Portrait of a Nephew at Seventeen

I’ve got four nephews. Three on my side of the family and one on Nizzibet’s side. I did a portrait of the one on Nizzibet’s side a few years ago when I sent out a series of postcards to friends and family around the country. He’s grown quite a bit since then and asked me to do an updated version.

He asked me to keep the outfit the same but to have his hands giving the ^^^ sign. I had to ask him to send me a photo of him demonstrating that. I have no idea what it means. If he’s calling for the destruction of Western Civilization don’t tell me.

Once he’d confirmed that I had portrayed his hand signs accurately I inked it up and then sent it to Photoshop for coloring. The white space around his hands was to make it easier for me to add the lettering to his t-shirt.

And there you go. Another young man out to make his mark on the world. And calling for the destruction of Western Civilization. Or something.

Finnegan – Color


This is Tom Finnegan, the protagonist of Finnegan’s Brink. Finnegan is a graphic novel that Nizzibet and I worked on back in the early ’90s. The publisher who commissioned it shut down before we finished it and the art went into a box. One of our long term plans is to finish the story and get it in to print.