Lady Gaga won an Oscar for “Shallow” from “A Star is Born,” a romantic music-drama. As a visual person, I react more to what I see than to what I hear, and so…
You can read the original Gaga Post here.
Lady Gaga and the Spider Colony!
With 2018 having turned out the way it did, “Hello 2019” appears to be a pretty optimistic greeting, so if your brows are arching up in inquiry, do desist 🙂
Anyway, the long and short of 2018 was that I ended up with a few interesting commissions and managed to submit one of my science-fiction novellas to a humongous slush-pile that has only reduced to half its original size in the last six months. This obviously means that 2019 begins with piles of undone stuff and miles that must be run before I can catch up.
Like any logical and organized mind, when faced with such challenges, my mind too powers up and starts sorting, sequencing, prioritizing, and scheduling tasks, and this blog appears in block-capitals on my to-do list. This year, on the caricaturing/cartooning front, I hope to accomplish the following two things.
I need to do some fiction writing (a science-fiction novella awaits completion, a fantasy novella awaits its transformation into a novel…and so on,) and come up with a couple of important training programs. This should keep me occupied during 2019, and if I can accomplish it all, mark me down as a true ocean-dweller from Atlantis.
Oh, and Atlantis…reminds me of Aquaman, a movie I watched recently. I loved the imagery, the visualization, the rendering of the water-effects, the forever young Nicole Kidman with her cute little nose that refuses to get any bigger with age…
Looks aren’t everything…especially with the Bloodhounds!
I loved everything about it, except its flat storyline and flatter hero – whose name I can’t remember (but with Google’s help I did. He is Jason Momoa.) I know he played the role of Khal Drogo in the Game of Thrones series, but that is all that I remember of him. He fits the desert, he’d probably fit the swamps, but not the clean blue-green waters of Atlantis.
No.
Rethinking, reflecting…
Still no.
But yes, Game of Thrones reminds me of another gentleman, who I once sketched because he is one of the most interesting characters in the series –Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister. (IMHO.)
Knowledge and Cunning are my most lethal weapons!
Artists thrive on the emotions that swing from one extreme to another – and more often than not find themselves holding the short end of the stick. I can’t say for sure if that was the case with Morgan Freeman, when he got embroiled in the #Metoo controversy, but there’s a distinct possibility that he allowed the actor in him to get the better of him.
Honestly, I’m a fan of Morgan Freeman. I love his expressive face, his deep bass voice, and most of all, his ability to remain himself while becoming his character. I don’t know how he does it all.
Anyway, to cut a long story short…
Let me share the three drawings/paintings of Freeman I did.
As the caricature of Alex Cross (2009)
Will he spot them?
As a quick less-than-an-hour painting by a distraught artist
Morgan Freeman – 8″x11″
As a more detailed pen and ink drawing done from a photograph
As you can see, the first drawing is a caricature that exaggerates his nose, which is his most characteristic feature, and it also plays with the deviations. (For a detailed study of how you can make caricatures, please check out “Evolution of a Caricaturist – How to Make Caricatures.”)
The second artwork is painted digitally and my focus was on capturing the lights and the shadows. My aim was to paint it within an hour, and so I began with laying blobs of digital paint to define the form and then just painted in the main features.
The third drawing was done more meticulously. First, I made a pen sketch. Then I scanned it and did the light color sketching in Photoshop.
For the philosophically inclined, I wrote a post yesterday 🙂 Morgan Freeman – In the Eye of the #MeToo storm.
I also want to thank everyone who responded to my previous post despite my inordinately long absence from the virtual world. You guys are swell. THANK YOU!
Morgan Freeman has finally gotten on the infamous #metoo list.
A few months ago, I did a portrait of Morgan Freeman from a photograph. This is the one. It’s a pen-sketch with some more sketching in Photoshop.
About the recent #metoo controversy…
One Ms. Melas, a CNN reporter, had set the ball rolling. She felt uncomfortable while interviewing Mr. Freeman because he looked her up and down several times and repeatedly said something to the effect of “I wish I were there,” a story that wasn’t corroborated by rest of the crew as they said only one of those comments was recorded.
