From Sketch to Screen.

Studio Caricatures

2009-01-26T05:36:00.001-08:00

I thought for my first blog entry in over a year I would put some recent digital caricatures on here.

Dave Hartman (a friend of mine)

Michael Hansen (a friend of my friends)

Eric and Julia Pickerill (missionaries to Amsterdam)

Hopefully I will be more diligent to post new work as it comes. Thanks for checking in every now and then!

From June to July

2007-07-20T19:19:00.001-07:00

It's been quite a shift in numbers since last month. The sales have finally picked up at Cedar Point, and it feels like it did a few years ago. Good times. But it leaves little time for good sketches.

However, I did manage to do these:

Jillian, my coworker, and her boyfriend (from photos):

Mark, Shannon, and Cassie, other coworkers:

Ryan, a coworker, and his friends from College of Creative Studies in Detroit:

It's only a few more weeks and the season is over. Hopefully there's a few more posts to come.

Back for More

2007-06-16T06:57:00.000-07:00

A couple of sketches for all to see!

Crazy girl-demo day

2007-06-14T11:46:00.000-07:00

Every now and then when it gets slow, we Cedar Point artists try to come up with a good "Demo challenge." These are practice drawings of real Cedar Point guests upon which we put extra requirements. One such challenge was a 3-minute color sketch. In another demo challenge we had to noticeably use the color Turquoise when coloring the face. These are just to see how well we can do it, and get better at thinking differently in the process.

This particular demo challenge was kind of exciting: Do the most exaggerated demo of a girl / female guest. Of course, likeness in my opinion is a huge barrier to extreme exaggeration, so it's a difficult thing to master.

Here are my entries:

Those are the only ones during which I took good photos. Here are some actual paying customers (sorry, no guest photos):

And some more demonstrations:

Here's a coworker, Dan Shoaf:

Cedar Point -- End of Month 1

2007-06-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody. I could tell stories about customers and people at Cedar Point, but they would be no different than any other stories you might hear from other theme park artists. The stories never change.

Here are some sketches!

This one had some color-caking on the neck, due to my inexperience with creating colors for natural lighting. But the drawing was a good one.

And for all you Halo fans:

I'll hopefully get back on to update as soon as I get more batteries for my camera.

Cedar Point: Week One

2007-05-24T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the highlights. I am one of the six returning (or veteran) caricature artists this year, along with Jon Lindberg (10th year), Emily White (6th year), Mark Magpusao (3rd year from San Jose), Alex Clare (3rd year), and my beloved Sarah Shepherd (6th year). This would have been my sixth year if I hadn’t taken last summer off to relax and build my own freelance business. The break was great, and I came back refreshed and ready for all the good times and bad times I would experience at Cedar Point.

In fact, when you’ve worked there for more than three years, you’ve pretty much seen it all. Father’s Day becomes the unofficial “gay day,” where any and all combinations of homosexual couples rally to come in and enjoy a completely non-discriminatory environment. On other occasions, and most often involving people from Detroit, irate customers gripe about their caricatures until they either get someone to re-draw it or get a complete refund of their money. High school kids think it’s funny to look at your nametag, and while walking past your stand at high speeds, yell out your name: “Hi, Joey!” They turn to each other and laugh hysterically.

I thought I had seen it all. Until last Friday, May 18, 2007.

Something was definitely happening in the park that day, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. At first, I noticed an unbelievable amount of hairstyles that looked like this:

Then I noticed that all these hairstyles were being sported by young, possibly high school or college-age men, and all of a certain racial type for which I did not yet know the politically correct term. They certainly weren’t Hispanic, and they weren’t Indian. I immediately gave myself the mission to find out a)what the racial type was, b) what the hairstyle was called, c) what was the deal with all the [insert racial type]’s in the park today, and d) what is up with all the [hairstyles].

Within a few minutes I deduced that they were all from Detroit. I flagged down a couple of Detroiters who were possibly that racial type, but who didn’t have the aforementioned hairstyle. During our short conversation, through translation of Detroit-speak, I found out that the hairstyle was that of the children of John Gotti, an infamous Chaldean mobster. His kids are on an A&E reality show called "Growing up Gotti." The Chaldean racial type has some Italian, and mostly Arabic roots. The non-politically correct term, which was used often in my exchange, is “A-rab,” where the “A” is long. The reason they were all in the park was that it was “A-rab Skip Day,” a tradition dating all the way back to one week ago, during which all Chaldeans in Detroit city schools drive their parents’ Escalades to Cedar Point.

Within a few hours I found out through experience that Chaldeans from Detroit are incredibly rude, loud, inconsiderate of property and other people’s business, and consider themselves better than pretty much any other kind of people.

That has been the worst of it so far. I have done a few noteworthy sketches:

Last Day at Busch Gardens

2007-05-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

This is a new post about an old subject.

I had a great time at Busch Gardens, and once I got back, I was overwhelmed with busy-ness to the point that I couldn't make my finishing remarks about the experience.

