Inky 2

On second viewing I didn't love the face I did last night, but the ore lines I put on his face, the older he started looking, or rather, the more retro. And he got hairy. I was musing on Instagram that tomorrow's impending snowpocalypse made me think of staying home and being snuggly, so I drew a hairy young daddy type.

Curly Top

I'm attracted to men with curly hair. It must be because when I was younger and in high school, I fell infatuated with someone who treated my kindly, who had a head of dark curls, quite unusual for a Filipino.

Inky

I really enjoy the ink sketches with the Badass Ink Brush by Kyle Webster. It has that look of randomness that feels like classic ink sketches done hastily but masterfully. Even if I actually erase and redraw a lot, it looks very immediate.

Shuting

One of my favorite co workers at the office I've been contracting with likes to wear her sweaters over her hair. It's such a stylish thing to do methinks, plus she's really pretty, like an Asian Brigitte Bardot as drawn by Milo Manara or maybe Jason Brooks. So I tried to sketch her from memory, but I think I want to try and draw her from life. Consider this a study.

Grinder Brush Line 2

I rediscovered this old sketch and decided to clean it up a bit and post it on Instagram. Funnily enough, I was admiring the rough ink line of classic Lord & Taylor fashion illustrator Fred Greenhill, and this Grinder brush evokes some of those natural media strokes of his.

Pour 3

Hold please, while I prep the drawing some more.

I decided I wasn't sure it shouldn't be another head receiving the fluid hair, but I'm not sure what to replace it with. So I corrected the anatomy a bit and made him somewhat more defined, althouhg I do want to still keep him model lanky.

Sweats 3

I really don't have a plan. I kinda have a plan, but when I draw, I just see what it turns into versus trying to wrangle it into something I've pre-imagined. I might be terrible as a comicbook artist if I work this way... and can barely finish anything because i spend so much time designing at work, that I have nothing left creatively.

Pour 2

Inspiration is good—I kept working, just for the sake of being able to see what I create! I think it was good that I went to The Armory Show yesterday.  Even if I didn't see something that made me want to emulate the work as much as possible, i DID see a lot of things that made me think of being more creative and exploring more. I've recently felt so bound to my techniques, as well as trying to please a fickle social media audience, that I wasn't drawing for myself. Here's hoping I can keep the inspiration flowing.

Pour

I saw this image on Instagram and it made me think of this image which I drew immediately, and which I realized after the fact is influenced/based on a drawing by my friend and idol, Mel Odom. Funny how the mind processes things you've seen before and remixes it. There's nothing original anymore... or is it original that I took these various images and created one of my own that borrows from both but isn't either?

Sweats 2

Trying to make the pose I did yesterday work as part of a scene, so I'm trying to imagine a Nolita weekend scene with people meeting up on a street corner, possibly outside a coffee shop.

Sweats

I've been taking note of modern silhouettes on men on the street. I'm well aware and verse in terms of fashion and styling myself, bu I often forget to make the clothing on my drawings as current looking, I don't know why.

More Storm Doodles

Same exercise, different time as yesterday's post (which was really done earlier today, but posted for yesterday). Better with the mohawk, but that facial view is such a standard of mine it was easy to get in a more attractive state.

Storm Doodles

The idea was to draw without erasing. The first face started out nicely, but I put one wrong ink line on the mouth and blammo, ugly. Fortunately the follow-up body sketch was nice enough.

Eric10

The face adjustments are getting to me so today I thought I'd firm up the line work of his body...

Chiaroscuro 2

I thought that what he needed was a weird, Hare Krishna style haircut, a Harrington jacket and dogtags.

Chiaroscuro

ONe of those doodles that have a direction that could be good, but get stuck in bust form. You know, the usual lol.

Oscar

I guess that's what I'll name him since I was doodling him while wathcing teh oscars. I've been trying to draw more like I do on my desktop on my iPad, but I'm finding it difficult to make pieces at the resolution I want, and with teh brush quality I want. I found that out yesterday live at a nude sketch session and more so today. I gotta do some research and practice on this.

Thant said, "Oscar" ended up looking cute, but not he scale I thought he would be, so I had to retool his body...

Marco

I got to wake up early enough to rush over the the Gay Art drawing salon at The Center, but not early enough to prep and get a proper seat. I eventually settled down enough to draw, but not enough to get in a good groove.  These are the few sketches that turned out okay. The model Marco was new to drawing, but e was pretty ambitious with his poses, and he had an amazing body to draw. I may draw him again...