Morgan Freeman has apologized and said that he never “assaulted” a woman, and that he’s sorry if he made women feel uncomfortable around him.
Now, men making women “uncomfortable” by looking up and down is something that’s debatable, mostly because a reasonably attractive woman just needs to step out of the house and she’s looked “up and down,” and I know from my experience of living in hostels that many women who don’t get looked become very depressed. They attempt all sorts of harmful-to-health effects to get men to look them up and down – including wearing hourglass waist-lined dresses that pinch their midriffs and walking provocatively but dangerously on stilettos.
And this bit about sizing-up isn’t restricted to men. When a male eye candy passes by, women look them “up and down” though less overtly, sometimes from behind their goggles but often not, and a few even drool open-mouthed.
This visual attention is often is appreciation of the human form generally peppered with some fleeting sexual interest that disappears as soon as the object of attention moves out of their visual field.
The human form naked as well as clothed has been the subject of artistic inquiry through centuries. Artists have used both male and female forms with gusto through the last thousand years, and while female artists of the Renaissance period stayed with portraying only the fully clothed female form, the male artists had a field day painting their models au-naturel. Men have traditionally been more brazen (for want of a more appropriate word) in their approach to the human body.
Now when does this supposed “appreciation of the human form” become the subject of #metoo?
When it leaves the woman uncomfortable. I understand that it happens when the man is usually a dodderer and the woman much younger. When a handsome young man (say, Channing Tatum or even Ashton Kutcher) sizes a woman up, it’s admiration but when an eighty-two-year-old Morgan Freeman does it, it leaves women uncomfortable.
Unfortunately habits once formed are difficult to break, and I guess that’s why we find so many old men drooling helplessly – quite like a penniless child who looks through the glass window of a bakery.
The fact that mature women too experience desire upon witnessing the toned muscles and bronzed bodies of men is overlooked mostly because women don’t gape at them open-mouthed nor move their heads sideways to follow their subject of interest like a puppy watches a piece of chicken. This is so because they have spent their youth being the “observed” and not the “observer.”
In my opinion, Morgan Freeman’s fall into the #metoo cauldron was initiated because with his advancing age he didn’t transform into a universal dad or a universal grand-dad (he was even rumored to have an affair with E’Dena Hines, his grand-daughter from his first wife who isn’t a blood relative but about 45 years his junior.) His long-formed habit of “appreciating” the female form and such rumors possibly led to his #metoo-ing. Ms. Melas’ journalistic sense would have definitely reasoned that with her personal experience with him and his rumored interest in younger women would lead her to more such women who’d like to share their stories with her.
All this contrasts with what I understand of molestation. In my opinion, molestation happens when a man touches a woman inappropriately without consent. Period.
If looking at a woman’s form or making a slightly off-color remark in her presence would result in being #metoo-ed, I think men would have to tip-toe around women, always careful of what they spoke, how they behaved – and that, I believe would render this world quite colorless.
I think Morgan Freeman didn’t molest those women and if he did make them feel uncomfortable, he didn’t do it on purpose. It’s time to accept his apology and move on. Molestation is a serious offense and l don’t think Morgan Freeman deserves to be on that #metoo list. Let us not trivialize the pain of molestation by bringing every little look and comment within its purview.
Note: This is a hobby-sketch done from a photograph that I admired for its lighting. Since this is a proportionate reproduction of the photograph, please don’t enquire for licensing the image. It’s not for sale/licensing.
This gallery contains 12 photos.
Here’s the guy for you identify 🙂
Who could he be?
Possibilities:
Whoever he is, he and I both wish our visitors,
Today Jimmy Fallon is one of the most recognized faces in America. He’s the guy who slipped into the flip-flops that Jay Leno left behind and captained the ship of the Tonight Show with equal ease and finesse.
Here’s the Jimmy Fallon caricature that I painted.
