Shivansh Mishra
“Rick and Morty” is one of the most successful shows on TV right now. The show revolves around the adventures of the members of the Smith household, particularly Rick Sanchez, an eccentric and alcoholic mad scientist, who eschews many ordinary conventions such as school, marriage and love and Morty Smith, Rick’s 14-year-old grandson, a kind but easily distressed boy.
It airs on Cartoon Network’s late-night programming block Adult Swim.
Ever since airing in 2013, the show has developed a cult following with many hailing it as a mature commentary on relationships, class structure as well as for being an all ‘round joy-ride.
Now, artist Ashly Lovett has made a stunning series of portraits featuring both Rick and Morty for Gallery 1988’s first Official “Rick and Morty Art Show” in Los Angeles.
She describes the process as in-depth, involving many subtleties. She wanted to understand what made these characters who they are. She says,
“I needed to understand what made these characters look like “them”. Learn the subtleties. I found that I needed to be careful with my line work and placement of the nose and eyes. Otherwise, they’ll start looking like a muppet. After a few episodes, I eventually I got the swing of things. It’s interesting that they make their pupils squiggly.”
She started out by first making simple pencil sketches of the characters.
Source: BP
Then, she proceeded to understand the color palette of the show and used water colors to create some distinct scenarios.
Source: BP
Looking at the vivid imagery on display in the show, she was inclined to create illustrative pieces but ultimately decided to stick to her strong suit of portrait-making to give the characters a new spin.
She ended up creating realistic portraits that end up borrowing heavily from the innate characteristics of both the characters.
Her finished portrait of Rick looks like this:
Source: BP
And her Morty looks like this:
Source: BP
You can check out the complete process of the creation of the Rick portrait in the video below: