Riffing On Rodin

Last Saturday I found myself in The Strand bookstore and browsing a book on Rodin's watercolors, and a brief glance at one sketch popped an image in my head that I could do inspired by it. There are the initial roughs.

Magik Pose 2

A bit more refined facial features, and I know the pose well, just wondering if I should even bother going on with it lol

Magik Pose

STILL trying to get a Magik page together for Justin! And I can't seem to settle on a look or layout—I wonder why that is?

Slip Dick

Just a quickie idea I had that I suppose is kinda done!

Just Hair

...and eyes! A portrait idea I came up with for a guy I met on IG.

Side Draped Gown

I've had this design motif in my head since thee 90s, and it was a fave idea of mine that seems to have caught back up to fashion. But this is a variation of the 90s one I designed. I think there could be a whole collection around this motif.

Stretched Chinos, Done

I loooove his face. I think the arms are better but could still be perfected, but done is better than perfect!

Stretched Chinos 6

I gave in and changed his arms. These are simpler, but I think it works well. It's still a bit of doing for me to get the anatomical expression right (I want hi to still look between moments, so the arms might need tension in the muscles) but t the same time, I don't want him too defined.

Bolero

I was chatting with a dancer in Mexico City about drawing hi with his bolero on from one of his performances. He was game, so I sent him this sketch to show my idea.

Stretched Chinos 5

I'm loving how the figure looks, but I'm still having trouble rendering those hands. I want his shoulder pulled up like that so it looks like it's a slightly awkward moment in time, but I really have had to redo those hands a lot, and it never seems to work.

Stretched Chinos 4

I hated the face I drew yesterday (and I already heated the one it replaced) but thankfully was able to look at and channel some model faces, that have changed the face. I had a particular longer jawline in mind and I went through a few iterations and decided a gif was in order to show them, since it's quite a shift.

Stretched Chinos 3

Ugh, I hated the face I drew on this pose yesterday, but it was never going to be anything but a rough to work from. I decided I needed to go a little sideways, so there was some side eye action.

Stretched Chinos 2

I decided to scarp the original drawing as the image in my head was clearer, of a model-looking guy sort of midway to opening his pants. The last version was based on an image of, strangely enough, a guy with the feeling of Jamie Lannister, but I had an updated image pop into my head so here's the reboot, very rough. This was a rough and will hopefully refine it all more soon.

Crop Tops and Ladypants

All this week and last I observed some fun outfits among the women on New York's streets, mostly involving trousers with sleeker, cropped tops. I was planning on drawing a few of them but this is as far as I got.

Uncle Charlie

My friend's dad died earlier this week in Manila, so I was attending a mass via Zoom. Part of me remembered everything about chruch-going but I wasn't really attending mass: I was there to show up for Tito (Uncle in Tagalog) Charlie, who was always kind to me when I was his son's best friend. But it was a memorial service so there were lots of people talking about how they remembered their lost family member, and I doodled away on a notebook while some strangers talked.

Navel Gazer

I decided he needs to be cleaned up and put on Instagram tonight, but I could NOT for the life of me get the arms right, esp. in my brush-y, naive style that I'm using for this particular sketch (the Ruffin brush is especially dense here, not sure what I did). So, it was time for a white robe to pop open again—this is a recurring theme of mine. I love a man opening his robe, but I also live not having to draw foreshortened, bent arms lol. At least he's different from my previous guys with his facial hair.

Stretched Chinos

For my birthday I wanted to draw a model with his dick just about popping out of his wide-leg chinos, and him being all coy and playful about it. It's hard to do from imagination, but I'm giving it the ol' college try.

Side Cuts

Phantom Girl's cutouts are considered an essential motif for her costume because of Dave Cockrum's now-classic 1970s take on her look, and I thought I'd take it to 2022, since cutouts are once again in fashion and have been for the past several years (on their way out, actually).

Side Walking

Saw a photo on Cos with a guy just walking on a sidewalk, and I liked the way the fabric draped so I thought I'd try sketching it, but then I sort of just left it as a raw croquis.

Lineless Silhouette 4

I'm not happy with how this drawing has evolved at all, and he's constantly being revised. The face is a bit better here, but not enough just yet. Something isn't working for me... or perhaps all of it isn't!

Choke Chest

The "Choke" drawing that I posted a few days ago (with the throat grab) went through a few variations before I was done, and this is one of the alternates.



Earlier on I thought the guy's side-eye expression turned out well, so at one point I copied that head on to another layer and tried extending the frame to show more of his body. I liked the result enough to make it a separate post, which I seldom do—maybe because I feel like I'm cannibalizing my own work.

The nice thing about Photoshop is that you can save a copy of a face or some marks or whatever, and draw several completely different iterations of that starting point, going off on all sorts of tangents. It can make for interesting possibilities, but also endless experimentation…which is probably why I have so many unfinished sketches in my files! Who knows, maybe later down the line there will be a full-body rendering...

Klute-y Shag

This pseudo 70s shag I sketched reminds me of Jane Fonda in Klute (even if I've never seen the movies, just pics from it).

Wide Spread

Was considering a sketch where the model stood like this, and might have a model pose this way for me.

Choke

Rene Gruau drew a lot of women resting their chins on their gloved hands, or otherwise framing their faces with them. I couldn't find the original reference I had in mind but got inspired to do a more #homoerotic twist on the idea, and I set off to drawing it. I went through quite a few iterations, as you can see, and ended up casting a more Tom of Finland type of guy, in a decidedly more suggestive update.

tbh it feels a bit like stuff I used to draw in the 90s, but hey, the 90s are back lol

Navel Gazer

I was in one of those moments where I wanted to draw but I had no inspiration. So a naked man, of course, is an easy solution. Except I'm not sure what would make me want to continue him.

Lineless Silhouette 3

I've been watching Game of Thrones all over again, and I feel like his face changed into some nameless extra on the show, that is neither handsome nor ugly. Oh this is gonna take some work...

Tulle Time

 I decided to take a break and go with another idea I thought of, a guy sitting spread -eagled, with a drape of fine tulle over his head, inspired by my rendering of the Ashlyn pants overskirt the other day.

Lineless Silhouette 2

I thought this would be an easier sketch to finish but I think I just don't like the face I drew. His body, because of the face, is more of a twinky model which isn't usually my sort. And as such, I'm struggling to find the "Yes" moment with this one. For now.

Ashlyn Inspired

Today is First Friday in my Fashion Illustration group that I moderate on Facebook, when we allow members to post their own fashion drawing to share. I was wondering about which older sketch from my catalog I would use but then I discovered and read a few articles on LVMH finalist Ashlyn, and was so impressed I decided to quickly sketch one of her images that I believe is a tulle skirt over trousers, but I imagined it more as tulle chaps over pants, which I would love even as a guy!

I was definitely inspired to just sketch. The full sketch took only about 10 minutes, but I later fiddled with the details like the face and some of the tulle marks.

Lineless Silhouette

I wanted to do one more of my outline-less figures which ironically always begin with an outline. Once I'm satisfied with the figure, I can go in and eliminate the outer linework.