A Bit Like William Hague

So this one, like "And a Small Hat" before it, started life as a speedpaint. Unlike the previous piece this one was finished and posted before I decided to go back and fix "just that one bit." In fact you've already seen the speedpaint in the previous post, but you'll see it again below.
The end result of all this was one of the best pieces I think I've ever done, it just worked out really well.

Click to Enlarge

It started out back when I was looking for something to paint on Deviant Art. Often the way I do this is just a random search (or no search) with the parameters set to Stock Art and Newest. This little chap popped up on the first page and I thought it was nice, so I clicked the thumbnail and opened this picture of a French Bulldog. I immediately knew I had to paint him, though I had no thoughts beyond it being a quick speedpaint at the time.

Unusually for me I saved the speedpaint several times through that first hour. This was because in retrospect I really wished I'd done the same for the Han Solo one I'd done previously. That worked out because now you can see the progression to that first point.

So I posted it in my usual places and went about with my day, but unlike most speedpaints this one kept nagging at me. I'd managed to mess up the eye and I knew it, but ran out of time before I could do much about it.

"I could just go back and fix that eye," I thought, "no time limit." So at the end of the day when my son was in bed I went back and did just that. Spent longer than I'd meant to (despite the "no time limit" thing) and put an hour or so into his eye and the surrounding area, which resulted in this...

Which looked really good. I probably could have left it there and still been happy with it - the focus is drawn to the eye allowing the rougher parts to simply inform the brain and let it do the work (unless you look right at them of course). I couldn't leave it though, I had to go and fix the snout...

Then the mouth...

Then the ear...

And at that point the upper head was polished enough that I had to give at least some love to the rest of him, but intended to keep the lower half rough, even if not quite as rough as it was at the time.

I had quite a bit of trouble with the neck here. Getting the right balance of bounce light and the right level of detail in the fur turned out to be the hardest thing in the entire painting. In fact I kept working on it through the next step.

Here I've blocked in the rest of the body - it's low detail as the eye isn't supposed to focus there at all. I've also added in all the little hairs that stick out all over the place. There are a few around the snout of course, but also a lot of them around the inside of the ear. I've begun to polish up the background here too. I quite liked the colours (although I did describe them to my wife as being "a bit like baby poo"), but I've had the same basic background since the beginning and I've grown tired of it, so at this point I wanted to alter it a little.

After this I muted the colour a little in the background (same colours, just desaturated) and then dripped some of my "splats" on it with the brush I still have left over from the card I did for my best friend, before smearing them a little to give a sort of dripped watercolour look to it. I think the only other thing I did was add eyelashes and sign it.

I'm still not 100% happy with it (am I ever?) but I do believe it's probably the best piece I've done thus far, so I'm still showing some progress.

Why is the post called "A bit like William Hague"?  It's because someone joked that it looked like him, and you know what? He really does!  Is it ironic the the British Foreign Secretary looks like a French Bulldog?  I'll let you decide (it so is).

Finally, since I didn't upload this one at it's full resolution, here's a snippet of the picture as it was originally painted:

Point Five Past Lightspeed

Here we are again with another round of speedpaints. Let me warn you that herein lies some of the best speedpainting I've ever done, but also some dross that will burn your eyeballs and make you revise any opinions you may have of me as a "good artist" (yes, I've awkwardly been called that two or three times in the last week).

Consider yourself warned anyway, and proceed with caution for what is seen cannot be unseen (and so on and so forth)...

Time Taken: 50 Minutes

In theory this is a portrait of my son, and for the first time it's probably actually recognizable as being him. For all that though it's not a terribly good piece. what with his eyes being wonky and all. Still, I like the general vibe of it - perhaps I'll do something similar to it with some more time put in one day.

Time Taken: 60 Minutes

Based on this stock, I'm quite pleased with this one, although I don't think it really does the model that much justice I did have some fun painting her hair. Not much else to say, except for the terrible admission that this was not my first crack at this. usually if I mess up I either just close the software without saving or keep painting over the top (without resetting the timer). This time I saved the original disaster because I liked the background and didn't have time to keep painting over the top just then...

The time for the failure (10 minutes) is still included in the total time of the nicer paint above. Seriously though, you'll note that she looks like Marylin Manson, and has a HUGE HEAD. Thankfully I usually spot disasters early so I can avert them, but on this occasion you can see it yourself... Yuk

Time Taken: 70 Minutes

This isn't the worse thing I've ever done (just scroll up a bit for the evidence y'r Honour) but it also wasn't really worth the 70 minutes I put into it. It is supposed to be the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and is not a great likeness. I think I got the expression right though because lots of people still seem to recognise him.

