The People VS. George Lucas - Chicago Wizard World

Robert Muratore, Me, and Alexandre Philippe.



I finally saw the People vs George Lucas last Friday at Wizard World, the Chicago Comic Convention. I also finally met "in person" the director, Alexandre Philippe who I worked with while creating the poster. That was nice because in my line of work, I rarely get to meet people in person. I also met Robert Muratore, who is the producer and director of Photography for the film.

The People VS. George Lucas is a great documentary, very fun and has a balanced view of the fans love/hate of Star Wars and George himself. Go see it if you can.



My friend Josh Helle who was my model for the angry fan, me, and Alexandre Philippe.



I was told by Alexandre and Robert that they just premiered the film at Pixar and that my poster was hanging all over at Pixar . . . man, I wish I was my poster . . . sounds like a fun road trip that they've been on? They also played the film for the folks at Dreamworks and are off soon to Paris and a few other places in Europe! The film will eventually play in select cities and then will be available on DVD, and when that happens, I'll be sure to let everyone know.

Cheers!

President Obama

some recent stuff

havent posted here in quite some time so i'm just sharing some of the stuff ive finished recently. so here's my take on the lovely Eva Mendes and my man Freddy Kruger.

Self Caricature

Here is a self caricature I just finished.

monty snake

Mike & Mandela

New Painting: 3324 North California

Well, I finally finished with this painting. It took a while, considering I worked on it off and on in between other paintings that I had to do. While painting, I spent the majority of my time squinting my eyes, my objective was to capture the light and "character" of the "diner".



Detail. I enjoy seeing brushwork, especially when rendering realistically. Had fun with my palette as well, as you can see, I used lots of greens . . . I thing green and dirty yellows are some of my favorite colors to paint into flesh tones?

My next class on Caricature at www.schoolism.com starts on April 16th. Seats are filling up! Any questions you may have can be emailed to me or the staff at Schoolism. Thank you.

Andy aka Tapout

whats up everybody. just wanted to share the latest caricature i finished up. got asked to do this by the father of a good friend of mine. Andy is a really big fan of MMA and watches UFC whenever he can. His son and I even decided to give him the nickname "tapout" because of his love for the submission game. Anyway when he asked me to do a caricature of him, i immediately knew how i was going to paint it, and here is the end result.

Featuring the work of Schoolism student Didier Loubat!

WARNING: TO THOSE OF YOU WHO MAY HAVE READ MY PREVIOUS POST ABOUT MY COURSE AT SCHOOLISM . . . THE MESSAGE IS THE SAME, SCHOOLISM IS AWESOME, YOU SHOULD CHECK IT OUT! BUT TODAY I WANT TO FEATURE GREAT WORK FROM A DIFFERENT STUDENT, DIDIER LOUBAT! PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THE WONDERFUL WORK HE HAS CREATED, ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT SCHOOLISM PLEASE DON'T HESITATE TO CONTACT ME. THANK YOU.
















I've got another class starting soon, so I wanted to make sure to let everyone know, and to remind you of what to expect from my class. From time to time I would like to feature a few students here on my blog, to show you what kind of work is done during the course but also to feature the artists themselves as I am very proud of their hard work. It is so exciting to watch a student grow and become better in a span of 9 lessons.


All of the work on this post was drawn and painted by Didier. These sketches and painting will give you an idea of what the students are learning in my course.

My next course at www.schoolism.com will start on the 16th of April. I will be taking on students for an 11 week online course. What can you expect to learn from taking my course at www.schoolism.com?
The way Schoolism works is students will watch a lesson which is usually two hours long. You can pause, go back, take notes, sketch and so on. After watching the lesson of the week, the student is then given ten to 14 days to complete the assignment. This deadline changes from week to week depending on what is expected that week for homework. Once the assignment is finished, the student uploads their home work to the Schoolism site, leaving questions and comments for me to go over with them. I then download their work and record a 25 to 30 minute critique on their work and then upload that critique to their file at www.schoolism.com I work one on one with each student, and as I said above, every student is at a different place artistically, so each critique I do is very different. And one of the cool things about this is that the students at Schoolism have access to the rest of their classes critiques as well as past critiques from previous semesters. So there are literally hours and hours of demos and critiques to soak up while taking the course.

My critiques are honest and to the point. I look for each students strengths and then push them further in that direction, helping to develop their style. We work together to improve on areas that need work, and as long as the student puts in the time and effort, they always come out on top!

Caricature is not only about how much you can exaggerate a person, there's so much more to it than that. My course covers everything from sketching, and the importance of thumbnails . . . developing character, likeness as well as the essence of a person. How to exaggerate and push the features while keeping a strong likeness. Exploring shape and form as well as the unique relationships between the features on the face, finding the weight and so on. The course also covers painting in values as well as color temperature, and palettes. I go over skulls and understanding the anatomy of the face as well as teaching my techniques for painting hair.
Finally, the last three lessons of the course are dedicated to creating a final piece of art that the student can use in their portfolio. These lessons cover techniques that I use for my editorial and illustration work. Putting all the previous lessons together to create one final painting.

