Sunday, June 06, 2010

DAVID O'KEEFE TAKES A BOW

I've been laughing at this guy's paintings and sculptures for years (that's Seinfeld above), but I never knew his name til now. Maybe you didn't either. It's David O'Keefe, possibly the best caricature sculptor in the world right now.
























Every caricaturist does Clint Eastwood, but how many do him this well (above)?




Above, an impressive Brando.


An awesome Nicole Kidman (above). Where'd she get a mouth like that?




Not a bad Sheryl Crow (Crowe?)!







O'Keefe paints too. You can buy prints on his site.  This one's (above) called "The Clinton Years."






Recognize Led Zeppelin?


Check out David's site:
http://www.davidokeefe.com/







17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Breathtaking. Why haven't I ever heard about David O'Keefe before?

Yet again, most of the kids at my high school have probably never even heard of the Looney Tunes! I remember this one girl last year, about my age, asking, "Who's that bald guy who's always chasing the rabbit? I forgot his name," and then her kid brother said, "Yosemite Sam, I think?" I'm not joking here. They were completely stumped, and I was about to say who it was, but alas, I kept my mouth shut, out of embarrassment for them. They had both been part of this whole "gifted" education thing at my school and had taken "gifted" courses (accelerated versions of the normal honors and college prep classes), and they couldn't even figure that one out.

Sorry I went off on a tangent here, but I thought you would find that really interesting and sad. I can rarely talk about animation at school because of stuff like this. What do you honestly think?

Justin said...

I love these... especially the Brando and Zeppelin. A tremendous amount of talent is held by this guy.

Steven M. said...

This gut is FANTASTIC!

talkingtj said...

i really love that brando, would love to own it. any thoughts on your time working on HEATHCLIFF-i just got a compilation dvd of it for $5.99. to roberto severino-there has been a very downgrade attitude towards all cartoons by young artist for a very long time now-when i was your age i constantly incurred the wrath of my arty farty peers by drawing cartoons, THAT IS NOT SERIOUS ART, they would snap, and that attitude persist! hence not knowing elmer fudd, FRANK FRAZETTA recently died and i love his work,but from the 80's onward young artist have used him as an example of real contemporary art, not realizing the guy used to draw lil abner, what fools these artistic types be.

Pete Emslie said...

Thanks for bringing David O'Keefe to my attention, Eddie! I had only seen his David Letterman image fairly small within a montage of other artists' work over on Will Finn's site a few months ago, and had certainly been intrigued. I just took a look at David's own website to check out more of his sculptures and paintings. Just wonderful stuff - I particularly loved his portrait of the Corleone family and associates from "The Godfather". I think my favourite of his sculptures is the one of Nicole Kidman - just stunning!

Brubaker said...

Wow. Somebody should make a stop-motion film based on his sculptures (maybe they did. I should check).

Mattieshoe said...

Proof that you can render cartoon characters in three dimensions without making them "realistic" or having them become literal representations.

By the way, Eddie, sorry to be slightly Off-topic here, but I've found a blog that I thought you would really like.

There's an endless stream of fascinating entertainment art and information, and the archives go back years.

http://warchild13.com/just_about_me/booksmovies/

MrGoodson2 said...

I first saw his works at a comicon, probably 15 years or so ago. Just as the Con was poised to become the monster event it is today. I know when to place it because Pulp Fiction was the hot movie. And he had a Bruce Willis sculpt that was like a "pushed" Mort Drucker caricature. It was so good, the brain had a hard time accepting it. No frame of reference for a sculpted cartoon.

David Germain said...

Ha Ha! His sculptures look like Spitting Image puppets. They're not only great, they take me back to nice part of my childhood.

Jenny Lerew said...

Very cool stuff.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Mattie: The blog has lots going for it, but it has a stream of conscious writing style that makes it hard to read. The guy has a way with words, though.

Pete: Aaaargh! I meant to put up Nicole Kidman!

Robert, Talking: Scary!

thomas said...

Have to say this is my favorite. Could be a TV show as far as I'm concerned...


crosby

mike fontanelli said...

Yeah, I agree; this guy is a genius. I didn't know his name either, and just assumed he was one of the Spitting Image guys.

Nicole Kidman and Mel Brooks are classic, (as is The Godfather cast, including the frame.) They all are, really.

GW said...

I don't suspect anybody will read this post, but it's possible to draw in 3D using a computer. The boundaries of hand drawn animation hare about to shift again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJUJGpmJGI

Not only that, but you can draw out models too:

http://drawn.ca/2009/08/04/drawing-in-3d-with-rhonda

Neither has been perfected yet, but these just begin to hint at future possibilities. Since this post covers 3D caricature, I figured it might be of interest.

So how does anybody resolve the mediums now that hand drawn animation can be in 3D?

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

GW: Holy Mackerel Thar's amazing! Imagine...three dimensional drawing made as easy as that! Can the program put a skin on the character?

Anyway, thanks much for sending this!

She-Thing said...

He's the only person in the world who can make a caricature of Nicole Kidman. Amazing he is

GW said...

I wish I knew the answer, but you have to sign up to get the beta to find out more information on the forums. For SANDDE, I think that there was something mentioned about it being data that could be changed depending on your editing program or something, but am not sure on that. I wish I could tell you.

For SANDDE, the idea is supposedly to introduce it artists and have them spread the idea by word of mouth, from what I recall from an online interview. Here's one short produced with it, but it's frankly quite poorly made. It uses tweening and 3D gimmicks and you need a pair of red and blue stereoscopic glasses to view it properly.

http://nfb.ca/film/falling-love-again-3d