Helmetted, 2

Man, I miss the look and feel of natural media, even ballpoint. I had yesterday's drawing sitting in front of my computer so I decided to add on to it, as I used to do a lot to the doodles I would make on our phone message calendars back when I was a kid in Manila. He's looking like some futuristic version of the Greek god Hermés.

Helmetted

I was watching the latest episode of Bleach online and was inspired by the villain Arrancars' headpieces, so I made a somewhat Stavrinos-y sketch of a random helmet. And a really protrusive forehead...!

Large Dead Bird

Random Bearchild

I think there was a mild bit of channeling the latest Murakami Vuitton campaign, but in my own way, of course.

Bobby

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend and one of his models from his menswear shows. I sat staring at Bobby's profile because it resolved an issue I had with one of my drawings - I saw how I wasn't able to draw the profile form the nose down. Plus Bobby already looked like the kind of person I draw, so naturally, I asked him if I could sketch him. This is the initial rough outline of a profile portrait.

NeoVictorian

I was listening to a Photoshop instructional online, and I let my mind just wander and do whatever I decided to do as I put down each line. I started out with what became a somewhat sweet face, so I think the styling I applied is a bit severe for it. But perhaps the contrast might work with it.

Affinity, part trois

Well, I figured I needed to shift styles completely, and last night this face seemed to work. We'll see if I finish her up.

Fat Duck

When in doubt, do fat animals.

Affinity, part deux

I tried to draw Affinity's character Murkurgui, but I just could not find it in me to do it in my style and retain all the really lovely naive qualities of 'Fin's drawing style. He had the pose and facial expression just so that anything I did seemed too hard by comparison. Which is why this drawing never went anywhere.

Envy

Of course, this isn't me, but I often draw my emotions. Some days you encounter people who are just so damn pretty, it sends the ego into a tailspin. It's worse when two people you have the hots for end up into each other. Oh, the mind boggles and the ego turns a lovely shade of viridian, haha!

Mitzvah Duck

My boss is giving away some stuffed animals for a Mitzvah, and so I was sent a sample to design a tag and card for. This is one angry looking fowl.

Revive

Inspiration is weird. Some days you just don't have it, other days, you start out blah, and something you don't know happens and you have all this energy to do something you put off for months (years even). Me, I started printing some old work and finally finished a piece that was unnecessarily illustrated (I went for digital manipulation instead - much more timely and appropos) and I think I may have decided on a color for my bedroom after 2 years, haha! So it was with a bit of apprehension - but less so than usual - that I decided to revisit an old concept I had come up with but held off on for fear of the intricate work that was necessary. Here's the face shot, which is really important to me because I want it to look like my model, but still be glammed up. Uh, this is the not glammed up part yet. Hmm, I really like that pale gray background.

Underwear Models

Haider

This Haider Ackerman outfit on Seven's website had a back view that I just loved - the model fit her leather tights to super-heroic proportion. I had to do a quick sketch.

Taxed

I was working on my taxes so I didn't have more time to devote to a sketch - so this was a quickie in my notebook. Yes, I'm slacking off. I'm in a weird state of creative ennui right now.

Drawn

There just was too much to do so I barely got a sketch in, and decided to draw me drawing myself. As simple as it is, I kind like how the profile turned out.

Hair Stylish, 2

I can't seem to help myself if I don't get a proper likeness, so I went back in to work on this file a little more.

Happy Bunny Day!

This was a quick drawing, inspired by (and with apologies to) the amazing work of Barnaby Ward, whose work I am completely besotted with today. It looks nothing like his stuff, but the linework inspiration was from him.

Hair Stylish

I recently came upon the blog of 22 year old Spanish fashionista Pelayo, who's rocking a hairstyle exactly like mine, except he's a total hottie with better hair. So if you can't beat 'em, draw em. This is the start of a new sketch. It was strangely easy to draw him... guess he just had a ton of photos that I got used to his look. Of course, I don't know if it looks like him per se, but it does to me. We'll see how this develops.