Fallon debuted as the Tonight Show host in February 2014. Before The Tonight Show, he had been hosting Late Night with Jimmy Fallon for almost six years. The good news is that The Tonight Show is doing better with Fallon than it was doing with Leno. The ratings of The Tonight Show among adults are up by 34%.
Jimmy Kimmel‘s show Jimmy Kimmel Live (telecast by ABC) is Fallon’s closest competitor. As the number enthusiasts closely watch the Jimmy vs. Jimmy ratings match, the gentleman on my blog appears to be the winner 🙂
A Few interesting facts about Jimmy Fallon:
Ladies and Gentlemen, that would all for now.
Stay tuned for more caricatures – and Draw to Smile and Beat the Blues.
Robin Williams died on Monday, August 11, 2014. I will always carry with me the impressions of his movies, which unlike most other movies that I have watched, refuse to fade away with time.
His alcoholism and cocaine-addiction is being cited as the main causes of depression, which could have led to his suicide. In this hour of sadness, one must not give in to conjecturing, but one cannot imagine this Robin Williams giving in and taking his own life…and yet, drugs lead to unimaginable psychological consequences.
I had done the following Robin Williams’ caricature in 2012. Today, when I look at this caricature, his smile appears stretched between two opposing emotions that culminate into an expression of knowing something that others don’t. A sadness that spreads from his eyes and reaches the corners of his lips, tilting them ever so little at the corners – stopping his smile from become carefree and happy.
The original caption of this caricature-portrait read, “I’ve seen everything.” At the time of writing it, I was guided by his expression; I am now saddened by the thought that if Robin Williams actually committed a suicide, this might have been the thought going through his mind around the time I did this caricature.
Robin Williams (1951-2014): “I’ve seen everything.”
Thank you
and
R.I.P.
Here’s a grey caricature of Gandalf the Grey that I did a couple of weeks ago. Just some sketching in Photoshop. As I said earlier, I don’t do a lot of digital sketching…but every once in a while, when I want to take a short break, digital sketching comes in handy.
Gandalf the Grey – Without his hat, because he’s unable to decide which grey hat goes with his new grey robe.
Gandalf is a wizard of the Middle Earth. We first see him in The Hobbit (well, the chronology of the movies in which Gandalf’s character is played by Ian Mckellen, is different from the fictional chronology of the Lord of the Rings saga.) In fact, we see him almost right at the beginning of the book – when he meets Bilbo Baggins the short-statured but totally lovable hobbit, who is persuaded by Gandalf to join a group of dwarves who desperately needed his help to open a door guarded by the dragon.
Among all the characters that populate this famous trilogy (which gets rather verbose and on-the-verge-of-tears boring, at times,) I like Gandalf the best. He is multi-skilled and his personality multi-faceted.
In fact, if he was a real person instead, he could have chosen any of the following five highly remunerative and rewarding professions.
The guy is smart and sensible; on the inside he’s quite like the CEOs of today who specialize in getting others to do things that themselves couldn’t accomplish in ten lifetimes. Here’s an example.
He tries to recruit Bilbo for the team; when he doesn’t succeed, he sends the dwarves to Bilbo’s hole, and then attempts to get him onboard. Later, when he’s sure that Bilbo is sub-consciously sold on the idea, Gandalf leaves with the dwarves. When Bilbo joins them later, he thinks of it as his own decision. That’s exactly what CEOs do. They make us believe that we are the ones making our choices, when actually, they’ve already made the choice for us. Trust the judgment of a cynical caricaturist: a highly successful CEO of today lurks behind that grey beard and grayer robe.
In today’s world, Gandalf would be a politician par-excellence. He understands the need to create a persona…thus the hat (not seen in this caricature, though), the robe, the muffler, and the gnarled stick. He is a slick talker and has the knack to disappear from the scene just when things begin to heat up. Remember the time when the dwarves and Bilbo meet those three trolls who’d have enjoyed a dwarves-roast, had Bilbo the blundering underdog of the story not blathered to save them? Where was Gandalf then? Guess what – He was away…working, sweating, finding information – for them…not for himself. Gandalf doesn’t do anything for himself does he? It’s all for the people he represents. And we are always expected to take his word for it.
