American Singer Songwriter - P!nk

American Singer Songwriter - P!nk

Alecia Beth Moore, known professionally as Pink or P!nk, is an American singer, songwriter, dancer and actress. She was signed to her first record label with original R&B girl group Choice in 1995. The label, LaFace Records, only saw potential in Pink, offering her a solo deal. Choice disbanded in 1998. Pink rose as an artist with her debut solo album, Can't Take Me Home (2000). It was certified double-platinum in the United States and spawned two Billboard Hot 100 top-ten hits: "There You Go" and "Most Girls". She gained further recognition with the Moulin Rouge! soundtrack "Lady Marmalade", which gave Pink her first Grammy Award as well as her first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100. Pink took more artistic control and pursued a pop rock direction for her second album, Missundaztood (2001). It sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and yielded three US top-ten singles, "Get the Party Started", "Don't Let Me Get Me", and "Just Like a Pill"… Wikipedia

This is a manipulated caricature of American singer-songwriter of P!nk. It was originally requested by a friend of mine on DeviantArt and has been published several times. It was also an entry in an international before and after Photoshop contest. I’ll include the source image at the bottom of post so you can see what I started with. I’ve taken the original and spiced it up a bit as I’ve been doing many of my old pieces while my back is healing. It’s great practice. I’m learning a lot about color and these can be done relatively quickly so I’m not sitting behind my computer for days on one piece. I’m doing my best to cut loose on the color and not hold back. I’ve been playing it safe too long. I still have a long way to go but I have a since of where I’m headed now with my new work. Well, I hope it’s a good direction and you like the work that I’ll be posting in the coming months and starting through 2018. I’m having a lot of fun as I experiment and learn along the way.

Original Source Image:

Sneak Peak at P!nk:

I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Rapper Jay Z

Shawn Corey Carter, known professionally as JAY-Z, is an American rapper and businessman. He is one of the best-selling musicians of all time, having sold more than 100 million records, while receiving 21 Grammy Awards for his music. The man with the million dollar lips. This image was a poster commission from a while back. I have many of these in my store and have had some requests to add a little flare to some of them so I reworked this one and several others. All are available in my store now and several more on the way. I'll be posting more tomorrow.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Snoop Dogg - Increasizzle the Pizzle

Snoop Dogg - Increasizzle the Pizzle

Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., known professionally as Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, television personality, and actor. This is another variation on an older commission of Snoop Dogg. I was looking for a Snoop Dogg "izzle" phrase for the title and came up with Increasizzle the Pizzle which if I used the online izzle translator properly means Increase the Pease which is a quote of his. It sounds like something he would say. I'm sure someone will let me know if it's incorrect. I wanted to do something with the izzle "twizzle" which means twisted and rolled but couldn't find a fit. I just had to go with the marijuana background theme and color scheme on this one. A version of this caricature was also featured on martijuana.com a while back and received great reviews. I'm sure he has many fans there. This image and several hundred more are available in my online store for very reasonable prices. In fact, some are free downloads so check them out here. It will be well worth your time. I offer these custom celebrity caricatures many of which can be found right here in my store but I can do the same for you if you wish. They're a lot of fun and make really good gifts. If you're interested in a custom image of yourself or someone, please feel free to contact me for details. I pulled an all nighter last night working on some new material for the second time in 3 days so I'm beat. I think I'll take a little break. I'll be back tomorrow with more new work.

 Here are a few Snoop Dogg moments:

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Slash - Shredded

Slash - Shredded

Slash! Todays post is another color study of an old image I created for a Photoshop contest at the site formally known as Freaking News. I'm really trying to push the limits on color which is not my nature but I'm trying to change that. I've been far too timid with color as long as I can remember. This has a lot to do with the reason I turned to digital art in the first place. My oil painting tended to get muddy or at least subdued as I struggled with color. It's much easier to go back and change color and saturation in Photoshop. As I said in a previous post, I'll be posting several of these older pieces as I experiment with color for the most part. Lots of new work on the horizon. My back is healing quickly so I'll be able to sit behind my computer long enough to finish some new images I've started which are very complex. Hope you enjoy these along the way. It's certainly fun revisiting these old images and I'm learning lots along the way. I have many ideas in my head ready to get out. I'm looking forward to putting out there just what's going through my head. Scary stuff! ;) Below a little taste of Slash in action.

Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Time Magazine Person of The Year

Time Magazine Person of The Year

Time Magazine Person of The Year 2017... If you watch the news, you're familiar with President Donald Trump's recent claim that Time magazine contacted him saying that he would most likely be named TIME Magazine's "Person of The year" 2017. Trump claimed that the magazine would require him to do and extensive photo shoot and interview which he declined. Trump tweeted; "Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" Time magazine later came forward and said that he had not been contacted. This was a total fabrication by Donald Trump. This president has done and said things on a daily basis since he became president that are baffling, absurd, controversial and down right crazy. Though this may seem trivial to some, it shows just how unstable this man is and his way of thinking. Who would make up such a story and post on twitter like he did? Did he believe the story he made up? Why would he do such a thing? Did he not think that someone with our news agencies wouldn't check up on his story to see if it was true? I think that this is an indication of just how unstable this man is. The most powerful man on earth living in a fantasy world. So, this is my response to his false claim. Rowan Atkinson's character Mr Bean as Natalia Beanovich, an ex-Russian spy and super model named TIME Magazine's Person of The Year 2017. I say that my story is just as credible as that of the President of The United States. It's all very embarrassing.

