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.

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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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