Tis the Season for giftins & commissions!!

Here are a couple favorites from this years Christmas' gift commissions.
Quite a contrast in theme/ style but the feedback from the clients was very similar in that they each loved their piece!
1st was a cutie toon of a boy in NY who really likes T Rex.

Client feedback:

Omg! We LOVE it! Thank you again so very much! Great job, as I knew it would be.  My husband is a pretty tough sell and he thinks it's awesome.  

You rock! Have a great holiday. 

Best,

Val

2nd one was a little off-center for Christmas time, but it definitely fits perfectly with the client & his instructions! Frank is a super fun guy with a seriously warped sense of humor!
He has a line of twisted tee-shirts called "Chalked" that I designed for him per his directives.
http://www.chalkedtees.com/
Her large forehead was special request-
" O and if you can do me one favor and make her head abnormally big that would be awesome. I always make fun of her dome and she doesn't believe me so if you draw it she'll go nuts, and I win haha! but besides that, the style, and how bad you mess us up is all you. I want it to be a surprise to me to lol."

Client feedback: HAHAHA!! Its Awsome! thanks man! shes gonna dig it! I hope you have a merry Christmas.
Hey Patrick my girlfriend loved the pic. Thanks again man! Merry Christmas

MAD SCIENTIST GIFT CARICATURE

Another Saturday morning type gift caricature.
A really fun one! FLASH & Photoshop.
I coulda (and wanted) to go a LOT further with zombie or Frankenstein monsters, body parts, etc. but client didn't want to go that way-I really like the way the tubes came out and client LOVED it so it's all good!

more Character Designy Grad Gift Flash Caricatures!

I think the Evel Kneivel and Hamlet are my favorites....

Character Designy Grad Gift Flash Caricatures!

Just finished up a bunch of these gifticature character design toons.
These are more in the style of Saturday morning cartoons-which flash lends itself to very well IMHO.
I enjoy these as a change of pace from the crazier exaggerated stuff and it's a nice exercise to try out different styles....and It's a lot of fun too-Thanks Bernd!

GIFT CARICATURE- SCUBA DIVER

I 've been doing gift carics over 20 years now, and I think this is my all-time favorite! (non-digital, maybe even digital, too..l)
I LOVE No-Mercy requests, and he gots a great face.
I spent over half hr on the beard & chin alone!

3 Gift CARICATURES for obgyn doctors!

These are done in Flash-(my favorite new program!)
They're all obgyn docs so I put the different babies in there. The themes were "Happy Feet", "Yosemite Sam" and "Tony Soprano"-my favorite is baby Soprano-could be Silvio or Paulie....
These were a LOT of fun and a LOT of work-and he paid UpFront and he LOved them so it was ALLL GOOD!
LOVE to get more clients like this do more of these!
Thanks Owen & Deb!

Super Hero Gift Illustration-cont'd

Here is the finished piece for use on invitations. (Not sure how the one image got inverted?)

Cops & Caricatures

This is a mixture of "Live Caricature" & "Gift Caricature" and something I plan to offer more often.
Bob wanted full-color gift illo for retiring school principal-4 cop's mugs + retiree in "No Mercy" style..which is usually done in studio from photos and can take some time....and he needed it soon...but after discussing budget and timeline nad the fact that it was a 10 minute drive, we agreed the best way to approach this would be to have me come like I would any other live event at my regular hourly rate and take "art direction" from there. So I was escorted into Abington Police Precinct. I ended up sketching each of the attending officers around an empty desk where the guest of honor would be seated. However the only pix of said guest were on a website so I inked and did alittle color on the policemen and then sat at a desk drawing the retiring principal from a website photo-not the easiest thing to do. Then I finished all the coloring. The whole time I can hear these guys joking with eachother and realize I need not pull ANY punches! All in all, around 2 hrs-including time waiting for the colorful guy in the yellow to show up. These guys had great sense of humor and were a lot of fun and laughed their asses off-pointing out eachother to eachother-turning red and purple! Thanks offficers!......and No, I was not drinking.

GIFT CARICATURE

I really had fun with this and love getting these kind of projects...Have fun, I like the ones from your Funnest Party ever post on your blog-use your imagination, the only guidelines.
Clare was extremely patient with this, so I really wanted to make it worth her wait.
Here's her reply email:
Hi Patrick !
I got my caricature today and I LOVE it !! It just makes me keep on
smiling !
I'll cherish it .
Thanks so much !
I might have you do another. It's so much fun .
I'll spread the word how good you are.
Thanks,
Clare