2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour

2007-10-30 Kyle Lindsay Monster Guitar Birthday Special Colour, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Jennifer's sister, Bev, is dating a rock musician. He fronts a band called Elusion.

A few days ago I got a call from his dad. 'It's Kyle's 21st birthday party soon,' he said, 'and I saw a piece of your art on Bev's fridge. Can I commission you to do a caricature of Kyle?'

Did I say 'yes'? Does the Pope ogle nuns? Do old dogs fart? Am I glad to have been contacted two days ago after 13 years of silence by an ex-mercenary blast-from-the-past buddy of mine who got silver in the Comrades Marathon ten times in a row running BAREFOOOOOOOT? Does he prefer it if I don't mention his name on any public forum cos of some of the shit he's been involved in?

Of course I said yes.

'It's gotta be him and his guitar, in that "rock god" pose of his.'

So he sent me photos. And Bev sent me some too.

Unfortunately, the pics of him in his rock god pose were kinda impossible to use as reference. So I trawled the web, using 'rock god' and 'guitar hero' and 'cock rock' as my search terms. And found nothing.

Then I lucked on mentioning the challenge to Jennifer. And she said, 'Duh-uh! Search for Deep Purple and Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones, and...'

And the legs you see here belong to Keith Richards. The guitar is Kyle's. The black mascara under the eyes is Kyles. The ultra gelled hairstyle is Kyle's.

I painted this pic in ArtRage 2.5, and did all of the texture overlay stuff in PhotoShop CS2. On my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc. All the while not listening to (Va)Celine Dion for inspiration.