Next Top Model

As I'm trying to recycle the many magazines I've been acquiring (it's an ongoing process), I often take a magazine with me to read while I go to appointments or ride on the subway. While sitting in a doctor's waiting room I started to draw the cover model in my Spring issue of Fashion, Inc., a men's style guide out of London. I kept the magazine because I thought he was a beautiful man, but because I was studying his features as I drew, I later recognized him as the guy in naught but a pair of white speedos burning up the latest Dolce fragrance campaign.

It's not a great likeness, but it's a relatively quick sketch and I know some of where it went wrong: I initially didn't make his nose tall enough (and maybe a tad too defined with linework), and the eyes are set in too close and too large, but then I continued drawing (after starting the sketch on my lap) on a flat surface too close to my face - which always distorts my view. But working in ballpoint, there's only so much one can do to correct. The photograph of the drawing doesn't help either, as the flash is reflecting off the ink and making it look lighter. It was great to draw his mouth, though - I never knew how to resolve the corners of a mouth on the far side of the viewer, when seen from this angle. His is definitely one variation to learn.