Rodney Pike Humorous Illustrator

Bruce Willis Caricature Study

Dec 1, 2012

Here is the finished Bruce Willis study I’ve been working on the past couple of days. I wasn’t concerned with the background as this was strictly a practice piece. I did a lot of experimenting with noise reduction and creating skin textures from scratch on this piece and learned a lot. I have a ways to go yet but I think I’m onto something with these texture experiments. So, it is what it is. The source image I worked with is posted below. No time to waste… on to the next one.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Bruce Willis – Work In Progress (WIP)

Nov 29, 2012

Tonight I have a work in progress of Bruce Willis. I love the way he makes that little smirk and I found a picture with that smirk but it was very noisy and after removing the noise and enhancing the detail, I’m left with patches of skin with no detail at all. This is where the final stage of painting the whiskers, hair and missing skin texture comes in. This image doesn’t look that bad because it’s been shrunk down so much. It’s very noticeable in the high-res file so there will be a lot of detail painting to do on this one.

Below is the source image I’m working with and an earlier screen capture of the work in progress on my Wacom which was posted to Google+ and Facebook earlier today. I’ve started something new on Google+ called “Whats on the Wacom” to give everyone a little better look at the different stages and my work flow. You can see the difference in the screen capture and the portrait above and there will be even more changes in the final product although the basic morph is pretty close to what I want now. And of course, he will be put in another body.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

One Million Google+ Followers – Thanks!!

Nov 26, 2012

I hit another Google Plus milestone today and rolled over one million followers. It’s only been just over a year since the one year Google+ anniversary. Thanks to all who have supported and encouraged me here on my blog, on Google+, Facebook and all of my networks. If you haven’t hooked up with me on Google+ yet, simply click the large image above.

Another milestone will happen later this week as I go over 600,000 blog views from every nation in the world. Business has been good. It could be better and I know it will be with all of this support. Thanks once again and see you at two million!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Happy Thanksgiving From Granny Bean and I

Nov 22, 2012

A quick Thanksgiving virtual postcard for my friends from Granny Bean and I. The Mr Bean saga continues… The original painting was done as a Saturday Evening Post magazine cover by one of my favorite American Illustrators, Joseph Christian Leyendecker who was a very inspirational figure for Norman Rockwell in his youth. The painting was done for Thanksgiving, 1935. He was a true Master.

I thought this might be appropriate

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and be inspired!

Bill Murray – The Look

Nov 20, 2012

Yet another caricature study of Bill Murray. There was a series of images taken at a Red Carpet Event of Murray and some great shots among the set, so I couldn’t resist and had to do another. I’m not sure what or who he was looking at but he was kind of giving the eye. There was nice detail in the shot so it was a fun practice piece. These are always relaxing for me and the first part of the day was pretty stressful so this helped. I’m posting the source image below as well as a work in progress (WIP) while it was on my Wacom in a slightly rougher state.