Happy New Year!! Welcome 2012

Happy New Year everyone! 2011 has been an awesome year for me but I'm looking forward to 2012. I think it's going to be a great year. Thanks to all of you who have supported my blog and my work over the past year. I look forward to interacting with you in the new year, here and at all of my other sites. Please feel free to connect with me at any of my social media or portfolio sites. All of the links are on the right side of my blog. Time to party. Goodnight and see you next year!!

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Catherine Monreal ~ Virtual Assistant

A note to my business connections:

I wanted to bring someone to your attention that could be invaluable for your business. Her name is Catherine Monreal and I have utilized her services for research in the past and will be using her in a virtual assistant capacity in the coming year. While I wish I could keep her all to myself, I know that I do not have enough work to sustain her. So, I thought I would tap into my network and introduce her. 

Catherine has a much more complete profile on Elance, which can be found here: https://www.elance.com/s/informationinsomniac/ and she is located in California. While this puts her in the Pacific Time Zone she is flexible with her availability to suit your needs. Heck she is always available for me when I need something. 

Catherine can work in a variety of capacities: writing, researching, and virtual assisting. She listens well, is a great communicator and can help you organize and formulate your ideas into an action plan. She can be reached at informationinsomniac@gmail.com or 818-252-9099.

Happy New Year to all!

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Tim Jones ~ A Google+ Portrait Commission

This is a portrait commission for a friend from Google+, Tim Jones of "Tim Jones Marketing". Self proclaimed TV Spokesperson, Actor, Producer, Hangout Addict, and Napper. People's Choice Nominee ~ Morning Drive Disc Jockey for 15 years ~ Appeared in over 40,000 TV Commercials in the Southeast over the past 20 years. In-depth bio here. If you're a Google+ member, make sure you circle +Tim Jones for a very funny and interesting stream... and +Rodney Pike of course. :) Tim can also be found on his facebook page as well as his YouTube Channel. Below is the source image and a little Tim Jones Unplugged. Enjoy!

Tim Jones ~ Behind The Scenes 

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Stevie Wonder ~ Movie Spoof

This is an old Freaking News Photoshop contest manipulation of Stevie wonder. Somehow it never got into my blog long ago when it was done so I'm just adding it now so it will ne in my blog archive. I have no idea how it did in the contest. That was a long time ago.

A little Superstition 

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Tommy Lee Jones ~ WIP ... Which Way?

Tonight I'm posting a followup to a post I made a few days ago of Tommy Lee Jones as seen below. The more I looked at this image the more I thought maybe I had taken it the wrong direction, or maybe I should say I realized there may be a better angle. I posted the image above on Google+ and took a poll. Although the answers differed, the majority were for the second attempt at top right. I think I'm going to try several different angles on this one and see what I come up with. The reason I wanted to post this is to illustrate in my own crude and inexperienced way that there are many different ways you can take the exaggeration when doing a caricature. There are no rules chiseled in stone, so just because yours is different doesn't mean it's wrong. This will as all of my work is really, be a learning experience for me. The reason I didn't post the top right image at a larger size is because it's only loosely put together. I will try and deliver in the end 4 different takes on Tommy Lee from my perspective. Which way would you go?

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California 90420 Project ~ Final Installment

Well, this is the DVD label which is the last installment to the California 90420 Movie Project for Catchphrase Entertainment and New Coast Productions. I think the commission is finally complete. Everything has been delivered. As soon as the DVD is out I will have all of the actual items commissioned and do a photo shoot of the package commission both for a Behance Network project as well as a blog post summing up the entire experience from start to finish. Thanks to Dean Shull of Catchphrase and Steve Roberts of New Coast for this opportunity. Here is an interview of the two on California 90420. It was challenging at times and a bit out of my comfort zone but it all worked out in the end and the main thing is that they are happy with the final outcome. The satisfaction of my clients is far more important to me than any amount of money, although it's a nice little bonus.

Puffinton Host movie writeup and interview

I'm about to start a portait commission right now for +Tim Jones of Google+ and I will complete the Robert De Niro series afterwards and make a post with several images showing some of the different ways I approach a caricature and hopefully shedding some light on the many different angles you can look at a person and the differing directions of taking the exaggeration itself. That was a long sentence, please don't correct my grammer. It sucks. Again, these methods that I describe here on my blog are my methods and not necessarily the correct methods. In fact my methods are actually all experimental as I try to figure this stuff out. I have no training in Photoshop or caricatures, or even art for that matter. I just do what I do.  If you want formal caricature training, go to the master, Jason Seiler. He teaches a corse through Schoolism.com which is well worth the money and as soon as I have the time, I'm taking the course myself.

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California 90420 DVD Wrap Commission - Final Draft

Tonight I'm finally posting the completed DVD wrap commission for the movie California 90420 by Catchphrase Entertainment and New Coast Productions in L.A. I let myself get talked into doing the type setting on this job. This will be the last one. I offer illustration, not graphic design. I just don't have the software, fonts etc. needed for that king of work and I just don't enjoy it. I'm going to stick with my caricatured manipulations. It's what I do best and it's what I enjoy doing. This was a pretty cool project though. In all, there was the original caricature commission, two posters, a t-shirt and the DVD wrap so it was a good bit of work. Check out the movie trailer below and check out the movie if you get a chance. Well, it's official; just got the final approval so this will be delivered tonight. I'm ready to move on to some fun stuff now.

California 90420

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Adora-ble ~ A Portrait Commission of a Cutie

Tonight I'm posting a portrait commission which was done for an extremely loving dad who had this beautiful little girl sort of late in life at age 56. He recently started an art project in the form of a blog to document her growing up and build a collection of original art of this precious little girl named Adora. He started commissioning artists from all over the world to create unique works based on photographs of his cute baby daughter. 170 diverse original pieces have been published so far on the blog. The adorable art archive is a scrollable showcase all of the images to date. The Art portion can be viewed here and he adds a new and different entry to it every single day. The main page is at http://growababy.com. Do you think this is a proud dad? I would say so, and he has every right to be. Little Adora is truly Adorable.

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