Drawing for Fox Network in Los Angeles

Here are a few pics from one of the events I drew at to promote the new Fox Network comedy The Grinder, this past fall. At this press event in Beverly Hills, artist Greg Dohlen and myself drew live courtroom style sketches of the journalists in attendance. The drawings were more portrait-like, and not really caricature. Since the show we were promoting was about courtroom lawyers, the network wanted the style of the sketches to look like a courtroom sketch artist did them. Plus we had to draw the faces so that the lines and coloring style would match the existing body template, provided by Fox, which had the characters played by Fred Savage and Rob Lowe already in them. Getting ready for this promotion involved experimenting with the different art mediums available in Corel Painter to find drawing tools that matched the look of the template. It was definitely not a typical event for me. But I always enjoy the chance to figure out how to solve visual problems, branch out and do different styles of live drawing.

I even got to briefly speak with Fred Savage and Rob Lowe, but couldn't take pictures of them, unfortunately. Thank you to Goofy Faces for booking this event for me.

Unfortunately, the photos I took of the models with their drawings didn't turn out extremely clear in the low light of the ballroom. Plus their faces appear really small on the drawings! 

At the BOMA conference in Los Angeles (video)

Court recently drew for the day at the BOMA conference in Los Angeles for DCL. Here are a few photos from the event as well as a short clip made while drawing one of the guests. Court not only filmed his tablet with a camera while he drew, but he also captured the entire drawing process internally internally with screen recording software, allowing us to share a good clear view of the live caricature drawing process.

Play me!

At the Sprint Campus in Kansas City

Recently, Debbie and Court were hired by Sprint to draw live at their main campus near Kansas City for their Family Day of Play company picnic. To help draw more of the crowd, Sprint asked us to provide a third artist, so we brought in our colleague Ryan from Florida, who did an awesome job. It was stormy and windy in Kansas City the previous few days, but luckily it only lightly rained on the day of the event. Which was nice, because it kept the temperatures cool.

Sprint had us set up under large blackout tents, which protected us from the drizzle and helped block out the daylight so that the Sprint family members could better enjoy the digital caricature entertainment.

Debbie at the 2015 Anime Expo for Hulu

Last week, Debbie drew for 29 hours over 4 days at the 2015 Anime Expo in Los Angeles at the Hulu booth. Close to 100,000 people from all over the world attended this 24th annual event to see and experience the latest and greatest in manga, anime and Japanese culture. The people at Hulu requested that Debbie draw anime-style caricatures to help promote the wide selection of anime movies and TV shows that they offer.

Debbie is a lifelong anime fan and even lived in Japan for a while. She can even speak and read a bit in Japanese, so she really was the perfect artist to draw and entertain the guests at this annual fan expo. Using efficient coloring techniques to render the anime-style faces, she was able to average 4-5 minutes per face. Subarashii!! :)

 

A Surprise Caricature Marriage Proposal (Video)

Last week, Debbie helped a woman propose marriage to her girlfriend through caricature. Although we focus mostly on digital caricature entertainment, both Debbie and Court have their roots in traditional materials like pen and paper. So this was an opportunity to bring out the markers and help a nice couple.

In Debbie's words: Though I have been drawing caricatures professionally for many years, this is this the first time I had an opportunity to participate in one surrounding a surprise wedding proposal! The week before was a flurry of excitement. Would they like the drawing? Would someone ruin the surprise? And the all important question: would she say yes????? Take a peek at the video and find out. And be sure to read after the video for some of the behind the scenes prep work that went into the making of this event.

Preparation:

I knew that this caricature would be something they would treasure forever (or at least I wanted it to be!) so I didn’t want to leave anything to chance. I decided that I would draw the caricature beforehand, that way I would be sure that the client was satisfied with the likenesses and that I had all the details she wanted in place. The plan was to draw a simple quick sketch of them as they sat for me, and unveil the finished proposal drawing at the end. By having the proposal drawing finished, and not drawing it live, it also ensured that no one walking by would ruin the surprise. I know that I could have used a sign to alert others to what was going on, but I didn’t want to take a chance of someone who just couldn’t contain themselves, so I felt this was the best way to go. And it was!! Court filmed the whole thing posing as an interested tourist. Thank you so much to Monica and Elizabeth for letting us share in this wonderful moment. I'm looking forward to helping plan my next one! Feel free to contact us if you would like to commission a marriage proposal caricature yourself.

In Chicago for Sprint at the Belmont-Sheffield Music Festival

Court was recently in Chicago working for Sprint at a Music Festival for two days. The days were long, but there was no shortage of colorful characters coming into the booth for a free digital caricature, courtesy of Sprint. We hired local Chicago artists Roger and Angel to work with Court at this event.

Here's a link to the gallery of sketches we did during the festival. 

And here are a few photos of some of the festival guests with their digital prints.

Commodity Classic Tradeshow in Phoenix

We were recently in Phoenix for the Commodity Classic. It's a trade show for agri-business and we were there at the Amercian Soybean Association booth all three days of the show to draw live digital caricatures of the event. Debbie and I were swamped the whole time, learned about harvesting equipment and met lots of farmers and others in the agricultural industry

Special thanks to Jeff of Caricature.com for booking us at this event with the ASA.

We also got some footage to create a short time-lapse demo clip of Debbie and I at work. Enjoy!

And here are a few photos of trade show guests that Court drew with their caricature prints.

Debbie at her digital easel.

Debbie's guest holds up her print.

Court and Debbie on the road

At the Grammys!

Debbie and Court were recently hired by Caricature.com to draw live digital caricatures at a Grammys party alongside Greg "King of Sting" Dohlen. The Delta Airlines-sponsored party was held in a penthouse restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Los Angeles, next to the awards ceremony venue at The Staples Center. There were quite a few famous faces we saw in the hotel that day.

We drew on pre-made body templates with a musical theme. The sketches were printed out and given to the guests in 4 x 6" badge holders with lanyards.

Thank you to Jeff Mandell of Caricature.com for booking us at this posh event!

At the Manchester Grand Hyatt

Today, Court drew all day at the MBA CREF 2015 conference at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. Reis, Inc. hired Court to draw the attendees into their exhibit booth with his digital quick sketch caricatures. The Reis staff were awesome and all the guests who had their faces drawn were really into it and seemed to have a great time.

 

Caricaturing in a Very Green Room

Here's a throwback to an event about a year and a half ago. We were hired to provide three digital sketch artists for a high-end retailer, based in France, for the grand re-opening of their Beverly Hills store. I don't think I'm supposed to say who, but they went all out for this event and took over an entire warehouse-sized space in Los Angeles with different extravagant themes in each room. As you can see in this shot before the doors opened, we were in the "Green Room."

It was the most artistically-extreme production I've ever entertained at-with a completely different theme in each room. The lighting in this space played tricks on your eyes after a while. And box tables and chairs aren't exactly the most comfortable seating arrangement.

But everything went well and we have an interesting story to tell.