At the Speed of Walking Pace

Well, it's only four of them, but I have managed to crank out some speedpaints. Highly variable quality, and unlikely to set the world on fire, but worth posting anyway, and some with process images too. My folks have gone off home now, so it's almost business as usual, and other than that I don't have a lot to say that I didn't already cover last time. It does occur to me that I won't be doing the 3rd anniversary post until the end of next month because the blog started in April not March (and the first real post wasn't until May), so thanks for pointing this out in the comments (that's a joke, people almost never comment on this blog; 12,700 views, 58 comments - 12 of which are mine and 15 my brother's. You're a verbose bunch aren't you?). Feel free to comment on my observation of your lack of comments - heh.

Time Taken: 45 Minutes

So, this one is terrible. Really unfortunate. The end.

Okay, so it's based on a shot of a woman that Google informs me is Jessica Jane Clement. I'd had this headshot floating around for ages and finally decided to paint it. The reverse image search that let me know who the photo is of also revealed that the photo is one of a set, and this headshot is just a crop from one. Having discovered that I may have to revisit this and do it properly one day (after I can remove my head from under the blanket of artistic shame anyway).

Time Taken: 50 Minutes

This was supposed to be a portrait of actor Derek Mears, but went off the rails a bit about halfway through. I still like it, it's caught the tone of the photograph even if it hasn't caught the likeness, and in 50 minutes I guess I should be happy with that. I saved some images as I went along on this one (and the two subsequent ones), so you can see that in the third image it almost looks like it might end up looking like who it's supposed to (look him up if you don't know the name) and then abruptly starts to look like a bald Michael Rooker instead. Drat.

You can click on the Process images to enlarge them by the way.  Same with the Speedpaints, although they don't necessarily benefit from it.

Time Taken: 70 minutes

I spent and extra 20 minutes or so for this one just making sure the angles were more or less how they should be before putting down any paint. I think that extra time was probably worth it as I have terrible trouble with extreme perspective. Is that down to optical illusions or just stupidity? No idea, but I do keep meaning to write a post about optical illusions and just haven't as yet. I've mentioned it now, so it's more likely to happen (it'll be even more likely if you post comments asking me to do it, seriously).

Anyhoo, this is based on a photo of Izabel Goulart by Eduardo Rezende for Elle Brazil (not sure of when), and it's another crop - though this time I cropped it myself rather than finding it that way to begin with.

Time Taken: 50 Minutes

Last one, and for a change this is based on a photograph I took myself on a trip to Chanute Air Museum. It's actually way off in terms of perspective and proportion because I rushed the sketching part of the process and just eyeballed it (unlike the previous one where I took my time and measured things with my Stylus), but it still turned out looking half decent if you don't compare it directly with the photograph (You'll note I'm not posting that. I might reconsider - comments again, marvelous things...).

There will likely be more things based photos from that trip in the future, and in all likelihood we may try to make more such trips this year now my son is of an age where he can appreciate them. Fingers crossed.

Until the next time.

Sketching for February '13

Yes, it's been a little while, and I'll be honest, this post probably wasn't worth the wait. Various things either prevented me from sketching, or just made me not feel like doing so much last month. This is not to say that I didn't, or that I sketched a lot of junk (well, yeah, a bit), just that I didn't get as much done as usual, and certainly not as much as in January (about the same amount as December, maybe slightly more). I also didn't really focus on anything, and discovered that the focus I did on arms a few months back was probably a waste of time because I've forgotten how the darn muscles go in the forearm, again (why do I have so much difficulty remembering this - I need to come up with a mnemonic or something. Seriously.

Outside of sketching I've been working on another book cover (It's actually pretty much done now), I recieved my copy of the Doctor Who Anniversary Special that I did a spread for, and it turned out looking far better than I was expecting at such a large size. The book has some wonderful work in it, both written and drawn. I was plesantly impressed :). In other news, I have family in town, so this month is going fairly slowly too. I'm really going to work on improving things somewhat once they leave as I've clearly been slacking since about November, and there's really no excuse for it. OK, on to the sketches...

An interesting aspect for February is that I've compiled almost everything I drew. The only stuff I left out were things that didn't scan well, or that I was interrupted while drawing and never got back to. There's not a "Sketch fail" section as there usually is as the quality band in which the work mostly fell was pretty close. There are failures, and I'll point them out, but nothing so bad as to get an image to itself. As with the previous couple of months there's nothing drawn directly from a reference - this is something I really need to work on.

For the free sketching the guy in the lower Right (with the white highlights) is a bit of a failure. there's something really off about his face, but I'm not sure what. Maybe the perspective is off, maybe the lighting. Whatever it is it's all a little wonky. Yes, that's Solid Snake in the middle (or maybe Big Boss), it's not a terribly exciting rendition, but at least it's probably recognisable. The success of the month is the woman in the bottom centre. I really like that sketch, it just came together quite nicely.

After the fairly successful torso sketches from last month most of these are pretty disappointing. Also, see what I mean about the forearms? Yuck. Still, progress of a sort is being made - I should be able to draw a half decent figure without reference in about 8 years or so. More anatomy studies will be happening throughout this year though, so by the Blog's 4th birthday I hope to be able to more consistently draw things such as hands and feet (right now it's random as to whether I can draw them successfully, or even bother trying).

After the failure with the guy I commented on in the first image I decided to concentrate on some facial features. it wasn't a focus or anything, I just did a few sketches one morning. I think I pretty much understand the basics here, but I have some difficulty drawing eyes on the far side of the head when I have no reference, or eyes from more extreme angles. Something to work on. I'm really happy with the mouths though. Oh, and I didn't lie about reference - that ribcage was drawn from memory. I think it's a little off; I'm only seeing 18 ribs and there are supposed to be 24. Also, the angles are off somewhat. Darn.

And that's it. Really, not much stuff at all. I am planing to have a couple of extra posts before the end of the month, but one of them may fall at the beginning of April. Time will tell if I succeed.