And now for something a little different.

Several years ago The Lovey Anna and I went to Paris for our anniversary. While we were there we visited the Lourve, and I brought my sketchbook along. I did an obligatory study from a Da Vinci painting, but really got fascinated by Jacques-Louis David‘s Le Sacre de Napoléon (the Coronation of Napoleon). This is a gigantic painting, 20′ a 32′, showing the coronation of Napoleon, and every single figure in it is unique and practically breathing with life and personality. Several of them were real people, including a few that weren’t actually at the ceremony, but even the “fillers” are stunning in their individuality. Many of them border on caricature in their slightly exaggerated expressiveness.

I came across these two sketches recently. The upper is from Da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks, and the lower is from the David painting. The depicted figure is Tallyrand, Napoleon’s grand chamberlain.

I’m still extremely busy trying to get caught up after being away for the San Diego Comic-Con, so here is one of the studies I did for the limited edition print I sold at Comic-Con (and am still selling). This is Roger Moore, the James Bond I remember from my youth. I thought he was THE James Bond, until I saw Sean Connery‘s earlier films after a recommendation from one of my middle-school teachers. Connery’s still the best, but I do like Daniel Craig in the role.

Because I am at Comic-Con I have to cheat this week on the “Sketch o’the Week” and post a rough drawing for a recent project instead of something I drew specifically for this feature. This may be one of the less sensitive illustrations I’ve done in a while, but the purpose of the job was to illustrate the absolutely worst things you could do in certain difficult situation, like visiting a terminal friend in the hospital. The article it illustrates gives advice on how to do the right things in the same situations.

Click for a closer look…

I’m cheating this week and posting this digital painting instead of a “Sketch o’the Week”. A few people saw this as part of my The Mad Art of Caricature book cover and asked about it. I did it specifically for the book cover, based on an earlier SoTW. It’s your basic Photoshop job.

This week’s SoTW subject is the notoriously hard-to-caricature Tom Hanks. I’m not sure why he is such an elusive subject, but he’s getting easier to draw as he gets older.

Once again… better late than never. This week’s Sketch o’the Week is Saturday Night Live alum Amy Poehler.

This week’s subject is karma victim LeBron James.

I’m not a guy who wishes ill will on anybody, but I must say I was happy to see Dallas win the NBA championship rather than have to hear about this jackass getting a ring. James is the poster boy for super-egotistical, narcissistic, spoiled brat athletes. I have to laugh out loud when I read comments by him and his (small) group of supporters wondering why all the hate and saying he doesn’t deserve it. He deserves it. Every bit of it. His one hour TV special “The Decision” (note the caps in the title, like the world has hanging on it) might be the most disgusting example of narcissism every aired on national TV, and that’s saying something with Donald Trump out there. Even in this day and age of people mistakenly believing others should know or care about their opinions on anything, sports fans still admire at least a hint of humility from their star athletes. James doesn’t even pretend to have such. Witness his comments following his loss in the NBA Finals:

“All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point.”

Translation: You all have shitty little lives and I am still LeBron James, so GFY. That’s rich from a guy who is lucky he’s 6’9″ and a physically gifted athlete who can play pro basketball, because he doesn’t have the brains or skills to do much more that flip burgers otherwise.

Wow. Does this guy have ANYBODY around him that can give him some simple advice about how to be a human being, or are they all just head-nodding bobos that tell him 24-7 he’s a god and the rest of the world lesser mortals?

I’ve got news for LeBron: yes, most people out there don’t make millions of dollars playing a kid’s game, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t happy with their lives. I’d rather be doing what I do for a living, with a loving family, the ability to treat others like real people and have the respect of those who meet me than to be a rich athlete with no respect for the rest of humanity, surrounded by money-grubbing yes-men and commanding the respect of no one whom I didn’t buy that respect from. Also, the reason you make millions is BECAUSE of the “little people” you denigrate, who spend their hard-earned money on NBA tickets, merchandise and watch games on TV providing the ad revenues that pay your salary.

I actually don’t care in the least about pro basketball, and ordinarily wouldn’t give it the time of day, but James gets my attention for all the wrong reasons. Monetary success. Humanity fail. Congrats, LeBron.

Better late than never…

This week’s Sketch o’the Week is the late, great lead singer of Queen, Freddie Mercury.

This isn’t really a sketch, but I did this ink and watercolor piece as a gift from the rest of the National Cartoonist Society’s board of directors for outgoing NCS president Jeff Keane (The Family Circus). The stuff laying on the floor represents the four different locations Jeff hosted the Reuben Awards in during his two terms as president: New Orleans, Los Angeles, New Jersey and Boston. The other members of the board signed the original and we presented it to him at our board meeting. I understand it’s already on eBay…

I did this sketch of rock guitarist Slash to demonstrate my side of a little disagreement I was having with a fellow caricaturist. We were discussing what makes a successful caricature. While we both agreed that being able to instantly recognize who the subject was constituted the most important aspect of a successful caricature, he insisted this hinged on “likeness” of the features, and I said that was not necessarily true. This caricature of Slash has no features, but it is unmistakeable. A viewer recognizes a person or personality on more levels that just their face. Body posture, signature clothing or “look”, accessories, setting—these all play a part in the “recognizability” of a subject. Some caricaturists use this as a crutch because they have trouble capturing recognizability through the features alone, but a good caricaturist will use a combination of elements, both the features/expression and extras, to create a strong caricature.