Caricature/Cartoon Robert Pattinson – The Twilight Saga – Kristen Stewart Prefers Rupert Sanders and Giovanni Agnelli to Jacob and Edward Cullen!

I feel sorry for Pattinson. The guy’s got everything. He’s got money, fame, work, and looks – yet, he has a girlfriend who doesn’t stay put. I don’t know what the lady is looking for. I mean, if she wanted out, why did she return to him after being with Rupert – it was an excellent point of exit. And if she really was in love with him then why didn’t she stay put after Pattinson accepted her apology and they got back together?

Here’s Robert Pattinson – looking exactly the way he must look these days:

I am a woman but I fail to understand the likes of Kristen Stewart. I find it easier to understand men. Men and Women are opposites – men are uncomplicated, women are complicated…all you need to do is look at Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart.

But then this post isn’t about Kristen Stewart – it also isn’t about the Twilight Saga, it’s about Edward Cullen or the beautiful dazzling vampire who falls in love with a mortal woman who eventually chooses vampirish immortality over spending her life with a mortal werewolf. I don’t know if I ever saw the fire of love and passion between Edward and Bella – I did see it between Jacob and Bella – but then that must be so because I really wanted Bella to choose Jacob and not lust over immortality and/or Edward.

But I digress again. I must talk about Edward Cullen a.k.a. Robert Pattinson, and nobody else.

So here’s a bit about Robert Pattinson:

This young English actor was born in 1986 and he first wowed us with his role of Cedric Diggory in one of the Potter films. Conceptually Cedric was supposed to be a handsome tragic hero, and Pattinson fitted in just right. Then he got to work in the Twilight Saga (a series of movies made upon Stephanie Meyer’s novels by the same name.) As Edward Cullen, Pattinson won the hearts of his young women viewers, and shot up the popularity charts. In 2008/9 People magazine called him one of the Sexiest Men Alive, then Vanity Fair called him The Most Handsome Man in the World. In 2010, TIME Magazine listed him as the 100 Most Influential People in the world and then Forbes Magazine said that he was one of them most powerful celebs – and now he is the richest Celeb in the world. These are just some of the awards that he got for being the sexiest, the most powerful, the richest celebrity ever – there are more, but my keyboard is threatening to go on strike and so I won’t continue with the list.

About this Caricature of Robert Pattinson:

I guess he is beautiful, but then I am blind to his beauty. All I see in his face is a wronged lover, a vampire who doesn’t fit into his community, a guy who’s got enough money to buy the entire merchandise in the men’s section of any designer’s boutique but who prefers to dress almost as shabbily as I do, and to top it all – a guy who really needs to throw Ms. Stewart out of his mind-space…and for good.

Here are some links to bring you up to date.
Their breakup,

The most recent byte on this is that Pattinson has moved out of Kristen’s house – bag, baggage, and dogs!

How to Draw Robert Pattinson’s Caricature?

First things first – get your drawing material together. Wondering what it might be? An HB pencil, an eraser, and a blank piece of paper. Next look at some of his pictures – especially the more recent ones. Let the mood set in. Then attack that sheet of paper and destroy its blankness. How? Here’s the fruit metaphor to help you through.

The fruit metaphor:
Draw a long, vertically stretched rectangle curved a little like a banana. Put his eyes, his nose, and his lips in their right places. Note that it isn’t easy to see his nostrils so avoid drawing them. Check out a couple of side-face pictures of this handsome vampire – you’ll find that both his upper and lower jaws jut out a little more than they should. Also note the way he purses his lips – his lower lip extends a little more than his upper lip. Make sure that your shading takes care of these nuances. Next add the hair and OVER-DO it. It made his head look like the crown of a pineapple with some of the spikes twisted awry.

Finally, his posture. If you’ve watched the Twilight series, you must’ve noted that he walks with a slight slouch and his clothes look like they belong to another era.

That’s it for now…

next in line is the Caricature of a Cannibal…so brace up!

Caricature/Cartoon of Robin Williams – Patch Adams, Peter Pan, and Mrs. Doubtfire…all come together!

“You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” – Robin Williams

You know who Robin Williams is, and so you also know that Robin Williams is funny and intelligent. He can make you laugh and think at the same time. This isn’t something that you can learn to do, it’s an ability that you are either born with, or you aren’t. Robin Williams was born to do roles that make people feel happiness, joy, loneliness, sadness, anger, and curiosity; all at the same time. He is one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood.

This caricaturist is honored to present the caricature of Robin Williams.

Robin Williams Tiniest Biography on the Web

Robin Williams was born in the family of a Ford Motor Executive about 60 years ago, in 1951. Unlike many other Hollywood actors, he didn’t start acting until he grew up. In fact he had a perfectly normal childhood and…believe it or not…he even completed the four years of college!

He played the part of Mork (the alien from Ork) in the TV series Happy Days and later, Mork and Mindy, and this was his first acting assignment. One thing led to another, and Robin Williams moved through tv sitcoms and standup comedy into Hollywood. While he started working in films, in the late seventies, it wasn’t until 1987 that he did Good Morning Vietnam for which he won an Oscar Nomination, and through which he won this caricaturist’s respect.

Some Robin Williams Movies

1. Good Morning Vietnam 
2. Dead Poets Society
3. Awakenings
4. Hook (He’s absolutely lovable as a grownup Peter Pan:))
5. Aladdin (he’s the genie in this one…once again, a fantastic performance)
6. Mrs. Doubtfire
7. Good Will Hunting (A fantastic movie about channeling genius and you are bound to love Robin Williams in his role as an atypical psychologist)
8. Patch Adams (nothing needs to be said about this movie – right?)
9. What Dreams May Come (This movie won no acclaim – but its concept keeps you suspended between this world and the other.)
10. One Hour Photo (In absence of a clear storyline, I think I must’ve watched this movie only because of Robin Williams – yet I loved it, because of Williams’ acting prowess.)

Robin Williams, a Graphic Designer, and an Addiction

Well…well. This is the first time that I’ve read about one of our kinds getting up and close with a Hollywood celebrity. Robin William’s newest wife (the third one, the one who he married in 2011) is, trust me and more so trust Wikipedia, a Graphic Designer!

Another point to note is that he “had” a cocaine addiction in the eighties, then he was sober for about two decades, but he succumbed to it once again (in the mid 2000s.) While I can understand his addiction to a Graphic Designer (we are naturally interesting people,) I can’t understand why Robin Williams, with all his fame, wealth, and…wives, was addicted to cocaine?!

Before I end this post, I must tell you what he has to say about politicians (especially because I’ve been watching the Presidential debates that’ve recently begun to transform into duels.)

“Politics: “Poli” a Latin word meaning “many”; and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”. – Robin Williams”

Ouch!

If you too like Robin Williams, leave a comment…more later!

Robin Williams coming up…as soon as I am able to find my bearings.

No, I haven’t disappeared. I am suspended in the ether. I am invisible to you perhaps, but I am able to see everyone and everything. The only problem I am faced with is, I do not know my coordinates. I need to find them soon and return to my visible form…the form that can hold a pencil and complete Robin William’s caricature/portrait and post it here. I call it a caricature/portrait because it’s a portrait that’s closer to a caricature. It couldn’t bring myself to exaggerate his features beyond a point, because I like him a lot

So…ladies and gentleman, await the arrival of one of the best actors of Hollywood on this blog!

Caricature/Cartoon Keira Knightley, a Beautiful Scarecrow, and Two Beer-drinking Mice

Keira Knightley debuts on your favorite Caricature blog.

I know that we’ve been waiting for the lady to make an appearance here, for a very long time. I’ve been talking about her caricature for near about three months now. Whenever her appearance was announced here, there would be some last-minute change in her schedule, and we’d go back sulking. But then last-minute changes in schedule are the mark of a true diva…right?