There's a story to this one by the way. I have a son (as you know since I posted his portrait right up there), and he, naturally has friends. Two of these friends are terrified of me. Well, one of them is the little sister of his friend, but close enough. By terrified I mean running from the room screaming scared of me. I've never shouted at them, or looked threatening (well, no more than my overweight 6'4" frame is naturally looming about the place), they just don't like me.

Anyway, I posted said fact on facebook, and of course one of my friends (who is a geek and a wag and a lovely girl honest) posted a photo of the Child Catcher on my wall, so naturally I then had to paint it (to be honest he still scares the willies out of me after all these years, I think I was confronting my fears).

Incidentally, Robert B. Sherman, the songwriter for that film, sadly passed away this week - my choice of this as a subject is entirely coincidental.

Time Taken: 80 Minutes
Do I really have to explain this one to you? Really? It's Han Solo!

I think I did a pretty good job on this one, and judging by the reception it's had among my friends they were quite pleased with it too. Horray me. Of course just in case I started to get a big head my next piece was less than stellar. "Don't get cocky kid," as the man himself said.  

You'll note I've now taken to using a reduced signature on speedpaints I like.  Saves time, and it's fairly distinctive - I like it.

Time Taken: 15 Minutes

Yes, it was done in 15 minutes, and no I didn't have any reference (I was working from memory), but that doesn't mean it's any good. I quite like the colour, but that's about it.

Time Taken: 65 Minutes

Not much to say about this one. Not because I can't, but because I'll be covering it in some detail in my next post. is it any good in my opinion? Wait and see...

By the By
I mentioned Robert B. Sherman's passing a little way up the page, and while I made a conscious decision not to cover the death of artists on this Blog back before Frazetta died, I feel it would be remiss of me not to mention the passing of two other greats over the past few weeks. Jean "Moebius" Giraud; probably best known for his work on Alien, Tron and Heavy Metal, died on the 10th of March. Ralph McQuarrie; best known for his work on the original Star Wars trilogy, but a concept and Matte artist on many other films, passed on March 3rd. Rest in Peace Gentlemen, may your legacy last for eternity.

The Best and (Mostly) Worst Sketching of February

Well, I suppose it's time I just suck it up and post. I actually prepped all these for posting last weekend and I've been putting off blogging about them because I'm not terribly happy with... well, most of them really. There are a couple of nice pieces though, so I may as well share them. Prepping them took a lot of time last weekend, which was funny because I thought I hadn't been terribly productive last month (I didn't sketch at all for at least a week as I was so disappointed in what I was producing). Turned out I had 12 fairly densely packed pages to scan and sift through. Shame most of it was dross...

Figure and Perspective Practice
I found I wasn't really practicing perspective much last month, although I did do a fair number of figures. I really need to get back to working on the perspective, because as you will see later, I've found I'm having difficulties. I think I'll work from some photos with extreme perspectives to help. Anyway, this is avoiding the subject at hand (which you'll note there are a couple of). No real standouts - I like the girl in the lower right (other than her feet - must work on feet again) and the pose and hand on the girl in the top left is pretty good I guess (note: no feet). Not much else to say really.

Sketching from Reference
My focus this month was profiles, since I'm horrible at them (you'll see more in a minute), so lots of profiles. Here's an interesting twist though, two of these pictures weren't drawn from photos, but rather my memory of the photos (or at least the pictures I based on them). Amusingly the pencil Emo girl at the bottom there turned out better than the one directly from the photo (the inked one). The girl next to her at the bottom will turn up soon in a speedpainting roundup - I painted the speedpaint first, then this was drawn from memory the next day. The others are so, so - The girl in the pirate hat might have been more finished, but my mechanical pencil ran out of lead and I never went back to it. DA Stock was used for all except EmoGirl; One Two Three Four

Focus Sketching
So, concentrating on profiles and pictures from a three-quarter angle rather than head on. Still need to work on it, but things are better than they were a month ago I suppose. Still having real trouble with the placement of the eyes and the depth of the back of the cranium I think.

Free Sketching
The usual hodge podge of pretty good and middle of the road. There's really not much to comment on here, except to note that I quite like the girl in the lower right despite how rough looking she is, and the figure in the lower right turned out quite well but could have been better (mostly her arm is awful).

Bad stuff
Really, it's AWFUL. The head in the cap is rotten, the hunched seated figure seems to be from three different perspectives at once, the figure directly beneath that is... stretched? Ugly anyway. The figure in the center at the bottom is okay except for that one leg that makes no sense, and the vampire guy/girl/thing... I have no words, really, there's no excuse for something that crap.

Let's hope this month works out better...