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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.

This week’s subject: Clint Eastwood circa the “spaghetti western” era. This was a small study for a digital painting.

This week’s subject is actress Sarah Jessica Parker. She is not the classic beauty, having a very long, angular, and “horsey” sort of face. Her nose is an obvious feature to exaggerate, but I’ve always been struck by how big and square her jaw is much more than her nose.

One day late this week…. my apologies. Quick 15 minute or so study of singer Taylor Swift.