Any questions please email me or the staff at Schoolism My next course starts on the 16th of April and seats are filling up fast!

Featuring the work of Schoolism student Yasin Sycra!

As many of you know, I am one of the instructors at www.schoolism.com I've got another class starting soon, so I wanted to make sure to let everyone know, and to remind you of what to expect from my class. From time to time I would like to feature a few students here on my blog, to show you what kind of work is done during the course but also to feature the artists themselves as I am very proud of their hard work. It is so exciting to watch a student grow and become better in a span of 9 lessons.
This week I would like to feature Yasin Sycra!

All of the work on this post was drawn and painted by Yasin. These are only two of the assignments, lessons 4 and 6.

My next course at www.schoolism.com will start on the 16th of April. I will be taking on students for an 11 week online course. What can you expect to learn from taking my course at www.schoolism.com?
The way Schoolism works is students will watch a lesson which is usually two hours long. You can pause, go back, take notes, sketch and so on. After watching the lesson of the week, the student is then given ten to 14 days to complete the assignment. This deadline changes from week to week depending on what is expected that week for homework. Once the assignment is finished, the student uploads their home work to the Schoolism site, leaving questions and comments for me to go over with them. I then download their work and record a 25 to 30 minute critique on their work and then upload that critique to their file at www.schoolism.com I work one on one with each student, and as I said above, every student is at a different place artistically, so each critique I do is very different. And one of the cool things about this is that the students at Schoolism have access to the rest of their classes critiques as well as past critiques from previous semesters. So there are literally hours and hours of demos and critiques to soak up while taking the course.

My critiques are honest and to the point. I look for each students strengths and then push them further in that direction, helping to develop their style. We work together to improve on areas that need work, and as long as the student puts in the time and effort, they always come out on top!

Caricature is not only about how much you can exaggerate a person, there's so much more to it than that. My course covers everything from sketching, and the importance of thumbnails . . . developing character, likeness as well as the essence of a person. How to exaggerate and push the features while keeping a strong likeness. Exploring shape and form as well as the unique relationships between the features on the face, finding the weight and so on. The course also covers painting in values as well as color temperature, and palettes. I go over skulls and understanding the anatomy of the face as well as teaching my techniques for painting hair.
Finally, the last three lessons of the course are dedicated to creating a final piece of art that the student can use in their portfolio. These lessons cover techniques that I use for my editorial and illustration work. Putting all the previous lessons together to create one final painting.

Any questions please email me or the staff at Schoolism My next course starts on the 16th of April and seats are filling up fast!

Now, enough talking . . . please enjoy these great sketches and paintings by Yasin Sycra!

This piece is a caricature I did of my girlfriends daughter for easter. Abby has some very cute and unique features that I thought would be fun to capture.

FDR Obama for The Weekly Standard

This past week I did another one - day - turnaround Obama for The Weekly Standard. What can I say? The Weekly Standard is by far my best client, they are great to work with, I've done over 35 paintings for them . . . that's nothing compared to the piles and piles of paintings my friend Tom Fluharty has done for them, but I still get excited and look forward to every time I get to work with them. I always try to give my all no matter what the time crunch is.

Almost every time I work with the Standard, the deadline is super quick. It doesn't matter if it's a cover or a spot illustration. I don't know if I've ever had more than two, maybe three days to turn something around for them. I learn a great deal about myself while working on these jobs, and I learn a great deal about what not to do the next time around. Still, it's important to me that the art is good and that it does it's job. It must tell the story that the art director and editor are after, and it must also meet my standards.

This job was no different. The final art that is posted above was all in a days work. I'll explain more below.




This is how the final art will appear in the magazine. The open space above is for the title and text for the article. I liked the painterly look on the edges of the background . . . turned out like this mainly because I was in such a rush.




This was the first sketch I did after getting off the phone with the art director on Wednesday night. About a five minute sketch. It was already time for me to go home for the day, so I would start fresh in the morning. I would have all day Thursday and Friday to complete the illustration.




I wasn't 100% sure what the a.d. wanted, if it was a parody of Obama in the exact pose as FDR or if I should take it to another place. The article hadn't yet been handed in. So until I heard back on what exactly I was going to be drawing, I did this sketch and sent it to the a.d. to get a reaction on whether this was in fact the direction he wanted to go? This sketch was done in about 20 minutes or so.





At this point I had already begun to block in Obama's face, trying to give my self a head start. The a.d. and I talked about different ways to tell the story, and in the end, this sketch just wasn't doing it for either of us, so . . . .





. . . it was time to start again. The a.d. thought it would be funny to show Obama swimming in FDR's clothing . . . everything is too big for him, so I did this new sketch and sent it off as quick as I could to get the OK to move on and take it to the finish. This was near the end of the day, as I do not work nights unless I have to. The sketch was approved.





I then spent my last bit of the day painting his face. I wanted to get it to a point where I would feel settled enough to go home for the day, knowing that I had to finish everything the following day.



