Mark Feuerstein as Hank Lawson from Royal Pains.

Bigger, detailed images in my Portfolio Gallery.

Here’s Ron Swanson from Parks And Recreation starring in his own spin-off series, “Swanson, p.i.” Obviously a mashup with “Magnum, p.i.”, the iconic 1980s series starring Tom Selleck.

Ron Swanson is my favorite character on TV right now. The writers of the show and actor Nick Offerman have given him such depth that I can see Ron Swanson deal with any situation. It would be great if they actually did this series, where Ron quits the government, moves to Hawaii and becomes a private investigator, fighting bad guys with his trusty golden gun.

Another TV show character, this time it’s a remix of two characters from two different shows: Tattoo from Fantasy Island (played by Hervé Villechaize) as The Man From Another Place from Twin Peaks (originally played by Michael J. Anderson).
I thought it would have been funny if the guy who’d played a dwarf on one show had played a dwarf on another show too, hence the “TV mashup.”

Here’s a short breakdown of the process behind the painting.
I started with a clean sketch, no crosshatching and no shading.

I chose a medium dark color for the background to set the mood for the image and I started blocking in the main shapes to check that the composition was working.

Next I quickly painted the character in black and white to ensure the values were correct and the image read as three-dimensional.

The main color areas were blocked in as big, flat shapes on a separate layer in Color blending mode. This had the result of tinting the underlying b&w value study.

Jump to several hours later when the skin tones have been found (see the palette in the top right corner) and enough shape and volume have been blocked in to render the line sketch superfluous.

The face is completed with the addition of strong highlights and the rest of the painting is brought up to the same level of detail.

All the details are in, the lighting is enhanced and the painting is done.

See a couple of close ups in my Portfolio Gallery.

There are several things I should improve but given that this is only my second ever digital painting I’m satisfied with the result and I’m moving on. One can only do so much in a single image and I know the next one will be better.

Digital painting of Jerry Stiller as Frank Costanza from Seinfeld.
The first in a series of portraits of TV show characters.

My tribute to legendary composer, actor, painter and fisherman John Lurie.
More images and info in my Portfolio Gallery.