Half-Done WSJ Hedcuts of Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow

With "Iron Man 3" opening in the U.S. this coming weekend, posting the hedcut I created for The Wall Street Journal of Robert Downey Jr. as the superhero seemed like a no-brainer...except I already did that about a year ago when "The Avengers" opened. (You can see the post here.)

And then I remembered another WSJ hedcut of Downey that I had filed away - this time from a 2005 film, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", which coincidentally was also helmed by  Shane Black, director of "IM3". Unfortunately, as you can probably tell by its yuckiness - this particular portrait was never completed.

I have created literally hundreds of hedcuts for Joe Morgenstern's film review column over the years, and on only a few occasions have I been asked to stop mid-way through a drawing and start over because the lead had changed. As much as Joe liked Downey's film (and gave it a positive review), he chose to focus his attention on Claire Dane's performance in "Shopgirl" instead.

Now here's the weird part: A year before I aborted the drawing of Downey, Joe had a different change of heart - this time canceling my nearly completed portrait of Gwyneth Paltrow from "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" in favor of Paul Bettany from "Wimbledon". Of course as it happens, she is Downey's co-star in "Iron Man 3".