About Me

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Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Gary Mackean, The Boy Who Draws Monsters, is the creator of the gremlin webcomic Barnaby and Loaker, Angus the Haggis Slayer and many other characters. Gary is an Edinburgh cartoonist and illustrator and is available for commissions and projects. garymackean@aol.com

Tuesday 24 January 2012

George Smiley- the second attempt


This is my second attempt at painting George Smiley played by Gary Oldman in the recent film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'm still not overly happy with it as I'm still not convinced it looks like Oldman. However I hope that I've captured some of the weariness and haunting character traits that surrounds Oldman's top spy. I also tried to give it a feeling of "being in the dark" mirroring the mystery over who is working for Karla in the novel. I used warmer drier colours rather than the plain black and white paints used in the previous attempt which I think helps reflect the dour and realistic take on government operatives. The painting itself is my usual mixture of watercolour and acrylic paint on MDF board.

2 comments:

Tala said...

wow! pretty awesome! you style has so much texture... i love it!

alex dewars said...

Yeah, I think it looks less like him now, but very spooky and sinister.