While I don’t see his robe sweeping across the Eagle Rug in the Oval Office, I think he could’ve mentored Mitt Romney and Barack Obama and helped them burnish their political acumen.
If you don’t remember Mitt Romney, here’s the gentleman doing just the thing that Gandalf would’ve advised him against.
Gandalf would’ve really made his parents proud, had he chosen to work as a consultant. He comes across as an extremely risk-averse guy. You never see him putting a single penny of his into the adventures. He just rides along. He guides the adventurers with his knowledge and uses his contacts to ferret out useful information, but do you see him creating or manufacturing anything?
For a moment, assume that those adventurers didn’t have Gandalf to consult with; then what? Would they not reach their goal at all? Would they all sit like morons and do nothing. I don’t think so. In the good old times that existed before the now-ubiquitous-consultants arrived on the scene, the world was doing well. In fact, consultants are needed only when people and organizations get into businesses that they know nothing about, so thinks the caricaturist.
In this world of ours, Gandalf could’ve been a psychologist with a roaring practice. The LoR trilogy presents ample examples where Gandalf attempts to soothe crushed egos and bleeding hearts. (OK, not just a shrink, an agony aunt too.) He understands how the human mind works. In fact, he also understands how elves, dwarves, trolls, orcs, dragons and all the other creatures of the middle earth think. In fact, if he were real and he lived today, Sigmund Freud might’ve been his disciple – after all Freud could only claim that he knew about the machinations of the human mind, and especially how every mundane human act was powered by sexual desires.
I request those with a keen sense of observation, to compare the expressions of Sigmund Freud below to those of Gandalf’s above. You’ll see what I mean when I say that Gandalf could’ve been the coolest shrink ever.
I know what you are thinking.
And yet, we couldn’t have an LoR without him, because he’s the guy who knows – and in the days of the yore, in the times of the middle earth, a man with knowledge was indeed handy. He was the middle earth counterpart of the Internet. The adventurers of the LoR trilogy had to just spit out a search-string and Gandalfoogle would whirr into action – spitting out results.
Presenting the Caricature of Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones. Peter Dinklage who played the role of the dwarf in Game of Thrones, won the Emmy and the Golden Globe award in 2011 for his role of Tyrion Lannister, and emerged a giant among actors.
Knowledge and Cunning are my most lethal weapons!
Believe it or not, until the time of creating this caricature, I was completely oblivious of the fact that much before Jay Leno‘s magnificent chin was seen and admired on The Tonight Show, it was seen in Hollywood movies. Recently, a friend spoke about his impending retirement and I thought that I must caricature him, chin and all, to bid him farewell. It was then that in order to present you with his power-packed nano-biography that I went web-scavenging for information and came back leno-wiser.
Here’s Jay Leno, as seen by this caricaturist.
Handing over…reluctantly?
Here’s his anti-leno-chin biography for my esteemed reader.
He was born in 1950 (April 28, if you want to send him a Birthday card,) in New York. His parents’ parents had immigrated to the US from Scotland (his mom) and Italy (his dad.) His first brush with the stage happened in 1973, when he started a comedy club in his college. However, Leno’s big break came with his appearance on The Tonight Show that at the time was hosted by Johnny Carson (started 1962 – ended 1992). What I didn’t know and many non-American readers may not know, is that Jay Leno worked in some movies too. However, most of Leno’s earnings come from his Standup comedy shows, especially in Vegas.
1987 onwards, Jay Leno started stepping into the shoes of Carson and then five long years later, he replaced him. Many expected the honor to go to David Letterman. It’s widely speculated that this didn’t happen by chance, and a journalist Mr. Carter wrote a book “The Late Shift” (which eventually became a movie,) on this specific incident. If you go by the plot of the novel/movie, Leno’s success should be attributed to her manager Helen Kushnick.
