Here's a painting I created a few months ago. It is a commissioned piece for artist and animator Tanya Haden. She wanted this painting of herself and her husband as a surprise birthday present. I had to keep it a surprise till he received the gift. Well today 8/28/2010 is her husbands birthday and I know he finally saw it this morning. He is a well known actor, comedian and musician. See if you can guess who he is.
To get the likeness of Tanya's husband while keeping it a secret was a bit of a puzzle. We decided to use a publicity shot of the actor/husband and try to imitate the light in the publicity shot with all the rest of the photos of Tanya. My good friend and accomplished artist Walt Morton stood in as the husband character so I would have a body in a suit, holding a gun as reference too.
Besides all the reference photos of Tanya and the Husband (Walt) stand in, plein air study paintings of cityscape's and reference of destroyed buildings I created a robot maquette so I could make the three robots look somewhat convincing.
Two of the many little thumbnail sketches I did to try and explore the picture idea.
Below are some of my charcoal comprehensives where I was struggling to get a good design and composition going.
Below, the painting surrounded by reference photos,, color sketches and gouache study behind on wall.