The days were long, but they went by quickly. In hindsight, I wish I could have really appreciated how fortunate I was to have been able to work with Joe Bluhm and Dion Socia for that short amount of time. When I came back to Cedar Point, the most impressive and envy-worthy part of my time in Tampa has been that fact alone.

I had an unforgettable time!

Here's a couple of sketches I whipped out that last day:

Who doesn't love a seven-person color sketch??

Day Eight: Weather or Not

2007-04-09T16:49:00.000-07:00

After a pleasant day off of watching movies all day, I returned to the park to meet a new friend at the caricature stand:

Today I found one more reason Busch Gardens is better than Cedar Point. At Cedar Point, no caricature stand closes down for any reason other than the park itself being closed. And even then, it's questionable. I remember when Cedar Point closed down because of a state-wide blackout in 2003, and even the caricature stands stayed open until sundown... because "there were still people fleeing the park." Here, it started raining pretty hard:

And after maybe 5 sketches, Dion, Joe, and Myself went home. I did have enough time to get these done:

The reference:

I have 3 more full work days before I come home, so I really hope it warms up again so I can get back to making that sweet sweet money!

Day Six: Timbuktu

2007-04-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

Busch Gardens in Tampa is Africa-themed throughout. It's very beautiful, with four distinct corners of the park, each with their own ethnic soundtrack. Animals I've never seen before roam areas of the park entitled "Morocco" and "Egypt."

"Timbuktu" is where one of the caricature stands is located, and where I worked today.

This day's sales were just over half what I made yesterday, but I did more good drawings that I'm ready to show.

This girl's mom watched me do the pre-sketch and asked me not to "exaggerate too much." I politely explained that I will only exaggerate to the point that I feel it's necessary to achieve a likeness.

This one's for you, Orlando.

Day Five: High Sales, Low Quality

2007-04-07T07:55:00.000-07:00

Today again, one drawing came out "all right," the rest were quick, painless, and sale-worthy. While the quality of my sketch dimishes greatly with higher volumes of customers, the money in my paycheck increases greatly. It's an interesting trade-off that most artists can't resist at some point in their day. The realization hits when they notice that the faster artists who are doing less-quality work are making more money than they are.

I haven't had that problem all week. At every stand I've worked a full shift, I've ended up the top salesman there. Yesterday I made $1009 for Busch Gardens, which translates out for me into $24 per hour, for 11 straight hours.

The trade-off is that I can feel sad about not doing the best work I can do, but I can feel happy about being able to buy Guitar Hero II for the Xbox 360 when I get home. If the tables were turned, I could feel happy about having five great drawings a day to post on my blog, while at the same time feeling sad that I am not making enough money to cover my student loan bill for next month.

This is the one sketch I did that I spent more time on than the countless others.

Day Four: Bluhm-ology

2007-04-05T21:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the delay in the blog posts. I have forgotten my digital camera every morning on the way to the park, usually right after I leave the house, but not early enough to turn around and pick it up. Not that it would have made any difference, since my first picture-worthy drawing at Busch Gardens happened today:

Click to view full image.

Click to view full image.

Pretty much everyone I work / live with here (Joe Bluhm, Dion Socia, and Brooke Howell) have been taking digital pictures of their work to show off at the end of the day. Joe's are by far the best, and usually because he works with natural lighting in the sketches instead of "made up" lighting. This means, for those of you non-caricaturists, that instead of just doing the same peach tones for the face and brown tones for the hair, he'll put in the exact colors he sees based on the given lighting of the subject. Pretty amazing. So I thought I'd try it. The above sketch shows one of my better attempts at this.

Here's an example of made-up lighting from earlier in the day.

Of course it is too much to expect for me to want to draw at the same caliber as someone who is my age but has drawn caricatures for eight more years than me, but I can't help but want to learn from the best.

Day One: The Flight

2007-04-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Flying isn't the most fearsome thing in my life, but it has to be one of the top 5 things that make me nervous. Today was no exception; but at least it was two of the smoother flights in my 6 years of flying experience.

I left at 3:30 after many morning hours of intense packing, rent-paying, and last-minute XBOX-360 binging, and I certainly brought enough on-board entertainment to keep me busy: Several TV-on-DVD sets, a couple of partially-read books, and two completely un-read "Men's Healths."

Despite all my efforts to entertain myself, I always find myself gripping the seat, sweating on the people next to me, and looking out the window whether I'm in the window seat or not. And, also despite my own entertaining "reads," I found someone else's efforts to self-entertain left behind on the plane: a Crayola "Color Explosion" notebook, which once probably belonged to a kid, who drew in every last page. The idea is that the special pens will create lots of patterns of color on what appears only to be a black piece of paper. The child who owned this notebook before it became mine wasn't all that bad at drawing. Everything was cute, cuddly, and sort of indistinguishable until one drawing stood out to me:

This is the exact view I had of the drawing when i turned the page to it. If I wasn't nervous about flying before I looked through this child's drawings, I was now.

