Action Packed

Here's something a bit different from my usual stuff. My good friend Russ asked if I would do a spoof of the fabulous Traction Man is Here by Mini Grey, using him as the subject for his girlfriend Clare's birthday.


Emulating Mini Grey (to a certain extent) and trying to get enough of a likeness was a really enjoyable challenge.

If you haven't read Traction Man, please do follow the link above and invest in a copy - you won't regret having dazzle painted battle pants in your life!

Two Birthdays

This post marks the third birthday of my blog. Weirdly, this is also post 333, does that make it 50% evil?!

A good pal said to me over the seasonal break that he would like to see my take on The Dude, from the Coen Bros. fabulous The Big Lebowski.
I've got a real soft spot for The Dude, His Dudeness or El Duderino (if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

Like the film itself, there was a nice syncronicity to events, my friend's birthday is tomorrow, my blog would be 3 today, it was a nice quick sketch that I knew he was after and that suited my current status of waiting for feedback on the project I'm working on. Nothing was f**cked, So I drew him a card!


I don't think I've quite captured what I was after, but Jeff Bridges is a tricky chap to depict, even trying to get an essence of The Dude is a tall order... the desire to include (clever) quote related 'in jokes' was definitely not satisfied and originally I intended to do a group shot including Walter and Donny too, but sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes... well, he eats you!

Moore's Mini Me

It's such a stupid little joke...


My sincere apologies to Alan Moore...

Frankenstein's Monster

The current topic for DrawerGeeks is Frankenstein's Monster.


Having done a version of the monster once or twice before, I was reluctant to tread the same ground.
Unfortunately as my idea arrived a bit late in the day yesterday, I've only partially finished it. I think it illustrates the concept though and I'm fairly happy with it - hopefully I'll get the chance to finish it up properly, but it's joining a long 'to do' list!

Boldly Go...

The new Star Trek movie is out and DrawerGeeks is using the current topic to 'commemorate' the fact.


I'm trying out something a bit different style-wise on this quick sketch. I think Spock is pretty close but Kirk is way off.

Han & Chewie

I took the Han Solo I did previously, gave him a body and added his old pal Chewbacca... This is another reasonably rough digital sketch for fun.

The poses were taken from some old Episode IV publicity shots I found floating around on the web. I love Chewie's vaguely knock-kneed apathy compared to Harrison's cock-sure hero stance.

I'd really like to see the adventures of Han and Chewie (before they got involved with that Skywalker boy) as opposed to the stuff that Lucasfilm seems to be producing currently. I don't know whether I'll go and see The Clone Wars and I'm not holding my breath for the Star Wars TV series coming sometime around 2011!

The Adventures of Han Solo and Chewbacca...

Come on George, dig around in your beard for some old space-pirate tales, you know it makes sense!

"I'll never join you!"

"But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!"

There's huge differences in Mark Hamill's face between episodes IV and V that's makes it tough to do a good early Luke. A car accident I think was the cause of the change, I've tried to get a bit of the earlier luke in with his more familiar physiognomy.

This is a quick digital again, but I think this one is less successful than my previous Star Wars caricatures, not sure who I'll pick next...

"Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi!"

She had some of the best lines and the weirdest hairdos... I'm not mentioning the outfits, especially the slave girl outfit, not mentioning that at all but I know all you other boys are thinking about it again.

Not sure how successful this is, take away the danish pastries and I'm not sure you'd know it's her...

"Scruffy looking nerf-herder!"

"Who's scruffy lookin?"
He was so cool...
Pirates, have hoards even space pirates!!

"I wonder if he means old ben?"

"You don't need to see his identification..."

Freeing My Bonds

A hoard of Bonds?


James Brawn

Double O Saving

Doublet Status

Eye Spy

Bond of Marriage

Bawned, Jaymsh Bawned
the original and still the best!

My Puns aren't great, but some of the others I had were worse - Double O Suaving, Oh, Oh Heaven and Sleak Rat Agent for example were awful. Have a go at coming up with witty alternatives for 007's names, it's not as easy as you think.

I'm really happy with Sean, Daniel and Pierce. These are all quick Photoshop efforts, I did colour for Sean and Daniel as they are the book ends for the character and I'm just playing at the moment, trying to gauge how successful/commercial these things might be.

QI Gang - Delicate Distortions

Alan Davies, probably best known as Jonathan Creek... I've heard that there's a new TV special coming later in the year, that could be worth a watch.


Phil Jupitus, another regular on QI and also the other team leader on Nevermind the Buzzcocks with Bill Bailey.


Jimmy Carr, is everywhere, perhaps he's omnipresent, 8 out of 10 cats, Quiz of the year (success down to Noel Fielding and Russell Brand I think there) and is also a regular on QI.

All of these guys also have great stand-up careers, a common feature of stand-up of course is that all important punchline!

Bit of a theme here with these caricatures, I'm not sure about the Alan Davies, but I like the Jimmy Carr... They're pretty quick to do in Photoshop to this sort of standard, but should I pursue this direction any further? With no work coming in, things are pretty concerning.

I think my caricatures aren't that extreme, more sort of delicate distortions but not portraits.

QI Gang sounds like the name of a Jedi to me...

Stephen Fry

A much loved English treasure, one of the smartest blokes around, host of the brilliant quizshow QI...



He's a real renaissance man, our Stephen Fry... Comedy series credits too long to mention, best selling books, films, serious documentaries and quizmaster. He's got a great website too.

He reads the Harry Potter Audiobooks - but he'd have been perfect for Dumbledore in the films!

This is the second of my caricatures done roughly in photoshop, just trying it out really... watch out for Alan Davies, Phil Jupitus and possibly Jimmy Carr coming soon! All of them deliver punchlines! Also, see Bill Bailey from earlier this week!

Bill Bailey

One of the funniest blokes around... and he was the guest on Desert Island Discs on Radio4 last week.


If you're not familiar with Bill, Black Books, Spaced, QI and Nevermind the Buzzcocks will help you out of your dark days!

Check out Bill's website too. The faster html site is good and the flash-rich site is supremely silly - the choice is yours!

Bill doesn't really rely on the old punchline too much and I suppose that is a pretty thin link for the Illustration Friday topic this week.

This is a quick digital caricature done in photoshop - I'm not sure whether it's worth finishing or not.