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Lil Wayne Toasted

Lil Wayne Toasted

This image of Rapper Lil Wayne (Official Wiki Page), was originally a commissioned piece for FHM magazine several years back and as many of the images I did for the magazine, it was a bit reserved. I'm not entirely sure why everything I did for them has to be so subdued. I assume so nobody got offended. Well, we all know Lil Wayne wouldn't be Lil Wayne unless he was toasted so I spiced this one up a bit for my image archives and added the marijuana theme. I also used this one a while back for marijuana.com but the images were web based and very low resolution, so I just tweaked the old one a bit for that commission. One thing that was good with that client was that pretty much anything goes so no worries with offending anyone. I'll be posting several of these tweaked old images in part to update my product portfolio and because they are only updates to the originals, they're good for this time I'm still slightly out of commission with my back. I can do these fairly quickly so it works out good for now. I have many in the making though that are much more complex experimenting with color, saturation, texture and the use of patterns in the backgrounds. I'll also be pushing the exaggeration a bit more in many of the upcoming caricature illustrations so stay tuned. If your interested in any of these images, you can check out my store or simply click the images for more details. As always if you have any commission inquiries, please feel free to email me at rodneywpike@gmail.com or fill out my contact form at the link provided. I have a few of these finished so check back tomorrow for more like this.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

BB King and Lucile 2017

BB King and Lucile 2017

Tonight I'm posting a caricature of Blues King, BB King with a slight twist. I've been experimenting with some new techniques in an attempt to freshen up my work and add some interest. These first few images that I'll be posting are just thoughts and ideas thrown around and this is the first of several to come over the next few days or weeks. In these new images, I'll be experimenting with much more bold color and saturation as well as textures and patterns and you'll see more what I'm talking about over the next few posts. This one was very loose and quick mainly trying to get the basic color scheme down. The images will become much more complex, abstract and bold as time goes on, or that's my intent anyhow. I have several in the making but am not able to post any of the more complex images as I'm still recovering from back surgery and not able yet to put in the hours needed to finish these complex images. You'll see what I mean as time goes on. For the time being, I'll be posting my thoughts in color, patterns and textures very loosely applied.

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Happy Thanksgiving 2017

Happy Thanksgiving from Mr Bean, JC Leyendecker and myself. Looking forward to some great food tomorrow and a new year just around the bend.

Update: I went to see my surgeon today for my two week checkup since my back surgery and all is well. Healing super fast and I'm feeling so much better. I was concerned about having major surgery on my back as I watched my dad go through so much back in the 70s with his 4 fusions. Thankfully, they've come a long way since then and it was a relative breeze in comparison. Still a bit of healing to do but I'm already feeling much less pain behind my computer and have several new pieces in the making. I'm trying to spice things up a bit. I hope you like the new work. I'll be sharing a lot of new fresh work in the coming days and I have so much planned for the coming year.  

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great Thanksgiving Day!!

Vladimir Fedotko Featured Artist

Today I’m featuring an incredibly talented and unique artist who I recently connected with on facebook. His name is Vladimir Fedotko. His work in Photoshop is unlike any I’ve seen before, especially with his use of color and patterns. Somewhat reminiscent of Max Sauco’s work as far as the surrealism and astounding proficiency in Photoshop but with a brilliant use of color that I’ve not seen before. His use of patterns in his backgrounds reminds me a lot of the great Alphonse Mucha. This artist has taken Photoshop and photo manipulation to a whole new level though it is obviously more than mere manipulation of photographs. His use of patterns, his sense of color and composition are amazing.

One thing I see in his work as well is one thing my very first art teacher impressed upon me. The use of negative space and he certainly understands this. This guy has it all. Now, that being said, there are some of his images that may be considered a bit risqué but certainly not distasteful. I'll be watching this guy very closely and hopefully learn a bit from his pioneering style.

Vladimir Fedotko (Владимир Федотко) Born in Leningrad, photographer and photo manipulator currently lives and works in St. Petersburg, Russia. After discovering Adobe Photoshop in 2005, Fedotko has used a combination of traditional drawing, photography and computer processing to create his unique images. You can check out an archive of his work chronologically here: http://fedotko.35photo.ru/ and if you’re on facebook, you’ll want to follow his profile here. Here are a few more of his amazing works:

I hope you enjoyed this preview of one uniquely talented artist and his vibrant and creative images. I can't wait to see what the future holds for this artist and his work after only a short time working in Photoshop.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Special Council Robert Mueller - Collusion Investigation

The sherif's in town! A quick caricature study of Special Council Robert Mueller in heading the collusion investigation which has been all over the news lately. I'm trying to get a few last minute images up on my web site before I go in next week for back surgery. Five more days. I'm ready to get this thing behind me. Wish me luck!

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