Spring Break at Busch Gardens

2007-03-28T09:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. I haven't blogged in a LONG time. But this next two weeks I am going to commit to my blog because...

Kaman's Art Shoppes, whom I worked for at Cedar Point for 4 summers, and whom I will work for again this summer, has asked me to draw at Busch Gardens in Tampa for the next two weeks. They will pay for the flight, and I will make them and myself lots of money. Hopefully.

The only things I will be missing will be Easter with my family in Dayton (which I haven't been able to do for over 4 years), and my girlfriend Sarah's spring break, which she's been looking forward to since the beginning of the semester.

So I've decided I will take pictures of some of my best and worst work while I'm there, and fill everybody in on the events of the days. It should be lots of fun in the sun!

RING: the Musical

2006-09-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

The National Caricaturist Network just started holding monthly caricature contests in which artists must finish a piece according to the instructions given at the beginning of the month. This month's contest had to involve the Lord of the Rings characters in a musical setting. Some people came up with ideas where the Lord of the Rings cast was performing a 70s musical review (Frodo as Annie, Gandalf as the Fiddler on the roof, Gimli in CATS, etc.) I thought about the musical RENT, which is a modern-day musical about AIDS and homosexuality.

For my piece, I mimicked the movie poster for RENT, using each character from the musical and coming up with a good Lord of the Rings counterpart.

Here's the painting:

and Here's the movie poster:

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland)

2006-09-19T09:13:00.000-07:00

This is one of the first finished photoshop caricatures I've done.

Jesus' Photo Album

2006-07-15T21:26:00.000-07:00

My dad is a pastor at a small town church in Texas. For his latest sermon series, out of the book of John, he asked me to depict five scenarios (one not shown here) that would indicate different key moments in Jesus' life. He gave me the titles and the descriptions, and I gave him the illustrations. I tried to make Jesus look much different than we might expect him to look; instead of being calm, sedate, and looking up with blue eyes to his Father in heaven, I wanted him to always be looking in the camera, and to look extremely Jewish. In the one scenario not shown, entitled "Nic at Night," I even had Jesus accidentally closing his eyes for the picture.

Elephant Studies

2006-06-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

These are months old, but recently scanned and primped in photoshop. Medium: Watercolor, pen and ink.

The Columbus Zoo is amazing, and getting much more amazing by the year. It's Jack Hanna's official home zoo, and it apparently has one of the world-famous gorilla exhibits. I spent many a monday afternoon there during my CCAD illustration classes, drawing and painting from life. These elephant sketches, however, are post-graduation.

Tam O'Shanter

2006-04-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

While I was in High School in New Braunfels, Texas, I made program covers for my band's concert performances. One particular song that the band played was called Tam O'Shanter.

The music was all right, but the story is what intrigued me. Tam O'Shanter was a drunk who, upon leaving a tavern on his horse, wandered accidentally into a forest where a witch coven was performing some secret rituals. Fearing for his life, Tam O'Shanter rode as quickly as he could away from the witches. I did the best I could capturing this moment for the NBHS band program cover, but I was inspired to recreate a color sketch of this scene today.

Easton Sketches

2006-04-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

Easton is a wonderland of shopping, eating, and attempting to feel beautiful. You don't have to be rich to be there, but you feel like you need to spend money once you're there, so it's better if you are.

I can't wait until it gets warm enough for me to set up outside and capture more of the exteriors than what can be seen from inside Barnes and Noble.

April 3, 2006: 20 min.

April 10, 2006: 30 min.

This sketch I could actually go back into and paint to completion.

Early Sketches

2006-04-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

This was my first attempt at a live digital color sketch. Location: Panera Bread on High Street, Columbus, Ohio. Time of completion: 15 min.

Next, an attempt at an original concept art piece, completely digitally drawn and painted, 15 min.

A view of Sarah's backyard from her living room. 30 min.

From Sketch to Screen: an Introduction.

2006-04-10T20:37:00.000-07:00

I've been gifted with the desire to draw. Note that I do not claim to have a gift of "drawing," but the desire itself is the gift that God has given me. It's what separates those who quit after their first "bad" drawing day and those who strive to have better days. It's what keeps me drawing and will keep me drawing for the rest of my life.

My recent endeavors have led me to purchase a mobile computer and a pressure-sensitive drawing tablet, with which I am able to create artwork completely without the use of paper or artist's materials. Photoshop is a wonderful, limitless, and expansive program that has the capability of recreating to incredible precision every artist's tool imaginable. I learned to paint for the first time a few years ago, but the recent addition of Photoshop to my toolbox has re-ignited my passion for painting, and I have been re-learning it from the ground up... digitally.

This blog is meant to bring my friends and family into my creative world. I will be posting my recent sketches, whether digital or hand-drawn, personal or professional. Any and all criticism and comments are welcome. Any artist who gets only pats on the back will never get better.

Joey J