"u" female: uma thurman.

i imagine this one will get mixed reactions, but i like it.

"u" is for, "uuuuuummmmmm.... whose name starts with "u"?"

the lack of famous people (at least, ones i could think of) with names beginning with "u" has forced me once again to step outside my comfort area and draw someone in whom i have zero interest.

it's usher.

"baby mama" notwithstanding...

i just think tina fey is one of the funniest people in the business these days, and so when a friend of mine suggested i draw her as my "t" female, i jumped on the idea.

"t", take two.

my new and improved tommy lee jones! now with 75% less walter matthau!

from such fine films as "under siege"...

okay, "t" male. tommy lee jones. it's just possible i may take this one a little further later on, but in case i don't get the chance to, here's my initial rough sketch.

two more esses here, but just the one person.

sarah silverman. contrary to a lot of the jokes she makes about herself, this girl is not easy.

heh heh. i made a little double entendre joke there. heh heh.

this is the title of this post.

"s" male.

two guys, each with one name starting with an "s".

i had in mind a composition quite similar to this (albeit with colbert on our left), then discovered, while searching for photo references, that rolling stone magazine had beaten me to it. so i just copied theirs.

jon stewart and stephen colbert:

if you use the word "tribute", no one can say it's in bad taste!

over at thedrawingboard.org, in the caricature section, they have a paul newman jam going as a tribute to the man. i did this one up quickly (about ten minutes) last night. on paper! with a real (red) pencil! don't often do many of those anymore.

hmmm... not doing a great job on this "catching up" idea...

i had a hard time thinking of an "r" female that really inspired me. and i still haven't. my muse rachael ray is not. but out of desperation i finally settled on her. i'm not sure i really got this one right, either. the head tilt really messed me up. i did a lot of erasing and re-drawring, and i'm still not sure it's dead-on. but i'm giving up and posting it. so there.

rachael ray:

caricatures "r" us.

i was wanting to try another cartoonishly rendered flash drawring again, and this guy seemed like a good subject for it. rainn wilson, as dwight schrute from the (slightly inferior) american version of "the office".

queens like big hats, is the conclusion i've come to here.

ummm... yeah... nothin' to say here.

here's queen eblivableff.

a couple o' quaids

wow, that's a long time to let pass. this is supposed to be "s" male week, and i'm just finally getting around to posting a "q" male.frankly, i'll be surprised if i'm able to get caught up before the end of the year. but we'll see. the next several will probably be just quick sketches, or very little more.

for the "q" male, i chose the quaid brothers, randy and dennis. hey, are these guys on the outs with each other or something? you never see them together. wanna start up one of them crazy hollywood rumours? who's gonna throw out the first suggestion?

good golly, miss dolly!

another quick sketch this week. for my "p" female, my goal was to sell it based on an actual facial likeness, rather than on what she's better known for. hopefully, i was successful in this.

dolly parton:

"p", uh... male?

here's another one i'm surprised i've never drawrn before. i'm not 100% convinced he qualifies as "p" male, partly because i'm never sure whether his name still starts with "p" these days, and partly because his status as a "male" remains questionable.

and incidentally, i've never been sure why this guy seems to get so much respect in the music business, like he's some kind of music god who can do no wrong, and with whose presence we are all fortunate to be blessed. he's pretentious and annoying, and his music is... pretentious and annoying.

in any case, i'm using him anyway.

here's prince:

she's got bette davis eyes... not by coincidence.

i did this for the monthly caricature contest at e-caricatures. this month's subject is bette davis. i remember when i was a kid, hearing the song "bette davis eyes" (who ever told jennifer warnes she had a good singing voice anyway?), long before i'd ever seen pictures or anything of ms. davis herself. when i finally saw what she looked like, i thought, "really? so... is 'you've got bette davis eyes' supposed to be a compliment? because if i were to tell someone that, i would mean, 'your eyes are kinda creepy-looking and you scare me'."

but maybe that's just me.

bette davis:

oh man! it's my "o" woman!

my "o" female is someone i felt just wasn't getting enough exposure and media attention, so i thought i'd throw her a bone, as it were, give her a leg up, as it also were, and give her a little mention here on the ol' cartoonatorium.

her name is oprah winfrey. remember that name. she's gonna be pretty famous one day.

the only thing worse than having an unflattering caricature done of oneself is not having an unflattering caricature done of oneself.

with this one being my official catch-up piece (yaaayyy!), i figured it was about time i went back to putting a little more effort into some of these. here's my "o" male (on the actual "o" male week!), oscar wilde:

crap, now i've got that stupid "i'm like a bird" song stuck in my head!