I am glad to announce that I’ve finally found the evasive caricature of Ms. Keira Knightley, the lady whose inability to make her mind up almost cost Captain Jack Sparrow his life.

Presenting Ms. Knightley.

A Short Biography of Keira Knightley

(Thanks to the one and only Wikipedia.)

Keira Knightley was born in London, England, in a family of actors. Quite like many other actors and artists who make it big, Keira too was diagnosed with dyslexia. This obviously isn’t much of a handicap when you are an actor, perhaps this is why at the age of six when it was discovered that she was a dyslexic, she became an actor. She acted in many movies before she got the opportunity to work in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Keira was 14 when she acted in this movie.

In 2001, at the age of 16, she got her first role as a grown up. This was in a movie called Princess of Thieves. She worked in a few other movies but it wasn’t until she acted in Bend it Like Beckham, that she got her big break, and people began to recognize her. Four years later, she played the character of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, and establish herself as more than just a pretty face.

Other more interesting bytes about Keira:

• Keira has appeared in the FHM’s (For Him Magazine of UK) 100 sexiest women of the world (I am not linking to the magazine’s site for obvious reasons.) again and again, and she topped the list in 2006. (I know that most women will find it difficult to believe, but it’s impossible to figure out a man’s mind – isn’t it? And oh, I should also tell you that Rosie Huntington-Whiteley of the panties fame, topped the list for 2011. I can’t stop wondering how Jennifer Lopez (twice, 2000 and 2001) and these two could get to the same spot in the same magazine!! Perhaps, it’s a mark of changing times.)
• She says that she’s got no life outside of acting, which implies that her friends and family can never be sure whether they are talking to the actor or the character.
• She’s NOT an anorexic and she’s got nothing to do with girls who stop eating so that they may look emaciated and thus make it to FHM’s 100 sexiest women of the world, and die in the process.
• She is expected to marry singer James Righton, and the caricaturist hopes that they’ll beat the average marriage longevity among Hollywood couples.

Click for a list of Keira Knightley’s movies, along with the names of the characters she played in them,
So how much does Keira weigh and What’s her BMI?

Curiosity is such a b…well, a…lady dog. I checked it out myself and was shocked to learn that Keira’s BMI is 17.23!

A BMI of less than 18.5 means that you are underweight. This site has this advice for Keira:

“You should consult your physician to determine if you should gain weight, as low body mass can decrease your body’s immune system, which could lead to illness such as disappearance of periods (women), bone loss, malnutrition and other conditions. The lower your BMI the greater these risks become.”

Wow! If I were Keira, I’d act pronto. If you know her, stop telling her that she looks great and send her to the Doctor. That poor little rich girl needs help.

Those forgotten caricatures…

Dear Friends of this crazy caricaturist,

My guilty conscience is arm-twisting me into making this post, but then just as what you say when a gun is being held to your temple is always the truth, so is this statement of apology, and the contents therein.

I’ve got those caricatures (Keira Knightley etc.) sketched and ready to be launched remorselessly on my poor unsuspecting visitor, but I haven’t posted them yet. Why? Because this caricaturist isn’t happy being a caricaturist, she wants her caricatures to tell stories. So when she draws this caricature of Robert De Niro or this caricature of Stalin, she isn’t happy. She wants to create something like this caricature of Morgan Freeman or this caricature of Hitler!

Shhhh…listen up. Someone’s whispering bad-somethings about the caricaturist.

Alter-Kreacher: Nasty, nasty caricaturist… with tons of gender-bias! She isn’t bothered about her male visitors at all or she’d also mention this caricature of Pamela Anderson – the only one she’s made that can make a feeble attempt of tickling her male visitor’s fantasies.

Shafali the Caricaturist: Disappear, you snake! Go sink your poisonous fangs somewhere else, or the caricaturist will use an 8B to blacken them out! This caricaturist is completely aware of the viewing needs of her male visitors! She has drawn another caricature that’s bound to make the male visitors do a double-take, though she’d advise caution. Remember the caricature of Sarah Palin?! Now go kill yourself.

Alter-Kreacher: <shuffles away mumbling.>

(I’d like to thank Ms. JK Rowling for creating Kreacher and Warner Brothers for making the movie “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix“, which I watched yesterday, and which inspired Alter-Kreacher.)

Now that Alter-Kreacher has gotten his much-deserved kick-in-the-butt, let me assure you that Ms. Keira Knightley’s caricature will be here soon, and so will be some others. It’s just that I am usually working on about 10 projects at a time, of which 2 are the food-on-the-table variety, and I end up giving priority to those projects. I know…foolish, foolish me. Did I learn nothing from Van Gogh? His methods couldn’t make him famous and rich when he was alive, but at least they made many others rich and Van Gogh famous, after he died. Wondering what I am talking about? Read, “The 4 Types of Artists – Starving, Dying, Dead, and Rich!“

I’ll return soon…

 

 

 

 

 

Caricature/Cartoon Tom Cruise – The Caricaturist undertakes Mission Impossible to play the Matchmaker!

With Katie Holmes leaving Tom Cruise, we’ll once again have a 50-year old eligible bachelor looking for a wife who’d stick to him no matter what.

The caricaturist has found the right bride for Tom Cruise – one who’d never leave him especially because he wants to follow his religion. She won’t be mad because he’d want their kids to follow Scientology.

Tom Cruise, the Hollywood actor who has successfully completed four Impossible Missions has recently been handed the divorce papers by his most recent wife’s attorney. Tom’s been trying very hard to stay married. His first marriage to Mimi Rogers who was 7 years his senior, lasted about two years. He then married the nose of Hollywood, Nicole Kidman, stayed married for 10 long years, then they got separated in 2001. In 2006 he married Katie Holmes, who’s now asking for a divorce.

The reason that Katie’s lawyer wants to cite as grounds for divorce, drove me to draw this caricature. Believe it or not, Katie wants a divorce because Tom Cruise is a very religious man, and he wants to instil the same neat values in their daughter Suri. He wants Katie to join the Church of Scientology so that she may grow up to become a hardcore scientologist. Shame on you, Katie! In this crazy world of today, you are a lucky woman to have found a religious thetan-fearing husband. Well, Holmes doesn’t want her daughter to grow up with the right scientological values.On the other hand, Tom Cruise, a strict follower of his religion, is unable to come to terms with the fact that most people in this world don’t even consider his religion a proper religion. He’s constantly trying to communicate with his thetans!

Tom Cruise’s Problem – A Serious Analysis

Ron Hubbard, the pulp fiction writer who started the Scientology religion, says that millions of years ago, a guy called Xenu (who perhaps was the President of a Galactic federation made of many planets) faced the same problem that humans are facing today – the problem of overpopulation. He decided that the best way to get rid of the extra people was to blow them up and send their spirits to earth. These alien spirits are called Thetans and they are responsible for all human miseries, including the ones that Tom is currently experiencing. I am sure that Tom has done everything in his capacity to ensure that his Thetans don’t bother him, yet…he’s not tried the one thing that could bring happiness and peace to everyone.

Tom must marry an alien from the same Galactic Federation. His Thetans will then develop the right sort of connection with the bride’s Thetan, and all Thetans will then live happily ever after!

BTW, it was Mimi Rogers, his least permanent wife, who had introduced Tom to Scientology. She however decided that Scientology wasn’t her cup of tea and stopped following it. Smart girl.

Caricature/Cartoon – Robert De Niro – One of the Greatest Actors of all times asks, “You talkin’ to me?”

Robert De Niro is a fabulous actor, but an equally difficult subject for a caricature. I disagree with my dear blog-friend and fantasy writer Barb‘s opinion that it must be easy to make his caricature. It isn’t. At least, it wasn’t for me – despite the fact that usually it’s quite easy for me to caricature most people.

Let me explain. De Niro’s eyes have a sparkle that make them look like he were making fun of you – and if you want to draw the real De Niro, this look has to be combined with the over-all maturity of his personality. It isn’t easy. You need to really walk a tightrope. A little more of this and he begins to look like a clown, a little more of that, you turn him into someone who’s never smiled in his life.

