Faces and Fine Art for Friday

Greetings Friends! Its the last Friday in April and we're finally starting to get those April showers I've heard so much about. Theres been plenty of precipitation, but it was always snow up until now. 

I'm still working at sketching celebrity portraits using video interviews but it can be difficult to find footage doesn't cut away to the interviewer every 30 seconds. Fortunately I was able to draw at least one familiar face this week.

My name is Bond, James Bond. And it always will be. 

I've also been doing gesture drawings of fine art models to refine my anatomy skills.

Party Progress

I've taken full advantage of my new 11x14 sketchbook to figure out the pose particulars for the background dancers.

The most comments I've received have been about the couple and how they're posed. I figured it might be important to put some attention on developing the focal point of whole story. (click to enlarge)

Heres a screen shot of my latest update. The sky is now longer dark and the shelter tree is on the other side of the street. 

Now I want to hear from you. What do you think of the couple's pose? Which sketches do you like the best?

See you next week, hopefully with some May flowers. 

Sketchbook Sharing: Ice Ice Baby

Well Michigan is still experiencing the harsh effects of winter, complete with high winds and frozen rain. Though for all the talk about the "polar vortex", this winter hasn't really given the Great Lakes State much in the way of weather conditions that are out of the ordinary.

But since everyone else can now understand the kind of stuff we deal with every year, heres a good a time as any to share some cool sketches from this past week.

The first thing anyone living were snowstorms are a regular occurrence is learning to rely on your neighbors, so here are some doodles of the Canadian Women's Olympic Curling team. 

Then here are some sketches of Elsa, the Snow Queen from Disney's "Frozen", because I don't think I've given her enough love in my own sketches, editorials, or twitter posts. 

And it wouldn't be complete with an appearance by the Ice Man himself, stocking shelves at a grocery store. Really, isn't that just the way we always thought Vanilla Ice would end up? 

Stay cool guys! 

Lyra Walters as the Yellow Power Ranger

This is my entry for the Halloween Bash Contest for Superhero Cocoa featuring Lyra Walters, The Savage She-Hulk, (not to be confused with Jennifer Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk) as The Mighty Morphin' Yellow Power Ranger.

   

Here is a glimpse at my process, starting with the rough pencils to finished the inks. 

I started out with a sketch, were you can see I was emphasizing the plainer structure of the figure. The second sketch I flipped around because I thought it made for a better pose and tried to build up her muscles (she is a She-Hulk after all) However, by the time I got to start applying the inks, I de-emphasized her six-pack abdomen because I didn't want her to look like the stereotypical "spray paint spandex" of superhero comics, instead trying to go for something that actually resembled cloth. Though I did increase the size of her bicep just to remind you of her super strength.

Its kinda fun to look back on how this all came together and I'd be interested to see if any of the commenters have an opinion on what I should have kept or if I should have lost certain things or now that you can see were I'm coming from, perhaps I should have gone in a different direction. 

Give me your thoughts people!

Drawing in the Dark

I was at a friend's house for dinner last night where I tried drawing the other attendees. The open buffet table meant that everyone was getting up, getting food and sitting down in different chairs depending on which side of the room was having the more interesting conversation. This was considerably frustrating, but an unexpected opportunity arose when we settled in to watch a movie. While everyone sat reasonably still, it was pitch black, say for the couple sitting near the back were they were illuminated by the hallway light. The result is this unique caravaggio sketch.

I've got some projects in the pipeline that I'm close to finishing that I hope to share soon so stay tuned!