Elsa Lanchester

More playing around with hairstyles, small adjustments, etc. Total time - 4 hours(?) or so. More than that spent staring at it, trying to strategize what to adjust. Let's hear it for my overly indecisive and introspective working method. Hooray.

And the finished piece.

In-Progress 2/23

Yes, I do in fact love Elsa Lanchester. And I don't care who knows about it.

Lightnin' 2-20

Another lightning round. 30 minutes, from reference. Trying to maybe break away from the types of faces I always seem to draw. From a mug shot, believe it or not.

lightning 2/18/10 part 2

I've had 2 days off, and have been drawing/sketching like mad. It's time to step away from the computer, clearly.

lightning 2/18/10

Okay, this took more than 1/2 an hour by a bit. Trying to incorporate more of a full range of tones, which has been a real struggle with these more painterly sketches. Blech.

40k-a-go-go

In the grim future of my sketchbook, there is/are only poorly realized self-portraits incorporating pseudo-iconic scifi nerdery.
Thus ends today's sketchdumping.

sketchbook

Bunch of stuff scanned from sketchbook. And yes, one is in fact dated for this coming December. I was in a hurry. And one is from almost a year ago.

Halloween '09 & Fwank

So for Halloween last year, Jen'n I decided to actually host our own party. Since our house is decorated for the holiday year-round, the only big thing to accomplish was costumes. I opted for Troll. Giant foam head, built-up shoulders & torso, giant foam axe...and then I got the flu. After being laid up for several days, this is all I had going into the party. But it worked...and I still really like the fact that I managed to build it to look like my drawings. This photo taken by Fwank @ gamenight; brought the head along so's the crew could laugh at it.

This photo is also @ gamenight, with me looking inexplicably smug while preparing to eat a tasty roast beef sandwich. And Zach in the background wearing the aforementioned troll head. Yes, we are nerds.

Digitizing the old stuff

So I realized some time ago that I am an absolute freak when it comes to collecting/cataloging. Anything I've drawn or doodled that has any redeeming value at all, I will save. Not only that, I'll cut it out & stick it in a binder. 1st image above is a regular page from just such a monster. In the interests of preserving this crap, I've been taking photos of pages, and these were a few of the highlights. Some of 'em have been through PS - just to get rid of excess nonsense surrounding the image.
I have a lot of crap. Not counting the multiple volumes of inspiration/research images. Damn you, genetic-predisposition-towards-collecting!

lightnin'

another quick one.

a return to (old)form

whipped this up in photoshop from yet another old B&W photo. I don't know why I'm so obsessively sticking with black & white. Used to draw like this a bunch - light on dark background. There's something simpler (for me, at least) about rendering the lights as opposed to the darks.

Lightning Round 2

Two more quick ones. Damn you, anatomy!

Lightning Round!

So the last few weeks have really been devoted to deciphering the mysteries of human anatomy. With one caveat- I'm not trying to exactly copy the human body, I'm just trying to get to a point where I can draw (without reference) something that feels right. I know I draw enormously elongated torso's and stubby legs, and I'm okay with that.

So I've instituted the lightning round. 30 minutes tops, from reference, with the main point being to understand the anatomy of the body as I'm drawing it. I know I can copy an image, still have to learn how to reliably create my own.

Experiment

Another experiment - trying to figure out where I stand with tone v. line. Meh.