another quick sketch here for the "n" female, simply because it's someone about whom i'm pretty indifferent. i know a lot of guys think nelly furtado's pretty hot, but i do not. in addition, i'm annoyed by her music as well as her personality (or at least her public persona). the only reason i chose her was because i was having a hard time thinking of an "n" female, and someone i work with suggested her. so go ahead and suggest things i could have done differently if you want, as long as you accept the fact that i'm not re-doing it any time soon.



the biggest challenge i faced on this one was having to make a conscious effort not to just directly copy jan op de beeck's nelly furtado caricature, which is one of my favourite caricatures i've ever seen, of anyone, anywhere, ever!

hey, hey, ralphie boy!

oops. different ed norton. sorry.

i attempted to draw this guy five or six times. this was the least bad.

my "n" male, edward norton:

the divine ms. m.

no, not that ms. m. the one who really is divine, instead of an annoying loudmouth.

this is sarah mclachlan, and i swear it looked more like her before i added the shading.

what a rip.

and now for something... well, pretty much the same, really. you know, more caricatures.

in the circumstances (i.e. i've been insanely busy these last few weeks; i'm trying to get caught up to where i should be on this project; i stupidly chose a group of six guys to do for this one), please understand my posting such a quick-looking, rough sketch. i know the composition is less than perfect, and if i'd thought about that before i just started drawing individual faces, i'd have had eric idle facing the other way. if i ever get around to making a nice, finished version of this (i would like to), i'll change that, or maybe the way the faces are arranged or something....

anyway, here's the "m" male, monty python:

you'd never know i thought she was hot!

yes! two in one week! now i'll only be one week behind!

there are only a few letters of the alphabet for which i've known since beginning of this project whom i was going to draw. this was one of them. "l"female was always going to be sophia loren. i was planning on putting some shading on this, but then i ended up spending so much time on the hair that i just couldn't rationalize spending the time, with work piling up as it is.

so here's the pencil sketch (well, digital pencil) of sphia loren:

search this caricature for hidden evidence that i am the descendant of jesus's cousin steve.

just a quick digital sketch for now, but sometime this summer, i want to turn this into a finished work, on real, live paper!

"l" male: leonardo da vinci.

did it just get cold in here, or did nicole just enter the cartoonatorium?

my hope now is to at least be caught up by the end of june, so that halfway through the year, i'll be halfway through the alphabet. crossing my fingers.

here's the "k" female, nicole kidman. i've seen a lot of caricatures of her that i didn't think looked like her. is this another one?

I HAVE A DREAM... that someone might care what i post here.

guh. the last two weeks have been ridiculously, annoyingly busy, and i haven't had any time at all to do anything i wanted to do. now i'm two weeks behind. hopefully, this week will be a little less stupid.

here he is, my "k" male, martin luther king, jr. :

from jack, john's son, to scarlett, johans's son.

all right, "j" female. still one week behind. and it's not looking too likely at this point that i'll have time to get a "k" male in this week either. next week, hopefully, i'll have time to do two and once again get caught up.

in the meantime, here's scarlett johansson:

the thread with no title (except this one).

i dedicate my "j" male to my friend, caroline, because she's all in luuuuuuuv with this guy.

jack johnson.

man, this guy makes me mad. as if just being a famous musician wouldn't get him enough chicks, he's gotta go bein' all good-lookin' too! well, look what i discovered here, ladies! jack johnson's got slightly bad teeth! ha! take that, jack johnson!

pff. jack johnson. more like "jerk johnson"!

heh heh, "jerk johnson". that's funny.

what? another old-timey motion picture lady? that's , like, TWO now!

nice work, don. one week after getting caught up, i get a week behind again.

here's what should have been last week's caricature (we got dumped with a particularly difficult episode of the show we're working on), the "i" female: ingrid bergman. now, i didn't really want to do this so soon after audrey hepburn, but i chose ingrid as my "i" female for one reason: i couldn't think of any other famous women with names starting with "i".

i don't even know much about her, so, while i think i got a decent likeness here, i'd probably cede pretty quickly to the opposing opinion of anyone more familiar with her.

anyway, enough talk. here's ingrid bergman:

a short break from all that alphabetical ridiculousness.

this dude is the subject of this month's caricature challenge at the caricature message board known as e-caricatures.
it's a pretty quick sketch, with a very quick shading job.

luciano pavarotti:

he's named after a block of frozen water!

every now and then, i get the urge to break out of my "comfort zone" (to use a worn-out phrase) by trying to caricature a celebrity of whom i'm not particularly a fan, and therefore am not that familiar with. this was the motivation behind my choice of "i" male-- rapper ice cube (i really, really hate rap!). the reason for the red is just experimentation. i wanted to try something monochromatic in some other sahde than my usual black, and for some reason (or perhaps for no reason at all), red was just the colour that called out to me.

so, here he is. ice cube:



oh, and, congratulate me on finally being officially caught up! woo-hooooooo!

