Modern Hair

After seeing the new Bottega capaign for FW22, featuring Henry Kitcher and Saschia both in short hair, I just wanted to draw the ever-so-subtly fresh/current short hair do that feels very now, which is not quite a mullet but a medium-short do that's almost like a slightly grown out buzz cut, with a hint of tendrils at teh side burns and the name. Not quite side burns, not quite a mullet.

Arise 2

This reminds me of when I first got to New York and I had ambitions to do a series of angel paintings with all sorts of super-heroic male figures posed in the air—but I couldn't find the references for the positions I wanted (no internet, and really, how many floating positions can one find in magazines?) Nowadays I think I can fake it from imagination and experience. I particularly like how the bottoms of his feet and arms worked out.

Magikal Moment

I'm trying to lay out an overdue sketch for a friend, but I'm thinking of doing it as a page sequence.

Arise

There was a pic I saw the other day, of a guy in a lake, water up to his waist, with his hands just above the surface. Maybe I'm still stuck on the fantasy flow-y currents on my most previous as well as my Sandman drawing 6 posts back, but I started imagining him amid swirling winds, rising up from the water and just floating in the air like a deity or superhero of some sort.

Reclining Models 5

As is my wont sometimes, if I have a cropped figure in the frame, I will draw the entire figure to get the pose and gesture just right, even if most of it will be cropped out.

Yellow Upshot, Done

Another flashback piece redone, the former "swimmer on a podium" pose has been played with until it's become an exercise in chiaroscuro. Which I love, but it could use some work. That said, it's a good amount of work too! I think the belly might be a bit long, even if some guys DO look that way.

Facing 4

This is an example of when tinkering too much isn't necessarily a good thing. I drew this face spontaneously 2 years or so ago, and she looked fun and fresh and immediate. Of course there were details I thought could be cleaned up, but in the process, I end up woreking on other parts that might not have needed it. Today I found her nose a bit long, so I shortened everything and cleaned up teh neck where it meets the hairline. But looking at the original from a few years back (search for "Facing") I'm not sure these micro changes are better. Hurmh.

Reclining Models 4

That standing guy needed retooling but I'm also a bit uncertain how to make it worth drawing.

Marbury On My Mind 2

And he seems to have gotten dressed. I'm not sure where to go with this guy now.

InkBrush-ing 2

Some more ink brush playtime, but I wanted to single out this one sketch, which I found reminded me of a possible panel from The Sandman series (plus I was listening to Neil Gaiman and the cast of The Sandman so that might have had a lot to do with it).

InkBrush-ing

Every so often I test out new brushes in Photoshop, usually spurred on by brush god Kyle Webster's Adobe videos. These were a slew, mostly his Fountainia series.

Also, this is my 5,600th post, if my numbering system is to be believed!

Manspreader

Manspreading has become such a thing in porn, and even in menswear fashion. Gonna try and sketch one out that's not too overt.

Marbury On My Mind

The other week I got to photograph a spread in a vintage GQ magazine, of work by menswear and regular illustrator Marbury Brown. I was inspired to try his sketchy look but this wasn't quite in that wheelhouse even if I named it such.

Costume Cutouts

The 1970s superhero fashions have come back into mainstream fashion, so I've been revisiting interesting ways to do cutouts in costumes for various characters I've wanted to redesign. These are just a few ideas.

Suddenly 4

He WAS (sudden, I mean). I had thought about including an Asian in this series, and the drawing came together super quickly compared to the African guy I posted for yesterday. I might still change the colors but I like him a lot for now.

Suddenly 3

You'd think with these brad strokes that everything was spontaneous and easy, but I go through a lot of detailing and revisiting, because it's digital. It's everything that I fear I can't do in natural media that has always felt like cheating to me, yet it's part of the technique so I should convince myself it's really not (since it isn't).

Reclining Models 3

Thought I'd try a nude in the foreground, which I think could work. Perhaps it needs to pull out more so I can see part of his face.

Pink Suit, Deconstructed, 2

I did some work on the Top guy's anatomy and face.

Langston Honeycut, The Opera Bear

Or at least, that's what I'm naming him for now. I had a talk with my friend Ernesto about the tattoo he wanted, and I mentioned my opera bears, who are dressed as Valkyries from an opera. He seemed to like the idea so I sent him a few old and new styles that might match/bookend his poodle tattoo. He seems to love this one.

Pink Suit, Deconstructed

I love hot pink, and Valentino's all fuchsia collection show recently had me thinking I should do a drawing of one of their suits. This might not be it (I always think I'm doing something definitive, for me at least, hence the 'it' status), but it's at least one of them (from me, that is). I always liked the idea of tops and bottoms, as shown up in clothing. Plus it speaks to the edgy menswear editorials where the guys are always half dressed and with their cocks out.

Reclining Models 3

So I cleaned up the linework on boy on the left, but the question I have for myself is, when is it enough? Do I just keep drawing and it ends up something fully rendered? Sometimes I really don't know when to stop.

Foxy Tattoo

My friend Ernesto called me up yesterday to talk about how he wanted me to design an original tattoo for him, afer he asked me to redo two images he found—a zebra and a pink pussycat respectively. So I thought today, while working out, a fox might be good, with Foxy being a phrase he could leverage,

Keefer Sweater

I promised my friend, designer Joey Keefer, that I'd doa sketch of one of the pieces in his collection. This is a new rough for the Serra sweater, which I've been planning on doing with a negative space drawing for a while, just can't finalize the technique.

Fashion Sketching

Still toying with poses for a tableau, but as I was drawing this I felt it going nowhere. Oi!

What We See In The Cracks

I was taking a shower and noticed a crack in one of my shower tiles (my building is very old, from 1929, and the bathroom tiles are well over 30 years old), but as my mind would have it, I imagined something else.

Reclining Models, 2

Well, added another guy! Also added a test of the new Basic Ink Brush from Kyle, on the female face. The guys are done in the very simply named, Charcoal Pencil.

Reclining Models

I've got it in my head again to do a tableau of poses, of reclining male models. He's the first. Let's see if this ever pans out since I have a history of abandoning concepts lol.

Morpheus, Done

I apparently kept adding more details, so he's done now.

Morpheus 2

I thought my face from yesterday's post was terrible upon further viewing today, so I retooled the whole drawing a bit. I'm still not 100% happy with it all, but it's a better composition.

Morpheus

I'm very excited to watch the new Sandman series on Netflix. I had to try drawing him too.

Suddenly 2

I was hoping this could be a series so I could solidify an emerging technique, and this isn't quite what I had in mind but it seems a purposeful direction from yesterday's post...

Suddenly

I was browsing Instagram and found out that one of my former fave go-to brands, E.Tautz, no longer seems to be in business. But they had a few interesting posts on their IG and one of them had a detail of a sketch of a pair of eyes, which inspired this "darker-around-the-eyes-and-bangs,-lighter-everywhere-else" drawing. It really came together very suddenly today.