Squared

I have an 80s-borne fascination with square faces. I think it was just that they seemed so different from the oval facial shapes that predominated in Manila when I was growing up, so squared faces were exotic to me. Softer chins with strong jawlines were obsessions of mine, probably peaked with Cordula Reyer back in the early 90s. Hot new model Karolin Wolter has the kind of bone structure I love, but with a slightly stronger chin. I tried to dissect the proportions with a rough sketch.

Deadly Anemone

I decided to soften up the edges, and draw them as if they were made of leather. The paneling in leather would be edgy and definitely more interesting, something someone who wasn't too active would wear (or not that they would care). In blush-colored leather, I think it would be rather high fashion... although I maintained the leggings in a more comic book mode (well, for me anyway).
To make her seem more diabolical, I decided she was a vampire (although I didn't draw her with fangs), but also a weird kind of serial killer - she would use the skins of her victims to make her clothes. Suddenly the pinkish color takes on a more sinister connotation.
I'm including the black and white sketch because I like how the line quality turned out.

Anemone

The vampire character idea got amped up with the idea that I would do my own version of a huge, classic Ferré white shirt, and maybe do it in a pale yellow, which would work well with the white hair of the albino woman. I liked the idea of the pointed panels, but wasn't sure if it was too hard-edged. Still, I loved the really complex structuring I came up with - she looked like some weird sea anemone.

Vamping

CBRunway's challenge was an interesting one - design an outfit for a vampire character... but completely in pastel colors. A lot of the contestants decided to work with tropes typical for pastels: juvenile themes or outfits that could normally thrive in pastels, then applying it to a vampire so that they could work the contrast to effect. I thought that I should just do a hard-edged character in a pastel shade, so I decided first to do an albino black woman, and contrast the lightness with shape and form. I was particularly inspired by the origami trend in high fashion today, taking cues from Calvin Klein, Margiela and Gianfranco Ferré. It was coming out super-hero-y, but I figured I might as well run with it.

Prince Valiant

I was tooling around on CBR and there was a thread devoted to drawing Prince Valiant. I have never wanted to draw him, so I thought, that hairstyle should be an interesting challenge. How to render him in a somewhat believable, masculine (yet still prince-y) way that's both updated and somewhat historical-looking, and not have him look like Emo Phillips?

Rogue Makeover

I really like how the face I drew for Rogue turned out, even if initially I thought it was a weird mix between Carla Bruni and an Olsen twin (they have that weird upturned mouth corner thing going on), so I decided to flesh out the shading a bit more.

Hi-Fidelity

An online acquaintance, Hi-Fi, loves the X-men character, Rogue, so I thought I'd make it ever more evident. With a touch she can absorb the totality of your being, so I thought she'd make a special effort where she touches Hi-Fi. This is a rough color job, but I think it gets the point across. Hope Victor enjoys it. Heh.

Hope

As some of you may have noticed, I tend to draw faces facing left. Don't know what it is... it's just an SOP thing with me. What I find is that when I switch things up, I draw in a way that intrigues me - I guess it's so unfamiliar that I do things I normally don't do. This face, for example, is my interpretation of the pretty, clean cut facial structures currently popular with the current crop of male models. For whatever reason, the usual difficulties I have resolving the foreshortening/far end of the lips and the far cheek weren't as much of an issue. I like this drawing as a line drawing for now. We'll see if I flesh him out more later.

Wild Thing

I was originally thinking of titling this "Where The Wild Things Aren't."

Olive Drab

This sketch has a vaguely 80s feel to me, must be the olive lipstick (I used to draw that shade a lot in the 80s for some reason). The pastel effect also reminds me of my illustration idol, Pater Sato's work. Even I can't decide if it's a guy or a girl, but I like the androgyny in this sketch.

Profile, Done...?

I had lunch with my friend Robert, his lovely wife Ana and one of his male models, Bobby, from his very first menswear show. I couldn't help but look at Bobby's profile, as it seemed the perfect solution to the profile problems I had with yesterday's sketch. But as I drew, I went a completely different direction and just...well, leathered him up. The best laid plans of mice and men, eh?

Profile

I was reading a few men's magazines at the store earlier yesterday, and as I sat down to draw last night, I decided to do an atypical man's profile. But I didn't like the profile, so I gave him a mask.