For a very long time, things were hunky-dory but then about four years ago Leno’s contract with NBC ended and another gentleman Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show show from him. Leno remained with NBC and started a new show called The Jay Leno show. However, unlike what happened with Two-and-a-Half Men, where Charlie Sheen’s departure and Ashton Kutcher’s arrival worked well for the show, both The Tonight Show and The Jay Leno Show didn’t do well. In a year, Leno was back on the show and O’Brien was given a huge payout ($33 Million, which some say is Leno’s yearly package) to leave the Tonight Show. This however, didn’t help The Tonight Show re-attain its previous glory.
Leno’s retirement is imminent and he will be replaced by Jimmy Fallon, yet everyone doesn’t believe that the transition would be smooth.
Read more about Jay Leno’s retirement here.
Notice the following in Jay Leno’s caricature above.
Jay Leno’s chin juts out and drops down. It isn’t just a long and heavy chin that dips down vertically, it’s a chin that projects out (quite like the slide on which children play,) and unlike most other long chins, the elongation starts at his lower lip. He has a good head of hair and his hair falls over his forehead. I was looking for a shape in his face, and the shape that I found did justice to his profile, was of a crescent moon. Note that I have exaggerated nothing else. If you refer to the book, you’ll see that I’ve applied the rule of exaggerating only those features that are characteristic (the hair and the chin) and that deviate from the standard. Here’s a FREE pdf outlining what “Evolution of a Caricaturist – How to Draw Caricatures” contains.
Liam Neeson has a striking face with the most hypnotic deep-set eyes I’ve ever seen. I think his eyes must have hypnotized me into drawing this caricature.
For the very few who do not recognize this fabulous actor, here’s a quick biographical sketch.
Neeson is an Irish actor who was born in Ireland (in 1952) and who finally made his way across the Atlantic and the vast expanse of the North American continent to arrive in Hollywood 35 years later. He almost won the Best Actor Oscar for his role of Oskar Schindler in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List (Tom Hanks wrested it from him for his role in Philadelphia…another awesome movie with an absolutely riveting performance by Hanks.)
Known for his gripping performances in movies such as Schindler’s List, Kinsey, and Taken, Neeson caught this caricaturist’s eye in his role of John Ottway in The Grey, and then more recently in Kingdom of Heaven (he isn’t the main protagonist in this movie – Orlando Bloom is; yet he plays an important role.)
One of the reasons, of course, is that he is most recognizable in his profile. His eyes are deep-set but to realize how much, you need to look at his profile. The root of his nose doesn’t connect with the forehead in the usual depression seen in most other faces, and this deviation is a lot more pronounced in his face because he has a very strong brow ridge. All in all, he has a very unique face and its important deviations are more pronounced in the profile. (I’ve discussed the selection of the important deviations in “Evolution of a Caricaturist.” If you have the book, check out the chapters “Caricaturing the Brow and the Brow-ridge” and “Caricaturing the Nose.”)
PS: I am just wrapping up an App-design assignment so the newsletter will be going out soon 🙂 Thanks for subscribing. (If you haven’t subscribed yet, click here.)
Tom Hanks is one of the finest actors of Hollywood and when the caricaturist heard about his fabulous performance in the movie Captain Phillips, she just had to paint him.
It’s true that I didn’t like him as Robert Langdon in Angels and Demons, and it’s also true that he looks a lot older than the actual Captain Phillips; but we can’t fault him with that, can we? He doesn’t get his wrinkles pulled and pushed, and he looks his age, which is just fine. He isn’t a woman who is compelled to look ten years younger all her life. He is a man, and men have the right to look their age.
With that, I put a lid on this discussion that reeks of gender-bias; and btw, gender-bias has nothing to do with Captain Phillips, Alabama (the Maersk ship – the location where the hijacking drama played out,) or the Pirates of Somalia. (Come to think of it – neither the crew nor the pirates had women among them!)
