Lady In Waiting

There was a lot of downtime while waiting for the photographer and stylist to set up at work. I'm the kind of art director that lets them do their thing until they're ready for me, at which point I can offer my directions, if necessary. So, in the meantime, I sketch. Just anything to pass the time between shots. This was from last Friday, the 29th. This is the sort of drawing I used to do all the time, doodling away on the calendar beside the phone while I babbled on for hours with friends back in college.

Revisit

Hindsight is 20~20, and what looked good yesterday needed work today. But I'm enjoying the process. It feels good to just play and improve something that I can control, and yet have no target end to live up to.... and just be on pure auto-pilot. She's still a little lopsided (I don't feel the need tofix that lazy eye...yet), but softer and less 80s (although not necessarily clear of the era, but hopefully getting there). I have to fight my own influences to be more current - I can't help where I came from, I just gotta try and draw more in the now.

Perform

I had an interesting email exchange from a blog reader, and it made me remember what I used to love about drawing and sketching. We went on about the fashion illustration styles that we both did in our formative years, and we had many of the same references. It made me want to draw again, and to do it well. Sometimes the pressure of just drawing everyday makes me want to churn things out just to get things done, especially when work drains all the creative energy from you at the end of the day. But every so often the encouragement I get from total strangers is all the push I need. This is by no means a masterpiece, but I actually had fun "watching" myself draw it.

70s Brush

This drawing was an idea I had that totally changed as I was doing it, because I started working in Photoshop, which totally affected the brushline... and then I had no idea what the f*** she was wearing.

It reminds me of a rougher version of 60s-70s era comics, like Modesty Blaise.

Eli

Was at our photoshoot bright and early this morning, and our stylist had this rubber elephant toy that I think she said was called "Ellie." She then began to talk to it and squeeze out its responses. I made her insert it into one of our photographs instead of a duck salt shaker. The photo was so cute, you could get cavities just by looking at it.

Watching Anime...

...yields easy-to-churn-out fuzzy animal sketches, because I just want to do nada but watch Japanese Ninja schoolgirls kick each others' asses.

Some Enthusiasm

This is the beginnings of another piece I'm working on, that at least I got started on. A relatively good (albeit tiring day) on Friday left me with some enthusiasm for creativity, but after workibg hard all week, I didn't want to sit at the computer. So just a touch of work on this. And yes, it's an S&M piece, not that I get into that. I just like drawing it for some reason.

Meh.

This one was at least an attempt at something stylish. Operative word, "attempt."

Bleary Eyed

My friend Peter remarked that I must be overworked because my lack of enthusiasm is showing in my drawings. Yuh-huh. Exackums. Case in point. I can barely manage a coherent sketch. This was Thursday.

Toned Down

I always lose creative steam after a presentation. I can never just jump right back into it even if I think I can. Hence the simple.

Tied Up

Work metaphor? Pro'lly. Well, sans the heels and mane.

Flat Top

Hot new R&B singer, Janelle Monae is sporting a flat-top fade that I haven't seen on a black woman since about 1987, when I fell in love with the style for a black mannequin I wanted to buy for our boutique back in Manila. "Amalia" was African, I think, and a top runway model in Paris who lent her face to D.G.William's mannequin roster. I used to stare at the catalog, hoping to purchase her (and I eventually convinced my aunts to do so) and I loved her complete look, flat top and all. Fashion takes 20 year cycles for styles to recycle, and it's almost exactly that now.

Swirl, Too

This is looking very "Bamf."

Quickie Blue

I'm designing a lot, so the drawing part is taking a back seat again...

Swirl

Here's the new one in the series Mass belongs to. I like the sense of movement.

Mass, done

I'm still not showing the entire piece until I get two more done in the series, but here's a part I did for this piece.

Beak-A-Boo

I toyed with the idea that maybe the rabbit is carnivorous, but decided, nah.

Bowled Over

So, I finished the bowl-cut girl drawing. I fixed her face in a way that I found satisfactory, and then I finished up all the other details on her body and her weird summer shirt dress (which really has nothing to do with her bowl cut). I'm not sure why this is the image I had in mind a few days ago, but its realized pretty much the way I imagined it to be. Most of the elements are there, as well as the techniques I thought I would do. It's a little less polished and off-kilter than I imagined (I thought I would do a super-refined airbrush style), but this works more for me. Now if it works for anyone else, that's debatable. But hey, she's done.

Faced With Deadlines

So this face was last night's quickie sketch.

Chinny, Too

Damn, it's hard to tell if my adjustments are doing any good - there's something wrong with this face and I don't know how to fix it! Arrrrgh!

Chinny

I don't know what it is - I know she's got an overly strong chin (not too mention overly high cheekbones - gotta fix that), but I seem to want her to look like that with those half-opened, buck-toothed mouths I seem to be so fond of lately. I've noticed really strong chins in models in magazines of late, and I recall noting that I felt they were too strong, yet they seemed... right. Ah well, we'll see, I'm always altering things as I go along.

8.8.08

I was hoping to finish this drawing today and be able to mark it with the multi-8 date, but it's not done... and it'll get done when it gets done. Although I'm liking the realization. It looks like how I imagined it would look (at least so far).

Fat Cat

I was dying, so tired from not sleeping the night before (my mind races when I have a lot of work to do) and I could barely draw... hence this thing. It's not even my normal cartoon style!

Bowl, Too

So, I developed the image more. I wanted her in a weird shirtdress, and slightly awkward pose... kinda *surface magazine...

Bowl

I was at the gym where I often get drawing ideas, and I wanted to draw a less conventionally pretty woman in a bowl cut. This was the start of the image 4 days ago.

Hipster Hat

I had a vision of some hipster-looking guy in a hat. I'm trying to draw a face I don't normally draw, but it still looks like my stuff...

Fishy

My brother loved the sloth mascot, but he wanted me to put it in the scrub shirt that he normally wears. Where he gets these fish-themed things is beyond me, but hey, it's thematic.

Bearable Too

And yet again.

Bearable

I didn't have the energy to draw, so I scribbled a teddy bear on a Pantone pad that was hanging around.