... until next time i fall behind.

don't say she looks like an alien. just don't.

okay, here's my "h" female. i was going to rush out a quick sketch of this one and post it on friday, which would have gotten me caught up to where i should have been. however, once the basic line sketch was done, i somehow felt that this had to be my next official finished work. so i put some more time into it. hope you like it, and hopefully i'll be able to get an "i" male sketch done this week as well, and then be caught up.

audrey hepburn:

DUDE! BONUS, DUDE! WOO-HOO! AWESOME! YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

so, i was watching "dexter" the other night (the watered down, network tv version), and i thought, "man, that guy who plays dexter is a caricature waiting to happen." so, not to let him down, i made it happen. on paper! with a pencil! then after the show was over. i looked him up on imdb to find out his name, and it turns out his last name starts with an "h". so here, ladies and gentlemen, is a bonus "h" male, michael c. hall.

(sorry about the lines down the image. my scanner has just suddenly started putting those there. gotta look into that.)

famous american dramatic actor, hugh laurie!

i've been going through a bit of a bad run lately, missing likenesses on a lot of my recent posts. some by a little, some by a lot. i would like to go back and touch up the last few caricatures i've posted here (gwyneth, clooney, frida, the guy on the right from flight of the conchords...), correcting likenesses as well as i can, but in the meantime, i've moved on to the "h" male. "h" can be for "hugh" or "house", whichever you prefer. hopefully, i haven't completely missed the mark on this one.

"g" is for "getting caught up".

this officially puts me only two weeks behind, if i'm not mistaken.

"g", as it happens, is also for "gwyneth"

george clooney is george clooney, playing george clooney in "the story of george clooney: the george clooney story".

not exactly breaking new ground here for my "g" male. i've seen a lot of caricatures of this guy. some have worked for me, some haven't... so i thought i'd give it a try. it's a pretty quick one.

george clooney.

hey, that doesn't look like salma hayek!

one thing i've been wanting to do with the a to zed project is to diversify my subject matter a little more. that is to say that, while most of my famous-people caricatures tend to be of actors and musicians, due to my fascination with movies, music and tv, i wanted to try to branch out a little into into other areas, such as literature, fine art, and maybe (maybe) even one day start doing a few from the two areas i tend to avoid most, politics and sports (i avoid them because they bore me and i hate them). how's that for a run-on sentence?
anyway, with that in mind, as i was trying to think of whom i was going to draw for my "f" female, and rejecting the first few names that came to my head (farrah fawcett, fran drescher, frances mcdormand...), the name "frida kahlo" suddenly popped into my head and, with it, so did her eyebrows. and i instantly knew she was the one. i also saw it as a chance to indulge my enjoyment for caricaturing fine artists in their own painting styles, like i did with vincent van gogh and salvador dali. so i plan on making this my next finished piece, maybe even using it also as a chance to get back to acrylic paints, which i've been kinda wanting to do for some time now. in the meantime, however, in the interest of keeping the a to zed project moving along (and really wondering how in the world i'm ever going to get caught up), i thought for now, i'd just post the rough sketch. i referred to a bunch of actual photos for the likeness, but am basing the final artwork on the attached self-portrait (did frida kahlo ever paint anything other than self-portraits?) so, anyway....

frida kahlo.

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"f" is for "foo da fa fa"

"f" male(s):
flight of the conchords.

'nuff said.

wherefore art thou, juliet? art thou lost?

i'm considering this one unfinished, because there's still something about it that doesn't look right to me. if anyone's got suggestions on what that might be, i'm open to them. but i thought i'd post it anyway, in the spirit of trying the catch up to where i should be on the "a to zed" project ( i believe this is supposed to be "g" female week or something like that).

this is elizabeth mitchell, who plays juliet on "lost". i chose her mostly because she's one of the few "lost" cast members i hadn't tried yet.

word.

for the life of me, i just couldn't come up with a good "e male/ e-mail" joke here...

i tried to make up for being so late last time by doing a caricature of four people in one. this time, i'm attempting to make up for it by doing a full-blown, full-colour finished piece. the logic doesn't really work out, though, because part of the reason i'm so late with this one is because i was putting time into doing a full-blown, full-colour finished piece.

whatever.

"e" is for edgar allen poe.

desperately trying to catch up...

the reason i'm so late with the next installment of the a to zed project actually has nothing, surprisingly (to me), to do with laziness or forgetfulness, which i expected to be my biggest roadblocks. i don't want to bother with a lot of details, but suffice it to say that i usually do these during lunch breaks at work, but recently found myself quite suddenly thrust into a temporary layoff situation, so the opportunity to work on them hasn't presented itself as often. so this one's two weeks late ( i believe), and the next few will be tardy as well, but then after that, i'll be back at work, and i'll start doing one or two a week until i get back on schedule.

in the meantime, "d" is for desperate housewives.