Late Thursday night after my kids were in bed, I decided to go back into the studio for a couple hours. Something about the face was really bothering me, it wasn't capturing the likeness or humor that I wanted or that the piece needed. So I found some new references and began sketching . . . and this was the version I settled with. It was now to a point where I could go to sleep and feel good about the work I had done that day.

I was in my studio again around 5:00 a.m. Now that the sketch was how I wanted it, I had until 5:00 p.m. to complete the entire painting. It was a long and brutal day, and for the next 12 hours, I painted non-stop. I took about a 20 minute lunch break somewhere in the midst of my painting frenzy!

All in all, I'm happy with the way the painting turned out, learned a lot and even though it was tough, I had a blast . . . I love my job!

Shawn

I havent posted anything on this blog for a couple weeks so i decided to put up the caricature of my friend shawn. hope you like it

The People VS George Lucas World Premiere @ SXSW!!

www.peoplevsgeorge.com
It's been a while since I've had any time to post any new work, most of what I've been doing lately cannot be shared on line for quite some time. I can finally share my most recent project, the official movie poster for "The People VS George Lucas". A lot of work went into this piece. I don't want to go on too much right now, but I do want to thank my pal Otto for shooting great reference pics for me and of course my models, Nathan Cameron, Josh Helle and my father-in-law Vic Williams, who sort of looks like George Lucas. And last but not least my wife and kids for putting up with all the late nights and long hours! I should also say that my friend Thor did the layout and design of the poster, and I think he did an excellent job!







THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS will finally world premiere, fresh off the editing press, at the prestigious South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas (March 12th to March 21st 2010)! They included the film in their prestigious Spotlight Premiere section, alongside the latest releases from Steven Soderbergh, Michel Gondry, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Shane
Meadows!








Click here to watch the 2nd Teaser Trailer.





GROUNDBREAKING FEATURE DOCUMENTARY “THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS” IN SESSION AT SXSW FILM FESTIVAL

DENVER, CO-February 4, 2010-THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS has been selected for the prestigious Spotlight Premiere section at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas, which runs from March 12th to 21st 2010.

“The team is ecstatic to be screening at SXSW for the film’s world premiere,” says Director Alexandre O. Philippe, “it’s the ideal platform for our launch, as the festival brings together indie films, music and interactive in a unique way that very much reflects the participatory nature of our doc.”

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS explores the titanic struggle between a Godlike filmmaker and his legions of fans over the most popular franchise in movie history. “At its core, PvsG is the examination of a high-profile, dysfunctional love story”, says Philippe. “George created this humongous and intricate sandbox for us to play in; but is he the sole owner of it, or does it now belong to the ages? And what happens to your role as a creator when your audience claims it owns your art? We basically looked at the conflicted dynamic between George and his fans from a cultural perspective, and asked ourselves those questions.”

The documentary features key testimonies from the likes of Gary Kurtz (Producer of AMERICAN GRAFITTI, STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN, AMERICAN GODS), Dave Prowse (aka Darth Vader), Anthony Waye (Executive Producer of the BOND franchise), and Dale Pollock (George Lucas’s Biographer, Author of SKYWALKING).

THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS inventively combines these exclusive interviews with fan footage from around the globe, and impassioned testimonies from George’s staunchest fans and foes. “Making this film was a huge investigative challenge, considering how many people were afraid to talk to us. George is a very powerful man. But we stuck to our guns and dug deep to deliver a completely uncensored, no-holds-barred factual account, and, ultimately, what we hope will be recognized as a loving tribute,” says DoP Robert Muratore.

“The obstacles we faced made us really think about the rapidly changing filmmaking landscape, and so we used digital technology to facilitate an open call for contributions - allowing us to make a fully participatory documentary”, says Producer Anna Higgs, known for cross-platform work in the UK and Europe. “In many ways, it’s a tribute to the YouTube generation, which Lucas’s advances in technology helped create,” points out Producer Kerry Roy; “fundamentally, it’s about how new media interacts with old media, as well as ownership and copyright in the digital age; and it was our intent from day one to give the fans a prevailing voice in the doc.”

The crew worked relentlessly for two and a half years to produce the most accurate, thorough, and impartial deconstruction of an entire generation’s love-hate for the man (admittedly) responsible for their childhood’s mythos; and they acknowledge that this project wouldn’t have been possible without the extraordinary support and encouragement from the fans and contributing filmmakers. “63,686 frequent flier miles, 634 hours of footage, 14TB of drive space, 126 interviews, 719 fan submissions, thousands of fan emails, and only three death threats. The positives outweigh the negatives, I suppose,” jests Producer Vanessa Philippe.

“We were driven by our own admiration for George, profound love of his films, obsession for their significance in popular culture, and opinions about their legacy as cultural milestones,” says Alexandre Philippe.
www.peoplevsgeorge.com

Superbowl here I come!

I've been added to a roster of 10 artists who will be drawing caricatures at the Superbowl on February 7th. I'll try and post some pictures after the event depending on whether or not they will allow photographs by us.

Dr Cornel West

Scarface