The Sketchbook Project - Pow!

You might remember that I got a sketchbook for The Sketchbook project many months ago, and have had only moderate success getting anything done in it at all. But I have high hopes and lots of determination! I'm going to have it ready to go by the deadline. And with that attitude, I got to work on this page. It doesn't look like a whole lot, and I'm not wild about it, but anything done was better than waiting around for the "perfect inspiration," which never happens anyway. If one sits around waiting such a thing, nothing would ever get done at all. The halftone dot pattern was quite difficult to make look even somewhat correct. I penciled in a grid, and put the dots in the centre of the squares in something of a diminishing scale. hmmmm. Not a terrible system, and it certainly wasn't meant to be exact.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 479

Trying more new things with this one. So I'm not too familiar with comics, so why not throw in something I don't know anything about with some graffiti. That part was actually really fun, and it's on my list of things I'd love to learn. The rest... umm, I don't know how happy I am with it. It's much better than it started out, I kept making the lines thicker, and that's really helped.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Grant 833

This is a bit different for my 'comic books,' but I want to try a whole bunch of different styles, so it's about tie I ventured out. I found a neat fan-made poster for Green Lantern (which, unfortunately, I can't find again for you) with the code in the background, all in different shade of green. It looked pretty cool, so I did a take on it in Air Force Blue.

This one changed a bit from when I saw the poster it was based on to the final version - I didn't get the photo I wanted and had to improvise, and originally I was going to have a bunch of Grant's nicknames - there are two on our platoon, but decided to go for full hero-mode on this one, so I put the Air Force motto in the background instead.

'Comic Book Portraits' - Van Der Linde

I'm afraid that I don't have the patience to make these portraits. It started out looking like the right person, but with all the thick lines, it really just got away from me. But to books look pretty cool, so I'm still happy with it. The style is based on Roy Lichtenstein's Pop Art. I even attempted some Ben Day dots, which are a pain in the ass, so I'm glad they turned out well. But I'm not doing them again until I'm famous and can afford minions to do them for me.

'Comic Book' Portraits - Ninja Steve

This one quickly got out of control when it came to the amount of detail I wanted. Originally I was simply going to have a completely black background with just the stars up at the front. Then I added the drips. Then I added the background. Then the red lines. It's a whole lot of stuff! And those throwing stars were extremely difficult to put in such a foreshortened perspective. Still, I think it was worth it, although now that it's done I'm wondering if they shouldn't be a little higher in the composition. Too late now because I'm not doing this again!

'Comic Book' Portraits - Smith

I'm back for three glorious weeks this Christmas and went straight to my studio. And kitchen. Oh, and bedroom of course. Real blankets! Sleeping in past 5! It's nice to be home, but I've got work to do.

This is the first in a series of portraits I want to complete. They're based on people from my platoon and are going to be done in a variety of comic and graphic novel inspired styles. This one is sort of a Frank Miller - Sin City thing. It's also based on the Mad Men season three poster. Not bad for a start. I'm hoping to have enough good pieces by the time this one is done to submit some applications and get a show at some point.

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.