My favorite De Niro performances are in the roles of Max Cady and Vito Corleone. Yet I chose to caricature a not-so-young-not-so-old De Niro, because I wanted the caricature to be a visual bridge between his past and present looks.

Okay, it’s time to unveil the drawing

When an actor transform himself into the character that he has to portray for his role the Robert De Niro does, you begin to feel that those characters and their descriptions are closer to his biography than his real life’s story. So, in a daring move, the Caricaturist breaks away from the established tradition of beginning the post with a short biography. Instead, she talks about the characters that he played.

The Most Memorable Characters played by Robert De Niro

Vito Corleone:

In the movie, The Godfather II, he portrays the young self of Don Corleone played by Marlon Brando. He won an academy award for his performance in the movie and yes, he had traveled to Sicily and stayed there to “become” a Sicilian for the movie.

Max Cady:

In Cape Fear, he plays the revengeful, tattooed psychopath, Max Cady, who makes you sit at the edge of your seat, ready to take off if he stepped out of the screen and lunged towards you.

Neil McCauley:

In Heat, he starred opposite Al Pacino (another titan of Hollywood, who I must sketch soon.) In this movie he played the role of Neil McCauley, a psychologically disturbed bank-robber and a medium-gray character.

And finally,

Travis Bickle:

Travis Bickle the Taxi Driver is a social misfit. Travis begins to fantasize about cleaning the “filth on the streets.” In the role of Travis Bickle, he immortalized the lines, “You talkin’ to me?“

Now a quick snap-shot of his life.

Robert De Niro’s Biography

He was born on August 17, 1943. His parents were both artists. His dad, true to his artistic persona, had a colorful lifestyle (why do you think artists become artists – it’s the glamor of the creative license, more than anything else, which leads them to recklessly plunge into the artistic waters!) This perhaps drove a wedge between his mom and dad – yet Bobby remained close to his dad. He caught the acting bug when he was quite young (that’s the time you catch most bugs – I too remember catching the drawing bug when I was quite young.) One thing led to another and then he got that memorable role, which established him as the one and only Godfather of Hollywood – He became the younger self of Don Corleone. You know the rest.

Read more about Robert De Niro at the following links:

• Biography at IMDB
• Biography at Wikipedia
• Recent News – The white first lady joke controversy
• Robert De Niro at Rotten Tomatoes
• De Niro’s Best Movies (Source: Rotten Tomatoes here.)

List of Robert De Niro’s Best Movies from Rotten Tomatoes (Primarily for my own reference )

1. GoodFellas — 96%
2. The Godfather, Part II — 96%
3. Taxi Driver — 93%
4. Heat — 92%
5. Raging Bull — 92%
6. Once Upon a Time in America — 92%
7. Casino — 91%
8. The Deer Hunter — 91%
9. Brazil — 89%
10. A Bronx Tale — 89%
(Source: Rotten Tomatoes.)

Caricature/Cartoon – Leonardo DiCaprio – The Abagnale Jr. who grew up to become J. Edgar!

This guy?

Who else but Frank William Abagnale Jr. now known as J. Edgar Hoover, a.k.a Leonardo DiCaprio!

Catch me if you Can!

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Tiniest Biography on the Web

Every sensible biography must begin with the birth of its subject. Leonardo DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974 in LA, California. As it happens, most people who go on to become famous in their lives, come from a broken home; so was the case of Leonardo whose parents separated when he was a toddler. Leonardo’s dad however was not a normal person. He was an artist…even better, he was a comic book illustrator. So his dad’s influence made Leonardo explore his creative side (?) when he was little. Leonardo went to work at the tender age of 5, but was kicked out of the show for unprofessional behavior (?!) Leonardo wasn’t a good student (obviously, if he were the world wouldn’t be talking about him and obscure caricaturists wouldn’t be drawing his rather unique physiognomy,) nor was he a smashing-hit with the fairer-sex.

One thing led to another, and then I saw him in Titanic (the movie, I mean, not the ship) smooching Kate Winslet. I checked out my parameters of handsomeness and wondered why the west found him good-looking! (BTW, he’s taller than he looks. He’s 5 feet 11 inches or more!)

Anyway, Leonardo DiCaprio’s first movie wasn’t Titanic, it was “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” for which he was nominated for an Oscar (He doesn’t look like himself in this movie though). He was nineteen then. Well, one movie led to another, until “Titanic” happened. “Titanic” catapulted Leonardo into being an international celebrity. I read that 28 Kabul Barbers were apprehended by the Taliban because they were giving those kids the Leonardo-Haircut!

Why Leonardo was called Leonardo?

When Leonardo hadn’t found his way out of his mom’s womb, she went visiting a museum. The yet-unnamed-Leonardo decided to kick his mom for the first time when she stood admiring a painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Every mother wants to remember that first-ever kick (and hopes that the child would stop kicking once it’s out,) and so Leonardo’s mom decided to call him Leonardo.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Famous Movies

Some of his movies are:

• This Boy’s Life
• What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
• Titanic
• The Man in the Iron Mask
• Catch Me If You Can
• The Aviator
• The Departed
• Blood Diamond
• Body of Lies
• Inception
• J. Edgar (Recent)

The Caricaturist’s Opinion on the DiCaprio movies that she’s seen

I watched “Titanic” but it made me sad. I don’t like tragedies. There’s enough sorrow in real-life and I really don’t like spending my time watching movies in which the hero dies. I loved him as King Luis XIV in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” a movie that may or may not be historically accurate – but who cares – not the Caricaturist! “Catch me if you Can” is fantastic. Geniuses of all types make me feel optimistic and happy…and knowing that Frank William Abagnale Jr.s exist makes this world a more interesting place for me. I watched “Blood Diamond” and wondered what the heck we need those diamonds for. Even if I had millions, I’d not waste them on a stupid piece of shiny rock that I could tie around my neck and get Spondalytis. In my opinion, no sane person should wear diamonds…but then if the world was sane, I’d not have anything to do. Who’d I ridicule then?!

Finally, “Inception.” I hated the movie, and I have a strong reason for hating it. I watch movies because I want a break from work. This movie puts your mind to work, and that too in the highest gear. You’ve got to go on calculating the dream-depth, the corresponding time-span that Leo and his team can spend in the dream…additionally you’ve got to remember the names of the dream-owners and the team-members who get left behind on the higher level! Phew! The movie left me with a headache that refused to leave me for two whole days! And this movie got several award nominations…thankfully, it didn’t win many awards or I’d have to wonder.

J. Edgar (A movie made on the life of perhaps the longest-serving FBI director J. Edgar Hoover) is right now running in the theaters. I am wondering whether I should watch it in the theater or I should wait for it to premier on television…still thinking

Caricature/Cartoon – Shia LaBeouf wondering whether the Transformers are really worth the hassle?

The caricaturist presents a colorful yet confused Shia LaBeouf.

Ohhhhh Noooooo! Is this what I've begun to look like? What have the Transformers have done to me?!

Down the Memory Lane:

Where do I begin? With his transformation through Transformers or with his disturbing Disturbia? I think I first saw Shia LaBeouf in the first movie of the Transformers series. He looks a lot like the boy who used to live in my neighborhood – in another lifetime. I didn’t like that boy a lot. I thought he was a lot dumber than me (and he reflected the sentiment towards me.) He ended up running his father’s paint shop, a task that doesn’t require you to be a genius, and I ended up poking fun at others – so effectively both of us turned out to be right.

But I’ve digressed from the topic completely. That neighbor-o-mine isn’t the topic of this post, Shia LaBeouf is. So let us talk about him.

