Squottycattunacrab

The tuna had a case of crabs.

Squottycattuna

They caught a tuna.

Squottycat

I thought the squid could have a pet.

Squoth

I thought the sloth needed a friend.

Sloth, Finished

And here's that silly thing all colored up a bit. Sloths have the happiest expressions on their faces... like they're demented but don't mind it one bit.

Sloth

My brother asked me to draw a Three-Toed Sloth in scuba gear for him, apparently as some sort of mascot for himself because he's supposedly slow to act. This was the start of it last night.

Rima

This is my friend Rima, who I work with on my big work project. We were having a meeting when another colleague of ours called and I put her on the phone to chat with him. Having nothing to do while she talked with him, I did a quick sketch. This happened Tuesday, if I'm not mistaken. So my sketches are all out of order. Enh, no big.

Exhausted

Work is really leaving me emotionally drained. I need a drink. Or at least a really long nap.

Conceptualizing, a little more color

But not much.

Conceptualizing

Been working on a photo shoot (among other things) and haven't had a spare minute or an iota of energy left for personal creativity. So these work roughs will have to do.

Brush Test

I bought a Photoshop magazine that had some interesting tutorials on a lot of the brushes I haven't bothered to investigate, and I have to say it was quite instructive. This was a test document to try out some of the brushes, although I'll really have to play as opposed to trying a tutuorial - copying stuff from a magazine doesn't sit well with me, and uninspired sketches (like this one) just to try out techniques aren't too much more fun either.

Inky

Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that realistic renditions were my default. The irony is that I love stylization, and as a child I used to copy the styles of other artists I admired, versus trying to make my work look more real. That's what was kind of missing from this drawing's previous incarnation: I had the image of the woman in my head, but not the image of the final drawing. It started to come to me as I would pass my copy of Pourquois Pas (the first ever magazine devoted to fashion illustration) that I left out on a side table, and then moreso as I started to work her hair. I wanted to do a high contrast-y drawing, which I didn't initially do because I spent too much time trying to draw from the woman in my head and not towards the sketch idea in my mind. This stylization comes inspired by the inky, vector-like linework of Stephane Manel (yet again!). I like how she feels kinda soft and fleshy, even if I didn't have any reference for this sketch and just drew it from my mind (which is easy to tell since her legs are about 8 feet long).

Cleaning Out The Runway

You'd never know it but I spent a bit of time cleaning out this sketch. Little steps, little steps...
Oh, this is Friday's work, btw.

Power

When I'm feeling sick, I find that the helplessness I feel can translate into my drawings in two different ways: either convey the helplessness, or try to transcend it. One of the reasons I always liked to draw beautiful, sexy women, was the effect I saw that such women had over heterosexual males. The power it gave me over the bullies and tormentors in grade school who would sort of melt in awe over an well-drawn breast was something I learned quickly. It didn't matter if they were 8 or 38, the effect seemed universal in my limited, formative experience (well, except if you were gay like me, then maybe you just liked the hair and makeup). Looking back, my drawings were really nothing much, but I suppose to a fellow 8 or 9 year old (yeah, I was drawing naked women back then) it was more than enough.

This is more of an emotion than a finished sketch, quite the opposite of how I'm actually feeling. Although don't try to analyze too much - its complicated.

Vertigo

Still slightly dizzy, although that's not necessarily related to this piece. Or rather, I guess it is, in that I can barely stand working on anything... which shows. Feeling better today, not perfect.

Suddenly Sick

Out of nowhere I woke up with chills and a super high fever yesterday morning. I thought I was coming down with something the night before because I was feeling all achey, and not in the parts I had worked out that afternoon. I thought I could sleep it off, but as it were, I didn't sleep much. Now this fever. Ugh.

Dizzy

I was coming off my high from having finished my gandy piece, and perhaps unlike other artists, I had no desire to jump into another piece so quickly, so I wasn't so enthused about drawing. Hence this.

Gandy... And Done!

I think. Unless I revisit and tool with it again... which is quite possible.

edit: While I did this over 2 years ago, it's still one of my favorites. However, in the interest of full disclosure, I obviously didn't draw him from a photo of my own art direction and taking so I can't take credit for determining the pose, lighting or mood. I based it on a shot I found from a photo shoot by Mario Testino, which can be found here. The shot of David lifting up his sweater was the basis for this painting.

