Gellers 2

Tidying up the portraits, starting with Robby's...

Greg

One of my best friends, this drawing is long time in coming, and it turned our nicely, I thought!  He posed for more than 30 minutes, but it resulted in a much more detailed shot than I normally get, which I love. Plus it looks like him!

Bob

Drew my friend Bob earlier today. I attempted to draw my friend Wabby tonight as well, but a punchy mom dealing with jet lagged kids doesn't make for the most well-behaved model. She kept chatting so much and not standing still!

Gellers

Did two pre-sketches today and will develop them later. They're such an incredibly beautiful coouple, it's almost annoying. ;)

Zozo

Drawing my niece via Skype, to include in my show! Aaaand after skyping with her, her parents, and then a friend visiting from Manila, I was too late to post in time for yesterday's entry... ack!

Nobs 5

So, I decided to scale my drawing over the photo I was working from, and I was surprised to see how closely I got the overall proportion! Which is strange because I was actually working first from him posing live on Skype. So on the one hand, that means my eye is fairly good. The other is that, while I did get it generally, the glaring mistakes were what kept me from a satisfying likeness. At some point I'll have to decide if it's done, or if it's perfect. It might have to just be done. Don't think I have time for perfect.

Soft Loader

Kyel Webster's new animation brush is like an HB pencil that you have to use lightly, to build up lineweight. It's certainly fun. I'm gonna have to try it out more and see if it can replace my favorite pencil brushes, or if this is just an alternative for my strokes.

Blue Fringe

I needed a break from drawing portraits based on real people. I needed digital, and I needed flat textures, haha

David G. Done

Sometimes these are very easy, and I can decide to do less because I feel the drawing captures the model without having to be exact. Note to self: Playstation detail better than Skype.

Nobs 4

I went from feeling great about this to retooling it majorly! Oy. 

Nobs 3

Making some serious headway on this portrait, and doing remarkably okay, perhaps because I don't really know his face since this is really the first time I'm doing his portrait, and we've never met in person before. But I find I actually got his proportions really right form my initial drawing of him live, so I'm really stoked about that. At the time, I didn't think so, but I suppose I should trust my abilities more.

In other news, this sketch is giving me Drew Struzan for some reason. I'm nowhere near as talented as that master, but yeah, I'm reminded of him for some reason.

Jo Pe 2

I'm of the mind that I've successfully fixed her nose, which was difficult to see because of the Skype video (and subsequent screencap ) quality. So I stalked Joanne's Facebook page to get an understanding of the shape of her nose, then extrapolated it from there based on the data in my screen cap. I think this might be better, if not done! Although I think it looks vastly better in person, as something does not translate in the pic I took with my iPhone. I opened the file and thought, wow, it's not as bad as the image I uploaded. Better tell her not to use in in Facebook, haha!

Also, as with most of my friends from my youth, I seem to resolutely make them younger, because that's how I see them in my mind. It's an interesting affectation.

Jo Pe

You know, I didn't even realize I had missed posting a day. All this drawing offline has screwed with my numbering AND my post count. Because I take shots with my iPhone, I have to download a separate copy to my hard drive to keep my blog archives organized, but I haven't been doing that.

This is a Skype sketch session I had with my college bestie Joanne. It was the worst Skype connection yet, but I managed to get a few (somewhat) clear shots. I'm leaving it at this stage for now, then will return to it later to see what I think is wrong with it. Joanne is amazingly talented herself, and we discussed the fact hat you have to leave your sketch to come back with fresh eyes. You'll see both what you did right, and what you did wrong, to hopefully make it better. Because I've been on this too long and I'm going crazy trying to see what works and what doesn't. Even when I take a look at the pic, sometimes I think it looks horrible, other times I think, oh, it's not so bad...

Hippie

The "Blown with the wind' sketch wasn't quite working. But after discovering a rerun of "I Dream of Jeannie" today, where Major Nelson's house gets overrun with hippies, I was able to channel the look properly. The hairstyles on the runway are exactly the same as the ones in the ep! I'm rather happy with how these turned out - no photo reference whatsoever, but that face looks kinda real to me. *pats own back*

Blown With The Wind

Flyaway hair, sorta 70s but not. The face is too wholesome/pretty though. I need someone gaunter, more "broken rocker" looking.

Soft and Doodly

Not feeling it digitally tonight. Guess I have all my pencil portraits in mind...

Nobs 2

I've been itching to start finishing up this portrait but have had a ton of things get in the way. So this is a holding post to commit to it being the next thing to work on!

David G.

My firs friend that I made when I came to New York, and we're still friends today, although we don't see as much of each other anymore. It was fun to Skype with him though, and get him to pose.

EQ

I've wanted to draw Ernesto Q. for a while now and finally got to. Tweaking the sketch I did yesterday. He posed really still for an hour and as I was tweaking details, I was quite surprised how correctly I got him after our session. Of course I could look at it tomorrow and find its somehow wrong...

Kyle

One of my favorite people posed for me via Facetime earlier tonight, and while I couldn't get a lot of detail from teh distance he was from the camera, I think it worked out because I didn't need to do more than just impressions of his features. In a way, I like this better than the portraits I've done - there's something more honest about them, I think.

Brushman

I needed to do something digital after doing all these pencil pieces. I remember drawing natural media pieces after long bouts of doing nothing but digital drawing, and then thinking how nice it was to draw in natural media again. Well, this is the opposite - I needed loose colors and my Webster brushes! And just drawing made-up faces...

Ms. Wong 2

I got this to a point I'm happier with it but will have to wait a day to see how I feel.  

Ms.Wong

I did a sketch of my friend at her office today, and she didn't seem too enthused about the likeness, but hopefully after I tinker with it it will get there.

Ako-san, Done

I think I shoulda posted this before Norman's profile sketch, since I finished it first. This was done Saturday, Norman's done today, but since I forgot to post on Saturday it all got mixed up. Anyhow, she done! The best compliment is that her kids recognized her as her - that's great.

Filipino Time

'Filipino Time' is the phrase that names the fact that Filipinos are usually late. Like this post was supposed to happen yesterday, for this drawing of my friend Norman who lives in Manila still, and we were doing this by FaceTime. But I was late to arrive since I had it down for Sunday morning instead of Saturday night. And then I spent a few hours chatting with Norman and totally forgot to post. ANYhow, here it is... I decided to do an easy profile because the connection was so bad it never really clarified into anything with detail. Still, Norman seems to like it.

There are some things ducks were never meant to hear...

Nobs

Another FaceTime portrait, this time of my 'pen pal' Justin, whom I've known for over 12 years online via message boards but never met face to face until today!

Not the greatest likeness but SUCH a great thing to see each other on FaceTime. Dunno why we never did it before. 

In other news, this sketch sucks. But it's a pre-sketch so it's fine. Justin thought it looked like him at a glance, so that's good...

Ako-san 2

Reworking this... And liking it while I'm doing it then hating it after. Sigh. I think I know where it needs tinkering but this needs to be done for now.

Ako-san

I drew my friend Akiko today in the middle of Tompkins Square Park,and it didn't work out too well because we got surrounded by drug addicts. image to come

Fishing For Fashion 7

Well, I tinkered with the face again when I woke up, and I think I came to a consensus decision about what I felt works. I also think I finished the entire figure, ironically by UN-finishing it (I decided to erase the legs and make it undone).

Fishing For Fashion 6

I think my multiple versions of this model's face are an example of how bad I am as an artist that I can't get the right likeness... ugh. The flip side to that is I'm a hyper critical Virgo who needs to walk away and come back in the morning...

Nic

Another live sketch. 7 down, 30 more to go...?