Shia LaBeouf’s Scanty Biography:

Shia LaBeouf was born on June 11, 1986. He began working as a Standup Comedian at the tender age of 10 (BTW, he used to look really cute as a child.) He played Louis Stevens on Even Stevens. His first movie was “Holes” in  2003, which was followed by Disturbia (A remake of the Rear Window – an Alfred Hitchcock movie) and then came the Transformers in 2007.

In 2008, Shia became famous as Sam Witwicky, the teenager whose yellow car draws him to the war between the Transformers. The next movie in the Transformers  series (Revenge of the Fallen) got delayed because of his accident in which he broke his left hand. This must’ve been a really bad year for Shia because:

• He broke his arm,
• He injured his eye,
• He received the Razzie award for the worst screen couple with Megan Fox

I don’t know if the Transformers have really been nice to him – but they’ve definitely been nice to his bank balance, which I guess is a good enough reason for him to stick with them – but then should he be giving an eye and an arm for it, is a question that he ponders upon in this caricature.

Shia LaBeouf’s Personal Life:

Shia’s personal life is possibly the most not-happening sort of personal life in all of Hollywood.

• Shia’s got 3 tattoos (just 3! Imagine that. He is 25 and he’s got just 3 tattoos!! What is he? A Crabby Old Fart??!)
• He smokes…cigarettes, I mean.(Great! So does half the world. He’s got to take some cues from Lilo.)
• He has raised legal hackles only three times (…and he’s come out clean on all three occasions!)
•  He likes to get into relationships with his female co-stars, including Megan Fox. (What? So he’s not even gay. Tell me, what’s so cool about a straight man in these troubled times?)

The only thing that makes me a little interested in his personal life is that he likes to date women who are already in a relationship. Thank God for small misdemeanors!

Follow Shia LaBeouf’s life at: http://www.shialabeouf.us/

Caricature/Cartoon of Charlie Chaplin – The Silent Millionaire Tramp of Hollywood

Everyone knows Charlie Chaplin, so let me come straight to the point. Here’s my rendition of “The Tramp” the character that made Charlie Chaplin famous. I will save myself the trouble of telling you all that you perhaps already know, and end this post with a short biographical note about him.

Charlie Chaplin’s Short and Sweet Biography

Charlie Chaplin was born on April 16th 1889, in London. Both his parents were entertainers so the believers of genetics might say that his genes made him what he was. Yet I believe that how you nurture your talents has a lot to do with how far you go, and so the credit of Charlie Chaplin’s success cannot be given entirely to his genes. Biographies usually are a lot more than a nature-vs.-nurture discussion, so allow me to proceed. Charlie’s dad was an alcoholic. (Why do most celebs have a twisted childhood? Does it mean that people with normal, regular childhoods don’t stand a chance at greatness? Jot these questions down and ruminate upon them when you have nothing better to do.) This must’ve led his mom to a nervous breakdown – so, in a manner of speaking, little Charlie was more or less on his own. At the age of 13, Charlie landed a role as Billy the Page boy in a Stage Play themed upon Sherlock Holmes. The long and short of it is that Charlie had started walking the rickety bridge to stardom, when he stepped into his teens – he just didn’t know it yet. It was in 1910, when CC was 21 that he first arrived in the US. It was in this land of opportunities that CC first found himself working for films and during 1914/15s he was presented to the world as THE TRAMP! Who would think that a Tramp could become so popular – and a tramp that couldn’t talk at all! But it was the tramp wearing a really tight coat over a huge pair of trousers, shod with a gigantic pair of shoes who caught the fancy of people and brought them back the laughter that the First World War had stolen away. In 1919, not long after the success the tramp, Chaplin co-founded the United Artists film production company and made many more silent and talking(?) films.

A Couple of Caricatured Charlie Chaplin Highlights

(You know that I look in awkward places.)

• Charlie Chaplin could’ve written books on wooing women…but he was too busy making films. The guy’s ability to charm the…oh well…the sandals off the feet of women has been considered mysterious, even mystical by many. I mean, how a 5 feet 5 inches “tall”, twiggily-built gentleman could do that with women who were half his age, is something that should be investigated thoroughly by the historians.
• Charlie Chaplin sired 12 children (that’s if I counted right – I suffer from double-vision at times,) and he made the last one appear when he was a young and healthy 73! I know that a dozen kids is nothing when compared to Osama bin Laden’s 24 and Osama’s dad’s 54, but they weren’t 73 and so what amazes me is that when most playful male septuagenarians of our time include viagra in their staple diet, how did Mr. Chaplin manage this feat in the pre-viagra era.
• Charlie Chaplin couldn’t enlist in the military because he was too short and too light – characteristics that endeared him to people the world over.
• Charlie Chaplin made a movie called “The Great Dictator”, in which he played the role of a Jew. This movie brought academy nominations but it also ignited the controversy that CC was in part a Jew. (According to this information here, the Jewish people are the highest IQ community on this planet, and so, if he really had Jewish blood, it could have played some part in making him the legend that he was.)

Guess that’s all that I have on Charlie Chaplin Coming up…

• Sarah Palin
• Shia Labeouf
• Napoleon Bonaparte

Wiki-Leaked – the High and Mighty run for Cover!

===================================================

Breaking News!—Breaking New!—-Breaking News!

===================================================

New information of highly sensitive nature has been leaked by the Wikileaks. Experts are unanimously of the opinion that this information will cause turmoil among not only the politicos of the world; it will also raise the blood-pressure of other kinds of celebrities.

It’s being conjectured that the leaked document is part of the Caricaturist’s hit-list, and it contains famous names such as:

• The Wolverine
• Sarah Palin
• Anna Hazare (View Anna Hazare’s Pen-and-Ink Portrait here. Updated July 15, 2011)
• Shea LaBeouf
• Napolean Bonaparte
• Alexander the Great

When the Caricaturist was contacted about this leak, she refused to talk to the media, saying that “media only worked to made bad things appear worse!”

Important Note: The Journo who called up the Caricaturist notes: “It appears that The Caricaturist is suffering from a bloated ego. It is amply clear that her success as a still-not-starving artist has gone to her head.”

We shall shortly discover whether or not this partial list really is a part of the Caricaturist’s hit-list. However, the visitors would do well to remember that the Caricaturist is known for changing her plans at the last-minute, so we really can’t be completely sure!

But we shall see.

=========================================================
Remember that you first read this here.
—Shafali’s Caricatures News Service…Making News out of Nothing!–

=========================================================

Caricature/Cartoon – Harry Potter the Boy who Lived and Changed the World of Fiction!

Presenting the caricature of Daniel Radcliffe as the Harry Potter I liked. I don’t think that Harry Potter needs an introduction. We all know who he is. The boy wizard, the boy who lived, the wizard who defeated Lord Voldemort…but wait a minute.

Who’s Lord Voldemort?

1. An avatar of Osama Bin Laden
2. A reincarnation of Adolf Hitler
3. Eidi Amin in disguise
4. All of the above.

In the estimation of the witches and the wizards of the world, he is all of the above and more.

But wait. We are losing our focus here. This post is about the famous Harry Potter and not about the infamous Tom Marvolo Riddle or Lord Voldemort. So here’s Harry’s Caricature

Ah... I knew that the world will never have enough of me! They need Pottermore! What was that spell... Hermione? Oh...I remember now - Potterdom Morem!

About Harry Potter

So let us talk about Harry now.

Harry Potter, the character who took the world of fiction by a storm, was conceived in a train compartment. Yes he was. His literary mom JK Rowling (or Joanne Kathleen Rowling), who was fighting off penury with some financial help from the Government, thought him up while traveling in a train. This British lady envisaged a character that took everyone including its creator by surprise. She imagined an orphan boy with magical powers, who despite his shortcomings (weak eyesight, small stature, young age, average grades, mediocre looks…and so on) won his reader’s hearts.

Harry’s celebrated success as an icon makes me wonder whether we actually want our heroes not to be too heroic, because heroism makes them different from us?