Gandy, pt.4

It's amazing how much more detail you find you've missed when drawing someone from a photo. For some reason, when I draw people from life, it's no problem getting the likeness. But from pictures? I need to make everything exact, otherwise it feels like I'm failing to do teh work right. The Gandyness continues...

Dirty, Too

Getting more of a likeness. And yes, it's what you probably think it is. It's not like I haven't done this sort of thing before (heck, 5 of my drawings were published in a book and everything). The thing I like the most about this model? His teeth. Oh, the minutiae.

Dirty

Part of the ***shot series I started in 2003 for the exhibit, Dirty Little Drawings. I always thought I'd do at least 18, and here is one of the most recent ones I started just last night (or rather, early this morning).

Sullen

Kind of in a weird mood. I think that there's so much flux in my life that the control freak in me just cant take it, and since I can't take it out on anyone, it just goes inward. Ugh.

That arm looks wrong.

Edit: seems like my horoscope has predicted I'd be in this kind of a funk this week. Who knew? (well, apparently, Susan Miller).

Gandy, pt.3

Working from the magazine instead of the jpeg, I basically started retooling a lot of the previous work because so many details were lost from the original printed piece.

The creative process in my sketching (which I'm sure is probably similar for others, but I can only speak for myself) is that every line begets another line...or daub, or smudge. And if one is off, so are the others in relation to it. I guess it's very much a constant editing process, and the key in being an experienced illustrator is knowing which lines to commit to, and how your strokes affect that. Working digitally, I have fewer compunctions about putting down lines and changing them later... there's no paperthat willl get overworked, and less of a chance you'd have to start over from scratch. But I think the process has taught me how to commit to my linework and stick with it, which is why I often go to my drawing salon sessions armed with just papaer and a ballpoint pen. I don't know how my friend PJ does it, redoing the same scene over and over until he likes it. One pass is all I get before I lose interest in a piece, if what I started with doesn't work.

ANYhow, the David Gandy sketch continues... man, I love his profile... I never noticed it before, but my 'paintings' are reminding me more and more like Pater Sato's work, a Japanese artist whose work I used to idolize over a decade ago. Although after doing a quick search on him on the 'net, my stuff looks nothing like his work, yet I recognize bits and pieces of stylistic ticks of his I used to love. There's also a lot of Stephane Manel here too, I think...

Jumper

I was working hard on my book design project last night (well, now it's kind of a big brochure) and didn't have any creative energy for anything afterwards. This image came to mind (and stylus) really quickly. I seem to have a thing for bunnies that I was never really aware of before.

Gandy, pt.2

A little color here, a little blending there, not much. I started out drawing this from an online jpeg, then realized I had the original printed piece from Vman magazine, which has SO much more detail, so I may have to rework a few more bits before it gets better...

Quack...?

Heroine

Now, after not trying to channel Hiro, I just went with whatever came to mind... plus whatever came to my stylus. It's looking very Jeffrey Fulvomari.

Hero

I met an artist online today, a Japanese man whose work has a line quality that's so different from mine, I find it irresistible. Like I mentioned two posts ago, I can't draw in away that almost seems naive, my work (at least to me) seems too studied and pre-determined.
Of course some of my sketchier entries here might have you disagreeing, but I suppose I'm just so aware of my linework it just looks too expected to me. Hiro's work has a quality similar to my idol, Stephane Manel, his faces and forms are so different, with a Japanese style that comes through yet still has its own stamp. He works a lot in the erotic field, and I love his collages. I often want to channel other people's style in my own work, to see how well I can ape the qualities I admire in theirs, and maybe find a way to incorporate such qualities (hopefully in my own way) into my own work. This is one such attempt. I hope Hiro doesn't mind.

Layla Miller

... is a spunky character from X-factor, a comic book part of th X-men family. I thought about her today because an artist from the CBRunway did a character that had a look very much like hers. I don't necessarily think it's a case of outright copying, but design tropes can get stuck in your head after reading tons of comics (which I, like many others, do) so sometimes you don't think your idea is unoriginal because it's so part of your visual lexicon.

Tired Bunny

I was designing a book all night and didn't have much time for a drawing, so here's a two minute bunny... who's as tired as I am.