Here’s a slightly younger Tom Hanks looking somewhat professorial and Langdonish.
Tom Hanks, Robert Langdon, Captain Phillips…all in one!
I’ll keep this post short and not burden you with the details of how I painted this caricature. I’m going to be slightly busy the coming week (Yes, I’ve been invited to Atlantis once again! Don’t let jealousy tear you apart, my friend. I AM the chosen one.)
If you want to see how Tom Hanks looks in black and white, check out this link.
Folks,
This caricaturist has found a new toy called “Gallery”. Here is a collection of some of my favorite black and white caricatures done over the past few years.
This is all for now 🙂 I hope you like them.
Have a Great Day!
– Shafali
Sometime today, my blog shall cross the 500,000 views mark. I don’t think it has changed anything for me. I still got up the same side of bed, did the usual chores, had my usual breakfast…nothing really changed. Yet, in the cyber world it’s customary to celebrate such milestones. While I’m not a traditional person (if I were, I won’t be an artist, would I?) I don’t mind celebrating this specific event, especially because I have just the right caricature to celebrate it.
My first caricature on this blog was of Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a Black-and-White caricature (as most of my caricatures were in those days,) and I think that it got its share of attention. Fortunately for me, it was one of the caricatures that I painted for my recent assignment.
So here he is – Captain Sparrow and his two little mice – they look rather fetching in color, don’t they?
Actual Print Size of the Image: 12 inches x 12 inches at 300 dpi.
If you want to check out the black-and-white version, here it is:
Where is the cheese…Captain Sparrow?
You go first 🙂 What are the differences?
Ok. I am naive. I don’t know how to create those polls. But the point is: I changed a lot of things as I painted Captain Sparrow’s Caricature.
The call-outs were thrown out because they would take the viewer’s attention away from his face, which I obviously wouldn’t like. I added some details to his lone earring, because it looked too plain, and I added that scar on his cheekbone because I had missed it earlier. I added those locks of hair on the left because I thought that the earlier caricature looked too symmetrical. Caricatures look funnier when they aren’t symmetrical. (Do you know that facial symmetry is one of the most important parameters of beauty in humans. According to Reader’s Digest, Denzel Washington is supposed to have the most symmetrical face among men, and he indeed is (was?) handsome.) Johnny Depp is another actor who whose face is considered to be extremely symmetrical.
Note the lock of the hair on the left balances his earring on the right, and yet, both help introduce funniness into the caricature. I kept the mice because they just blend into the character of Captain Sparrow. The butterfly ornament now has colored gemstones (they remind us of his gait and his feminine mannerisms.)
More in my next post 🙂
Friends,
I’ve been a busy bee this whole month. Other than working on certain graphic design assignments I was coloring seven of my black and white caricatures. One of these was a caricature of Charlie Chaplin as the tramp, which I did two years ago. Here is the color painting that I did recently.
Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp – Color Caricature – Digital Painting in Photoshop CS6. Print Size of the image: 12 inches x 12 inches at 300 dpi.
I know that you don’t remember the original black and white caricature…so I’m reproducing it here.
Charlie Chaplin as The Tramp.
While there isn’t a long how-to for this, I can quickly summarize the painting process for those interested.
I worked with a scan of the drawing in the background, because I didn’t want to lose the story nor work on the overall proportions once again. There was a time when I used to paint the character first and then move on to painting the background. I don’t know when and how I moved to working on the basic hues of the background first, but I did and it really made the process faster and the artworks more interesting. When I paint the backgrounds, I try to bring different and often unexpected colors together and then blend them in to represent something that connects with the subject of the caricature. In my opinion, a caricature shouldn’t replicate anything exactly… it should always attempt to exaggerate and surprise – and you can surprise by any departure from the expected – including the colors that you use in your caricatures.
