WEREWOLVE$

Click to enlarge

One of my favourite books is Vampire$ by John Steakley. I have read it more than once and every time I think about it I feel like digging it out and re-reading it. Whilst I was studying for my degree, I based part of one of my projects on this book, some examples of this project can be found on my blog here. During this book, there is a very brief hint that within the same universe there also exists Werewolves. Whether this is just a subtle nuance in the novel, or the briefest glimpse at an as yet undeveloped companion novel is yet to be seen, but it doesnt stop me hoping one day John Steakley will published Werewolve$.

This illustration originally started as a doodle at work, and I have spent a few hours painting it up and making it pretty. I have also included the original pen sketches for extra added interest. Don't all thank me at once ;)

Yeah, okay, so it was a WIP not a speedy!

Click to enlarge

Couldnt stop thinking about this yesterday (especially after it nearly made me late for work!) and couldnt resist coming back to it today and finish it off. Tightened up a few details here and there and tried to cover up a few of the other sketches that were also on the page. I had a fiddle with a few custom brushes, but they were only really prviding surface details and fiddley little bits of flourish here and there. Soon I am going to try and tackle an entire painting without using the default hard edged brush, to see if I can resolve an entire illustration purely out of some of the custom brushes I have been playing with for the last few months.

Sketchbook speed paint

Click to enlarge

A page from my sketch book that I quickly painted, took around 20 mins to paint today, though I probably spent around as long the other day on the original sketch (taken from Suicde Girls, of course). I didnt refer to the original photo ref at all for the painting, worling purely from my sketch.

It's not wuite fair to say that this is a speed paint, as I am only stopping now as I am already late for work. I might come back to this later on, but I am not sure. Which is why I called it a speed paint and not a WIP ;)

Illustration Friday: STRONG

Click to enlarge

For the theme of 'Strong' I wanted to do something with a strong chiaoscuro lighting scheme, and the final result goes to show exactly how much I have to learn about painting. I was after a staccato relationship between the moonlight and the rest of the image, yet somehow loads of smudgey grey ended up in the picture too :( Was watching Unforgiven this evening, which is what made me draw a cowboy. As if that's any excuse.

Bigger sketchbook rant

Click to enlarge


Various phot ref'ed anatomy studies I have done this week. You can also see that I have filled my A5 sketchbook and have moved onto a new A4 one. It was quite an awkward transition, I had become so conditioned to drawing on small scales that trying to draw full figures on a larger format felt very unfamiliar and ungainly. It's nice to have an A4 sketchbook again, though; I have usually only used A4 but after having drawin A5 for the last few weeks I never appreciated the size of A4 allowed me so many options and really does give me room to breathe and move things around. Still drawing fairly small allows me to really fill the page.

Who cares, eh?

Poses

Click to enlarge

Spending so long over the facial studeis this week has taken up a lot of my available time, so this week the poses uber-scan isnt quite as voluminous as it has been previously.

Head Shots

Click to enlarge


Using phot ref taken from http://www.characterdesigns.com/ I have spent a lot of time this week doing studies of differnt facial expressions. I need to spend longer on this, making sure that I can remain consistent in the facial proportions so I can maintain a likeness of the same face making different expressions - a lot of these studies look like they're of different people. This is somethingI need to address pronto, as in my forthcoming comic Persons Reported there are multiple characters whcih I shall need to ensure are clearly distinguishable at all times. In my rpevious comic, I only had 4 different charaters so it wasnt such a challenge.

Illustration Friday: MAGNIFY

Click to enlarge

Original scan, click to enlarge

I didnt want to do anything that involved a magnifying glass, so I was trying to think of other things that could be magnified. I wa thinking about doing a Cyriak style infinte zoom aimation of something, but I wanted to do a more detailed painting than you can have in an animation. So I did something rather obvious and hardly related to the word at all, an appaling abuse of Illustrtaion Friday to exploit it into just drawin some tough bastard punching another tough bastard's head off.

As it is, I have numerous anatomical issues with this character, the tonal range is a little bit shallow (not enough darker tones worked into the shadows) and the face is a mish-mash (but then again, he is a boxer so maybe I could pretend that's characterisation and not just shoddy painting).

I promise to try harder in the future ;)

More Painting practice

Click to enlarge

This was a speedy painting that I did yesterday from a picture from Suicide Girls.

This Week's Life Drawings

Didnt get as mych done this week as I have in previous weeks. That is because I have a finite (and soon to decrease) amount of time to work before I have to go to my job, and I have been doing more painting and more gesture drawings (as you saw in the previous Uber-scan). It's still fun to get stuck into a longer observational drawing.