I should fall off my chair upon hearing that you haven’t ready even one of the seven books…and so I will not add a Spoiler warning here.

Without the archaic further ado, let me begin with the theme or the core premise of the HP series:

The Core Premise of Harry Potter’s Wizarding World

If you haven’t read any of the HP books, you’ll find it difficult to visualize the interactions of the magical world and the human world, because they are interwoven. In fact, the wizarding world exists alongside the normal world, and the core premise is that this overlap is kept carefully hidden from the muggles (the non-magical beings,) so a lot of people amongst us might be witches and wizards; in fact, I could be a witch for all you know.

Harry Potter – A Quick Biography of a Fictional Character

The first book introduces Harry as a wailing infant (I am not sure about the wailing part – but it’s reasonable to assume that any infant would begin to wail when discovered by the likes of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia. He spents the first decade of his life in the human or the muggle world, but later pursues his education in magic at the Center of all magical learning, Hogwarts. Most of his adventures are set in Hogwarts however, Harry is also found in various other magical places, for example the burrow where the Weasley’s live and where Harry is fawned upon by Mrs. Weasley, who is his best friend Ron‘s Mom.

Harry prefers Hogwarts to Privet Drive – as it’s at Hogwarts that he makes his first friends, and learns the truth about his parents. In the first book, “The Philosophers/Sorcerer’s Stone,” Harry first meets Lord Voldemort, his arch-rival, the villain, the sicko who killed Harry’s parents with an unforgivable curse, and who now wants to kill Harry. Why? Because his curse couldn’t kill Harry when he was a one year old infant as his mother died to save him.

The remaining 6 books contain Harry’s adventures at Hogwarts, at the burrow, and elsewhere. Each book ends with a fight between Harry and Voldemort, who wants to kill Harry and use his blood to return to power. The last book, however, kills Voldemort and shows that Harry is leading a normal life with his wizard wife and kids.

About JK Rowling

JK Rowling – Love, Hate, Criticism, & Jealousy

JK Rowling, the creator of Harry Potter is possibly one of the richest women in the world. Her rags to riches saga has made many writers wonder whether they too have that x-factor in them. She’s spawned all kinds of feelings among people. Harry Potter fans hang on every word that falls off her lips (or her pen,) while her critics attempt to establish how staid and prosaic her writing is. With jealous unsuccessful authors sitting on one end of spectrum and with starry-eyed readers on the other, Rowling is comfortably settled with Millions (perhaps, Billions) of Dollars. I think she deserves everyone of those Dollars. She’s got an extremely powerful imagination, and she knows how to tell a story – these are the two things that matter the most. You can write the most decorative prose, use the most vivid metaphors, and churn out pages after pages of content – but if your content doesn’t tell a story that sets the reader’s imagination on fire…you won’t sell.

But then I am not a literary critic, so you can toss the above assertion out of the window, and move on

JK Rowling – A Short Biopic!

Here’s a quick biographical sketch of JK Rowling.

Joanne (who later acquired the pen-name JK Rowling) was born on July 31 1965, in England. She had begun to write early (as it happens with most writers, artists, singers…who make it big. They start real young. We can’t say the same about the surgeons and engineers; however, the politicians, I hear begin to play politics as embryos!) and the first story that she wrote was about a Rabbit called Rabbit. Thankfully, she decided to call the boy who lived, Harry; instead of calling him “a boy called boy” and we shall remain eternally grateful to her for it.

Harry had first introduced himself to her in 1990, and it was then that she had begun the write the first book. However, one thing led to another, and Rowling saw the darkest time of her life in the next four years. Her marriage had failed, her mom died, and she was on welfare (also known as Benefits, dole…etc.) In 1995, she finished the manuscript for the first HP book, but alas, what happens the every eventually successful author happened to her too. Her agents submitted the manuscript to 12 publishers and they all gave it thumbs-down (Possibly for the very same reasons that those green-eyed critics of hers use to malign her.) But then Rowling’s stars found that once-in-a-million-years alignment, and she was given a measly sum as an advance by Bloomsbury. (Now that should teach me not to crinkle my nose and wrinkle my eyebrows at the peanuts that I am offered for my work – but did I ever tell you that I never enjoyed the process of learning?)

Well…I guess I am done with the most interesting part. A talented person needs just one success, and with that first book, Rowling got hers. She had the talent to weave stories and build characters, places, and events, and so every new book that she published became a bigger hit than the previous one.

You know the rest – right? If you don’t, then you should check out this link at Wikipedia:

Here are the 7 books in the Harry Potter Series (Source: hp-lexicon.org)

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s in the US) Stone
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

More of Potter at Pottermore?

Right now the world is waiting for PotterMore!

What is Pottermore?

Well, I think that it is an Online Community RPG (Role-playing Game.) Why? Read my reasons here.

Why Pottermore?

Frankly, I believe that Warner Bros., couldn’t afford the dampening of interest around Harry Potter. They still have one last movie (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part II) to profit from and they have a lot of merchandize sales to make. Because they need to keep the hype alive, and because they want the Potter fans to be clamoring for something again, they’ve decided to launch PotterMore! Look at the hoopla around it. Don’t you think that we’ve gone back into that lost era of new HP launches? Everyone’s talking about Pottermore – aren’t they?

But then, for us Potter fans, that doesn’t change a thing – does it?

Before I end this post, here are some popular Potter Fan Sites:

• MuggleNet
• The Leaky Cauldron
• Harry Potter Lexicon
• Harry Potter Wiki
• Harry Potter Fan Zone
• Accio Potter

Alohamora Pottermore!
(Find the list of spells here.)

POTTERMORE UPDATE – NEWS!:

About an hour ago, Pottermore.com was launched with a video of JK Rowling talking about Pottermore being an online reading experience for the Potter-fans. The books will also be relaunched as e-Books. The Potter fans will also be re-building the same stories alongside. Rowling also said that she’d be contributing the info that she had been hoarding for her readers…

All-in-all, a disappointing launch for me – but I guess, there are other more loyal fans who appear to be very happy with it.

Let us wait and watch…once again.

Shafali’s Cartoon, A Football Rat, and Handsome Indian Men – Some Long Tail SEO Humor!

Before I begin, let me tell you that the long tail that I am talking about is a funky name for a simple concept.

Most of the people who land on your blog through searches reach there by typing in search terms that aren’t a direct match to your content.

Here are some inspirational long-tail search terms that brought some innocent, unsuspecting visitors to this blog. In this post, I attempt to assuage their hurt feelings by addressing them directly.

Search Term 1: Nobody answers my question, cartoons:
My dear visitor, nobody answers my questions either. I think that we need to start a group of people with unanswered questions and start answering questions for one another. In fact we could swap one question for one answer. What are your thoughts?

Search Term 2: shafali’s cartoon:
Check out the sidebar. That maniacal looking brush-wielding woman with hula hoops in her ears, is Shafali – and the image that you are seeing is an extremely realistic portrait that has an unbelievable likeness to the subject – one of the many Shafalis who burden this Earth with their presence.

Search Term 3: naked avatars:

What?
Naked Avatars?
Whose?
Not of the Gods or the Goddesses or their messengers, I hope, for your sake. If you don’t know what I mean, please read about the Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the British Writer Salman Rushdie, and the Indian Artist Maqbool Fida Hussain whose lives became miserable because they attempted to create the naked avatars related to such delicate matters – either realistically or metaphorically. You won’t find that kind of explosive stuff on this moderate caricaturist’s blog.

However, if you are keen on a Non-naked blue-colored, long-bodied avatar of a human-turned Na’vi called Jack Sully, click here.

