The Best Day Ever

I have been meaning to try out a graphic novel style painting for a while, and after a very busy couple of weeks, and with a couple of custom pieces coming up (when I get paid and can go buy supplies) I decided to take a couple of days off to do something I wanted to paint.

I've been staring at this photo of the celebration right after the winning goal on my wallpaper for two months now. I love this photo. Seriously, it just makes me happy every time I see it. (Even if after last night I'm a little less fond of Crosby. Stupid Pens beating my Habs.) I'm sorry I don't have the photographer's name right now, I don't have the MacLeans it was in but I'll stop by the library and see if they have it so that I can put credit up.

The idea was to do a little bit Sin City style, a little bit me (like these two drawings, no pun intended even if those are my legs, whoa!), and a little bit of the Tell-Tale Heart style thrown in there to connect it to the graphic novel idea, because if I ever find a writer it'll look something like that. It was really just an experiment to see what it would look like.

I'm extremely happy with the final result. I wish I could sell it, but that would be a pretty serious copyright violation, so unfortunately this is probably fated to my portfolio downstairs and will never again see daylight. Oh well. I would really love to do one in this style. I love the shots taken from directly above the goalie. Maybe I can find a nice photo of Martin Brodeur. I have a mad crush on him. Seriously. I mean, I always really liked him and then I nabbed a copy of the Hockey Times featuring him on the cover and he's wearing a Bell & Ross watch. I absolutely adore those watches. I like the Phantom just a tiny bit better than the white face he had, but still it was awesome enough even to cancel out the fact that he's wearing a chain and I normally find that completely revolting. I am wildly off topic! Maybe I should paint a Habs goalie, I'd b e more likely to put that on the wall.

Back to the picture. Here are a couple of shots as the drawing progresses.

Some in progress photos. You can see it started off a little spindly, just like Tell-Tale Heart. I was actually using the same nib and everything. I tried for more of a Sin City stark black and white thing, which you might be able to see on the far left, mainly the sleeve, where I started out a little harsher with the lines (I'm right handed, so I work left to right). But I'm a bit undisciplined and pretty soon my natural tendencies took over and I just scribbled all over everything.

This is after the second pass. I used a brush to fill in the big areas. I don't think you can tell in the photo but the cross-hatching texture is still visible underneath. Many of the lines were thickened, and some areas had shadows added. I really really like it at the stage and was a bit leary of throwing ink drops all over it, but that was the original plan, and the point was to experiment, so I did it anyway. And I love LOVE how it turned out. I made such a mess! Which is why I should have been working in my studio instead of the office with it's nice hardwood floors, but whatever. The ink is waterproof, of course, so after this dried overnight (I've ruined more than one thing by erasing or painting before it was dry) I just filled in the blanks with red.