I must confess that I was running against a deadline and I was hit by this evil idea of removing the flute-playing mouse and the rose from the caricature to save time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to destroy the spirit of the artwork, so I went ahead and painted them in 🙂
You must’ve noted the slight change in the expression. I first went with the earlier expression of hopelessness and acceptance, but I then had this urge to change it into an expression that shows him dazed and slightly disgusted with what he was…a tramp! To achieve this, I pushed the brows higher and painted his lips in way that they appeared pursed. In the color image given above, I’ve cut out some of the background details from the actual picture (see the picture below for details.)
Most of it is self-explanatory. Where do you find a tramp? On a pavement, against a wall that’s peeling off. The oranges and the reds symbolize the rage within. The rage of being trapped into the persona of a tramp. If I were Charlie Chaplin, I’d not want to be remembered not only as the character I played, but also as the person I was. In his case, the success of his character “the tramp” overshadowed everything else for him.
details of 12″x12″ square.
I guess that’s all I have on Charlie Chaplin.
Now, it’s time for a break so…
If you own an iPad, check out Triangle Tap on the App Store. Triangle Tap is a Shape building Puzzle game in which you use triangles to build the shapes in the puzzles. If you like Tangram puzzles but are looking for something new, here’s the icon to help you recognize the game on the App Store.
Click to Download Triangle Tap on your iPad.
As a woman I not expected to talk about Batman, but as a caricaturist I couldn’t care less about what I am expected to do, so here are my two cents about the recent controversy about Ben Affleck playing Batman.
Cannibalism evokes in us a morbid curiosity about what could make a person eat another. It throws us into the dark alleys of a pervert’s mind, a strange and mysterious place that we don’t understand, and that makes us feel ashamed of not wanting to leave. We are drawn in – enthralled in the sticky tentacles and the poisonous fangs of a mysterious evil.
Hannibal Lecter – the Cannibal who riveted us through his checkered personality in The Silence of the Lambs has always given me a slip, until now. I would still say that Anthony Hopkins cannot be caricatured to look ridiculous. You can caricature him to look scary and even evil, but making him look ridiculous, is almost impossible. I prefer my caricatures to bring mirth through mild ridicule – I don’t like to make them ugly, gory, dark, or evil. While I try to stay true to the basic premise of caricaturing, which is – exaggerate the prominent…I’d rather not exaggerate moles and black-heads, or stained teeth, or even the evil, blood-curdling look that turns the suave Anthony Hopkins into a slick and nasty Cannibal called Hannibal.
Ladies and Gentlemen, with all humility, I present Anthony Hopkins in his most memorable role of Hannibal Lecter, feasting upon a freshly fried brain.
I think there’s a bit of superimposition of personalities in the caption – I’d like to believe that the right-brained are more interesting than the left-brained and so Mr. Lecter must find the brain of the right-brainers tastier. Something that only he can confirm, and I have a feeling that he doesn’t read my blog.
He was born on the New Year’s Eve of 1938, in Wales. Baby Hopkins wasn’t really the brightest kid in the class (the traditional education system doesn’t love the right-brained.) The boy preferred to draw and play music, which obviously aren’t traits that mark the bright kids of the world. He discovered his love for acting when he was a teenager and promptly decided to do the right thing, which is enroll himself at a college of Dance and Drama. Hopkins is a believer and he denounces atheism. He won his Oscar for his role of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.
Hannibal Lecter was first unleashed on the world in 1981, when Thomas Harris wrote his novel “Red Dragon”. The four novel series, “Red Dragon,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Hannibal,” and “Hannibal Rising” has been made into the film-series that we know so well.
The gist of it is that Hannibal had a terrible childhood and his sister was hacked, boiled, and eaten – this left an indelible impression on young Hannibal’s mind – one thing led to another and Hannibal became a Cannibal.
Anthony Hopkins is different from all other Hollywood Actors because he pursues perfection in his chosen profession. He prepares for his roles beforehand. He memorizes his lines and then delivers them first-time-right. He doesn’t believe in rehearsing his act. And… listen in, he keeps his memory in shape by memorizing poetry and plays.
That’s all for now – until I return with some more caricatures 🙂
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.
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.
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!
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!
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