Search Term 4: football rat cartoon drawings

I have a question.
You want a cartoon drawing of a football-like rat, or a rat playing football, or rat-like football. I like the mouse type of rats who are homey and who prefer to play chess, dine with family, and raise nice educated kid-mice. I am slightly wary of the sword-wielding gladiator mouse, or even the rifle brandishing terrorist mouse…yet they have managed to chew their way into this blog. However, I don’t yet have football playing mice or rat here. Never thought of inviting them over – but thanks for the idea:)

The only time I’ve touched base with football is with this caricature of Troy Polamalu the Pittsburgh Steeler who blocks with his locks (Oh God, please…please…please – let me be right about blocking…or everyone would know that I know nothing about Football!)

Search Term 5: cartoons to draw out difference between force and pressure
This one is easy.
Close your eyes. Now imagine that you are…well…sitting on the toilet seat (a golden one perhaps!). Here’s the difference that you seek to discover:

• Before you-know-what…is pressure,
• during you-definitely-know-what…is force,
• and after you-know-what is – RELIEF!

You got it, didn’t you? Now be a doll, draw that cartoon, and leave me a link

Search Term 6: joker caricature
You must be joking! A joker’s caricature?! How do you caricature a joker? Uh…oh! You meant Anthony Weiner’s Caricature! But he’s already done a fantastic job of caricaturing himself – trying to beat him at it would be like trying to improve upon perfection.

Search Term 7: definitions of art by known people
You’ve reached the right place, my friend. Click here to read a definition of art by a known person. I am known to my family, my dog, those pesky squirrels in my garden…I am a known person, believe me.

Search Term 8: pen and ink foxes

Pen-and-ink drawings fox me too…and with dogged determination. I mean how do you correct an error in a pen-and-ink? And how do you end up creating all those shades by using only one shade of black! If you find an answer to that question, please leave it here.

Search Term 9: how to draw lady gaga’s outfits

It’s simple. Create a figure drawing of Lady Gaga (or use a cutout from a magazine – it’d serve equally well.) Keep two large buckets of paint handy. One should contain black paint, and the other white paint. Close your eyes. Dip your brush into one of the buckets and splash paint on the drawing. Then do it again, and again, and again. Then open your eyes, and rush into the kitchen. Find that bottle of tomato ketchup, open it up, and from a distance of at least six feet, throw the ketchup on the drawing. Remember to use the ketchup only once.

Every time you repeat this process, you’ll design a new Gaga Outfit…and yes…when you are done, call the spiders to help you spruce up the Lady Gaga outfits you’ve designed.

Search Term 10: prince charles cartooning
Guys and gals, this is news! Prince Charles is one of us! He’s a cartoonist! Imagine how difficult it must have been to keep such a phenomenal skill hidden from the paparazzi for so long? On second thoughts – can we thank Camilla Parker for inspiring him? Or was it Prince William who asked his father to follow his un-princely passion?

Search Term 11: muammar gaddafi 40 outfits
If a god-man can amass so much, what is 40 outfits for a dictator? I think Muammar Gaddafi is a miser who doesn’t spend on himself, he really needs to look towards certain god-men for inspiration!

Search Term 12: animated photos of handsome indian men

I don’t know about the “animated” part, but the term “handsome Indian men” makes me think whether the searcher would have done better by using a more specific search, such as: Hritik Roshan, Amitabh Bacchhan, Dev Anand, Salman Khan…at best a dozen more perhaps? Frankly, I am yet to see a “handsome Indian man” on the streets, though “beautiful Indian women” are aplenty. (I know I know, your son is the handsomest, fairest, and tallest man you’ve ever laid eyes upon, and young women swoon when he rolls past, but anyone other than your son, ma’am?)

(Important Declaration and Clarification: I know that using these terms here would bring some vicarious pleasures-of-the-flesh seeking netizens here, and I’d like to apologize to them for devastating their hopes.)

So what search terms on your blog have made you giggle/guffaw?(girls giggle, guys guffaw – please select what applies – unless you are new-age boy or girl…then you have the right to mix and match!)

Rock and Roll on Stranger Tides with Captain Jack Sparrow!

Quoting self:

People who use prescription glasses shouldn’t watch movies in 3D.

I watched the fourth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, “On Stranger Tides”…and I watched it in 2D!

But wait. Who’s watching ME? Is he the imposter or is he Captain Jack Sparrow? Must be Johnny Depp, the guy who has been impersonating Captain Sparrow – right? Anyway, here are the eyes of this entity.

I'm watching you.

If you think that I have lost my head completely, you haven’t watched the movie. Right at the beginning of the movie, our dear dirtily dandy Captain Jack Sparrow arrives in London. Why? Well, it’s because he’s looking for someone who’s been going around telling everyone that “he” is Captain Sparrow. A sparrow she is, as we later discover, and she’s known in Hollywood as Penelope Cruz.

Do I see you with your mouth so wide open that your jaw is about to come unhinged? Didn’t you know  – PoC-4 doesn’t star Keira Knightly the thin but ethereal beauty. Instead the bulb-nosed, long-faced, funny-accented Penelope Cruz has taken her place (thankfully they called her Angelica and not Elizabeth.) She fits into the movie almost as well as Keira would fit into an XXXL gown. She looks horribly, horribly, and horribly out of place. But never mind her – you could close your eyes whenever she gave that funny smile of hers and not miss a thing!

Anyway, here’s the story.

************Spoiler’s Warning Begins**************

Don’t worry, you’ll not know a thing if you read on…so read on!

************Spoiler’s Warning Ends**************

Well, as I said earlier Captain Sparrow finds that the funny woman, who we just described, was impersonating him. This obviously infuriates him, and he plans his revenge, which would include spiriting the funny woman across stranger tides to a deserted island and leave her there, after (note…AFTER) he told her that he loved her. (What other kind of revenge would you design if you looked and moved like Captain Jack Sparrow?)

So, there wasn’t the Flying Dutchman, the Black Pearl, or even Elizabeth. But yes, there were the mermaids, the Spanish, the black magic wielding Blackbeard, and King George II.

PS: There indeed was some black magic going on in the movie. When I left the hall, two eyes followed me out.
PS2: I’ve got to stop. The eyes are watching my every move!

PS3: Though it seems impossible, yet if you haven’t seen this caricature of Johnny Depp, you should click the following image

Where is the cheese...Captain Sparrow?

Caricature/Cartoon – Leslie Nielsen as Count Dracula – The Vampire who couldn’t find his Bride!

In my grandmother’s house there was room full of books. It wasn’t a library. The books weren’t organized. They just lay there in heaps. Kids in our family were discouraged from reading novels, because they could distract us from studies, and so that room remained out of bounds for me for a long time, but then one summer afternoon, when my grandmother was away visiting her brother’s house for their usual card-game, I sneaked in.

 What I found was a treasure chest of books…some belonged to my grandfather, some to my grandmother, and some…to my father. In fact, I found my father’s English Reader from the time when he studied at Delhi’s Saint Columba’s and I laughed when I saw that he had made drawings (including a sketch of his English teacher) to cover every inch of blank space that was in it – something that I was always admonished for.

It was then, in that room, that I discovered Bram Stoker’s Dracula. I took the book to my room, and read it under the covers…and sometimes, even in the bathroom. I completed the book without getting caught – a rare feat, especially under the eagle-eye surveillance of my grandmother.

I can’t say that I am crazy about blood-sucking, foul-breathed, anachronistic vampires; but when I saw “Dracula: Dead and Loving it” I became a lot more patient towards them. If there were indeed a clumsy oaf of a vampire, so completely out of sync with the times of today; and if he really were as lovable as Leslie Nielsen was in this movie, I might consider inviting him to my Birthday party. (Did I go too far with that one?)

Here’s my rendition of Leslie Nielsen as the funniest Dracula the world has ever seen.

Oh, it's a mirror. I thought this is what I actually look like! 300 years in a coffin can really play havoc with your smile!!

I am at a crossroads. Should I take you through the biography of Dracula or of the charming Naked Gun Leslie Nielsen?

A bit of both, perhaps?

Count Dracula – In Fiction and In History

There indeed was a Count Dracula. Sometime during the 15th century, there lived a man so evil that he came to symbolize the ultimate in cruelty. His name was Vlad, and he became known as Vlad III the Impaler. The image that’s exploded in front of your eyes is a snapshot from the past. Vlad’s favorite form of punishment was impaling. I will spare you the gory details of the process, and also the personal history of this historical maniac – but if you are interested, you can find all about it here.

As Vlad’s family name was Dracul, he became known as the Count Dracula. The blood-sucking bits of Dracula’s story might be fiction, but it’s known that Vlad would feast in the jungle of the impaled, where he’d sit near those impaled at his orders, and enjoy a perfect meal – gloating upon the pain and misery that he had inflicted upon others. (I know…I know – he did it to those who were responsible for his father’s downfall – but I refuse to feel pity for Mr. Vlad Yikes!)

Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in the early 20th century. It’s obvious that he drew inspiration from Vlad the Sicko and the folklore of the region. His Dracula was a more colorful guy with three brides (who could be his brides or his daughters…it isn’t made clear by Mr. Stoker,) and his tendency to stick a straw in any human neck that he chances upon.

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen was a Hollywood actor and comedian. He acted in numerous parody movies (movies that parody other movies) but he is best known for his Naked Gun series in which he played the part of Frank Drebin, the man who unknowingly leaves a trail of disaster behind him.

According to Wikipedia here,

“Nielsen appeared in over one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters.”

You know how marriages and affairs interest the Caricaturist. (She could’ve been a divorce lawyer, if she weren’t a caricaturist) So, she is dying to tell you that Nielsen was an extremely well-married man who had married four times. He tied his final love-knot when he was a youthful 74, and that marriage lasted until his death, ! I hope all singles who are 74 or younger are tuned in

As a final note to this post, I recommend that people who are afraid of the dark because they expect canine-baring, blood-sucking vampires to appear out of nowhere; should watch “Dracula – Dead and Loving it!” I promise that you’ll experience a transformation – your fear will be replaced by laughter!

Caricature Gallery Updated with 15 Recent Drawings!

Dear Friends,

I’ve updated the Caricature Gallery with new caricatures in almost all sections. If you’ve begun to visit my blog recently, you might not have seen the caricatures that I’ve uploaded since November 2010, as they were not there in the Gallery until now.

The Celebrity Caricatures that have been added to the gallery include:

• Troy Polamalu
• Charlie Sheen
• Keanu Reeves
• AR Rahman
• Sachin Tendulkar
• Oprah Winfrey
• Sarah Jessica Parker
• Sherlock Holmes
• Julius Caesar
• Monalisa (yes, hers too.)

The additions to the gallery also include:

• the Pen and Ink Drawing of an extremely resourceful terrier HH Dewey Dewster of Pawsylvania and
• a Polymer Clay caricature of the Devil.

So please visit the Caricature Gallery to view the recent additions (which appear towards the end of each section.)

Smiles,
Shafali

A Personal Post – More Caricatures and Some Plans.

Very Important Note!

This post will not interest the occasional visitor who is here looking for “Sachin with Ball(?) like the World Cup“, “Lady Gaga’s implants“, “Oozzie“, “hitler was a paid hollywood actor in real life“, “the divinci guy“, or
“mafia cartoon mouse“! If you are looking for something specific, use the search button on the right sidebar, or visit the gallery.

This post will also not interest the visitors, who are here looking for “funny sex caricatures” or who wish to figure out “how to draw a wine glass“. In fact, there’s nothing on this blog that’ll help you with what you need. The closest that I’ve ever got to drawing a funny caricature of the kind you’d like, is Pamela Anderson’s caricature here.

And finally, if you are here looking for “posthumously famous artists“, visit in another three-decades By that time I should most definitely be dead and thus, famous!

Now, having put you all on the right track, I return to my post.

The Upcoming Caricatures

The upcoming caricatures are:

• the surreal artist who created surreal artwork,
• the dracula who loved being dead, and
• the little great HP!

The New Caricature Hitlist

I am also in the process of preparing my new hi5 hitlist. All spaces are currently vacant! I am looking for suitable candidates to fill the positions and your recommendations are welcome.

The Story-in-the-Caricature Blog Carnival

I have plans of bringing the Story in the Caricature Blog Carnival back. The caricature for the April Carnival is almost ready – and it will be up soon:)

Another Book?!!

I am thinking of writing another book…a smaller one, perhaps, which addresses the problem areas in drawing portraits, caricatures, and cartoons. If you are an artist – write to me about what you’d see included in it:)
(Read “Evolution of a Caricaturist – A book on How to Draw Caricatures” here.)

Guess that’s all. Soon I shall return with a brand-new caricature!

Caricature/Cartoon – Charlie Sheen – Winning Ridicule with his Rants!

On September 03 1965, Charlie Sheen was born in New York. He is a well-known TV Actor, who has also acted in many Hollywood Movies including the two “Hot Shots” flicks. I make a specific mention of the Hot Shots Movies because recently he’s been acting quite like Topper, the character he played in these movies – and this is how I chose to draw him in this caricature. As the Rambo-lookalike who could empty ten rounds into his own chest, and still walk away!

I am Biwinning. I win here. I win there. … Oops!

If you don’t know what I am talking about, you haven’t been following his rise and fall (and impending rise) in Two and a Half Men, America’s most popular Television serial.

Let me begin by telling you what happened.

Charlie Sheen’s rant on Alex Jones’ program and its Aftershocks!

Simply speaking, success went to Charlie’s head and filled his head up with gallons of hot air. Charlie began to feel the pressure and the heat and the computer of his mind began to throw error-messages (yep! Just the way it happens in Microsoft’s Windows.) All was well, and the people who he insulted didn’t actually mind a lot because Charlie was hot property. Everyone attributed his behavior to his many addictions and their after-effects. Then they could take it no more. Charlie’s rants about Chuck Lorre on a radio program hosted by Alex Jones, led Warner Bros. (the producers of the show) to fire him. Obviously, the “Winner” in Charlie was not going to take it lying down and so he turned around and slapped a USD 100 Million lawsuit on the producers. Now? Well. Wait and Watch! Remember Charlie Sheen wins here and he wins there!

Some of you must be wondering who this guy is, and why should he be found on my blog. (Check out my bloated head too.)

Here’s some information that’ll help you mingle with the elite.

About Charlie Sheen

Charlie Sheen is known for his exceptional acting talent. He is a man who’s got everything and who doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with it.
He is an addict! Addicted to what, you may ask.

• Women,
• Drugs,
• Alcohol,
• and Youth.

Charlie’s first three addictions are well-known – the last addiction isn’t generally talked about. Charlie is addicted to youth. When he was a child, he was blessed with eternal youth, or so he was told. When he grew up, he thought that he was going to be forever young, and so he wasted his youth chasing women of loose morals in his inebriated, drugged state. When he realized the truth, it was too late…and this made him really-charlie angry.

So now you know Charlie…right?

Let’s now talk about his personal and professional lives, which are intricately inter-woven.

Charlie Sheen’s Personal Life

It’s currently in ruins. As recently as in the beginning of March he was living with a porn-movie actress and a graphic designer…at the same time (Reminds you of those Roman Orgies, doesn’t it?) – after his third wife Denise Richards divorced him. He also has five children. Sheen is known for abusing women including his wives. He once shot his girlfriend in her arm, after which she dumped him. It goes to prove that Sheen prefers to date women who are smarter than him. He’s been an esteemed client of Madame Heidi Feiss‘s fine establishment, which is considered to be America’s best Escort Agency.

Other than his near-obsession with women and sex, he is also known for drug and alcohol abuse. Not that the man didn’t try to give it up – he did. For one whole year, he stayed clean, and then he threw a party! Well…you can guess what happened next.

Charlie Sheen’s Professional Life

He began his career as a movie actor in 1984. His career didn’t take off as well as he’d have expected but he kept on getting good roles especially in comedy movies. In 2000, Charlie rebooted his career with Television. He appeared in a sitcom called “Spin City” and he even won awards for his performance. In 2003, his career swung upwards as he appeared in the character of Charlie Harper (who’s quite like Charlie Sheen himself), in Two and a Half Men. Once again Charlie won many awards for his performance. Before he was given the boot, Charlie was earning $1.25 million per episode, which made him the highest paid TV actor ever. Believe it or not, before everything fell apart for him, Charlie asked for USD 3 Million per episode for Two and a Half Men, but his demand was refused.

Charlie on Twitter

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Charlie also became the fastest tweeter to reach 1 Million followers. Follow him on Twitter here.
Hi bio on Twitter reads, “Born Small… Now Huge… Winning… Bring it..! (unemployed winner…)”

Charlie Sheen Quotes

(the first one says it all.)

• Boom, crush. Night, losers. Winning, duh.
• Fame is empowering. My mistake was that I thought I would instinctively know how to handle it. But there’s no manual, no training course.
• From my big beautiful warlock brain, welcome to ‘Sheen’s Korner’ … You’re either in my corner, or you’re with the trolls.
• I am on a drug. It’s called Charlie Sheen.
• I have a different constitution. I have a different brain; I have a different heart; I got tiger blood, man.
• I just didn’t believe I was like everybody else. I thought I was unique.
• I’m dealing with fools and trolls and soft targets. It’s just strafing runs in my underwear before my first cup of coffee. I don’t have time for these clowns.
• I’m bi-winning. I win here. I win there.

(Now here’s what the last quote sounds like when kids act out Charlie Sheen.)

Caricature/Cartoon of Neo a.k.a Keanu Reeves hacks into the Caricature Matrix!

Neo has finally hacked into the Caricature Matrix!

In this Caricature Matrix, everyone sees everyone else as a caricature of his real-self…and this is also true for Neo a.k.a Keanu Reeves, who appears here in his caricature avatar!

I’ll be truthful. I didn’t know anything about this gentleman until I watched The Matrix, then The Matrix Reloaded, and then The Matrix Revolutions! Even then, I knew him only as Neo the hacker, who asked the multi-million Dollar question – What is the Matrix? He was this tall, slim, rubberband of a man who wore dark glasses and was never sure of his own potential, which everyone else happened to know about! I found Morpheous (played by Lawrence Fishburne) a far more interesting character…all Neo made me wonder through out the trilogy was why the heck was he interested in that emaciated, vertically stretched, Na’vi-like woman called Trinity, who wore shiny black body paint?

I must’ve seen him in a couple of other movies…but I didn’t give him more than a passing thought…and even that passing thought was – why does he have those oriental eyes on an extra long non-oriental face?

But I gradually began to realize that Keanu Reeves is a popular star…and he rules many hearts, including the one that belongs to our dear Barb.

So…ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else,
Please welcome the Caricature of Keanu Reeves to this blog!

Mysterious Keanu Reeves

Here’s a Snapshot of Keanu’s Biography:

Keanu was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on September 02, 1964. His passion for stage an acting came from his mother and his oriental eyes from his father who had among his ancestors, a Chinese. His father abandoned his mother when Keanu was 3, and so he never had anything to do with his father. His mother moved from husband to husband, until she married the fourth time, broke up and decided to call it quits. Since Keanu’s mom moved to Canada after her second marriage, he spent most of his childhood there.

Keanu wasn’t great at studies. His lack of interest in studies is said to be because of dyslexia. (According to this page here many famous people suffer from dyslexia, and the list includes “Whoopi Goldberg, Keira Knightley, Susan Hampshire, Orlando Bloom, Keanu Reeves, Richard Branson, Henry Winkler, Patrick Dempsey and Tom Cruise“!)

Interim Update – The Asperger Syndrome?

A comment made to this post made me research some more. Some experts believe that Keanu might have the Asperger Syndrome, which is characterized (among other things) by difficulty in maintaining meaningful social relationships and a quirky behavior. I guess Asperger’s might be a lot more common than what the experts believe!

Keanu Reeves’ Rise to Stardom:

Keanu Reeves journey to stardom began with a movie about hockey (Keanu used to love playing hocky,) which was shot in Canada. Next he was seen in the movie, River’s Edge. His performance in this movie received critical acclaim but what truly established him in Hollywood was his role of Ted in the movie, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, a movie based on Time Travel.The next four years were a quiet time in which Reeves took more sophisticated roles. In 1994, he made an impact with Speed. The next few years were a low time for him, until the release of Matrix in 1999.

The Mystery of Keanu Reeves:

Reeves’ Charisma is often attributed to the air of mystery that surrounds him.

• He took a cut of $2 Million on his pay so that The Devil’s Advocate could cast Al Pacino!
• He took a 90% cut on is pay for The Replacements. Why? So that Gene Hackman could be cast in the movie.
• He also refuses offers of good movies; this deepens the mystery around him. (example: Speed 2, Platoon)

In his own words, “I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.”

I think that this sums up his journey rather well…For his first movie “Young Blood” he was paid USD 3000. For Matrix Revolutions he was paid USD 15 Million and 15% of the Gross!

Different Keanus:

Sad Keanu:

Read about the Photoshop Meme (and watch its video too), which shows a sad looking Keanu sitting on a bench, here.

Immortal Keanu:

Could it be that he is immortal? Here’s why some people think that Keanu Reeves is immortal!

Married Keanu:

They say he never married – they say he got married. Only Barb can tell.

Gay Keanu:

He neither accepts nor denies it, so…is Keanu Reeves gay?

Left-handed Keanu:

Well…Keanu’s sort of left-handed, but he plays bass (for a band called Dogstar) with his right hand. Guess that makes him an ambidextrous or…a freak?

 

Are you Keanu-krazy? If you are, and if you liked Keanu’s caricature on this page, you should visit Barbara G. Tarn’s Website at: CreativeBarbwire.wordpress.com.  Check out her Portraits of Keanu Reeves in her book, “Keanu Portraits 2001-2009”

As always…thanks to Wikipedia and IMDb for being such fantastic resources of information.

Seven Caricatures come visiting…from Everywhere!

The Definition of Art!

Blogging has been an interesting learning experience for me. Among other things, it has made me reflect upon Art.  Recently, I found myself following a discussion on creativity and art, and it made me question whether creativity equaled art, and if it didn’t then what was that “extra” that transformed creativity into art. Being a net-convert, I went browsing for a satisfactory definition of art…and found nothing. I am sure that in one of those hardcover-bound formidable looking books, there would be a brutally frank definition, yet it hasn’t made its way to the web yet…or…it hasn’t caught Google’s attention.

So I sat down to write a definition of my own, which I shall shortly present to you in another post. It might appeal to some of you, but if you are someone who prefers to ignore the influence of masses on your life, it may not.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the more mundane and down-to-earth matters.

Seven Caricatures from Hollywood, Fiction, Art, and History!

(I’ll be updating this post as and when the caricatures make it here.)

Here’s a list of caricatures that will appear on this blog, this month

1. Her Roman paramour who just couldn’t conquer the Gauls.(Julius Caesar’s Laurel Wreath invites winged guests. Click to view.)
2. The consulting detective who refused to clutter the attic of his mind with inconsequential information. (Sherlock Holmes detected this blog on March 24, 2011. Click to view.)
3. The boy who lived and who might shed his clothes to save the world.
4. Neo, the hacker – sans his shades. (Keanu Reeves arrived here on March 16, 2011. Click to view.)
5. Fanged, dead…yet loving it!
6. The pop-eyed artist with surreal mustaches. (Salvador Dali makes this blog surreal. Click to view.)
7. The beginnings of an Abusive Maniac, once known as Topper. (Charlie Sheen’s rants brought him to your favorite Caricatures blog on March 26, 2011. Click to view.)

Who are they?

and

Who would you like to see first?