Blue Doodle 2

I rather like this doodle. I might see if I can develop him further.

Blue Doodle

Hoping for a better result, and I like the figure more, but still, need to work on more contemporary looking outfits when I draw random figures.

Green Doodle, Too

Just playing with laying down paint and working with whatever blobs and shapes I end up with. Not my fave, but that's sometimes the result of the experiment.

Green Doodle

I was a bit preoccupied with work today, then a birthday celebration with my friend Max, so this was today's bare minimum sketch.

Eric 9

I nearly erased his entire face and started over, just because I'm not getting an accurate enough portrait I feel. I always feel good about it when I'm done for the day, but the next day is usually one of recriminations and the desire to finish it off correctly next time.

Eric 8

I keep revisiting Eric's portrait and retooling it to try and get the resemblance closer. So here we go once more.

Surprised 5

Not sure the guy turned out as good as I'd have wanted. I wonder if it would have been better to draw him right in the page with her, instead of compositing him in later after the fact? I feel like the poses might be more disjointed than I like, and that his portrait lost the inking feeling that she had_more open and free. Sometimes too, I feel like things stiffen up when I clean up the line wokr, like I did with the eyes and mouth and nose... subtle differences tha make the lines less chaotic, yet I wonder if that's also what give the sketch character? Oh well, I tried.

Ink Doodles

These are a quickie entry because I missed drawing in order to go out drinking with my friend Kevin, whose birthday it was today.

Surprised 4

Boyfriend gets a pink pompadour.

Surprised 3

I thought they should be a couple, but I can't decide on his hair.

Surprised 2

I'm liking how this looks. I hope I can develop this style more.

Surprised

I was prepared to make a throwaway drawing for onight's entry just to get it done, but it urned out surprisingly nice for something I didn't expect. Even her expression is surprised! Also, it's nice to see where I've gotten my influences: the way that mouth is drawn at an angle? Totally learned form adapting anime drawing techniques (albeit less flat). And the coloring started looking like my internet friend Cesar Arias' painting style, mostly because I started with the thick brush stroke outline (and possibly because of her surprised expression!).

Butt Seriously 2

I fixed it, and while it didn't get as many likes (although it did pretty okay for me), it did garner quite a few more followers... who will no doubt betray me when I don't follow back, haha!  Or when they find out I post, like, weekly. I might pander, but I don't pander for long. I really can't care as much as I think I should for social media... I like to do my work and finish my work when it's ready...

Moohong Variation

Moohong, an up and coming design label, has a shirt thi season that has a nice detail. However, it has it on the front and back of the shirt on opposite sides, and I wondered if it would be better as a cutout just one one side. Hey, I'd wear it.

Butt Seriously

I had a simple male nude in minimalist line work get like 300+ likes on Instagram, so I wanted to see if I could recreate that reaction, but with a more expressive brush stroke. This was hte result, but I didn't like the anatomy so I didn't post it.

Anarchy Mode 4

It's been quite a while since I updated this drawing but I made a lot of headway... then backtracked, and made some more headway. Ugh, the process has been painstaking this week!

Eric 7

The more I think I'm going to refine this to completion, the more I find wrong with i and it becomes a bigger challenge to 'repair'. Ugh, my process kills me. Why am I not talented enough to get the proportions right, right away, like other people? Ugh.

Soooo Sick

It's not horribly as I've maybe experienced in the past, but it's been a while since I was bedridden so it feels bad. I think I might have the flu. I got the chills last night and was shivering uncontrollably even with two comforters and a (faux) fur throw.

This is supposed to be me but yet isn't since I'm not Caucasian. I used the wet crayon form Kyle's brushes for this.

Sick

I finally caught one of the bugs going round yesterday. I was feeling it already over the weekend but lost my voice by the time Monday came around. Well, that's not accurate, I had a voice, just not my usual one (think James Earl Jones). I'm hoping it's just a cold.

Eric 6

After I showed it to the model and he was happy but not too  sure about the likeness, it was time to go back to the drawing board for me. And true enough, so much is off and needs adjusting.

Etta

I stopped off to visit my friend and fellow fashion illustrator Etta Shon who was doing a live sketching session at Bloomingdales in SoHo. Decided to turn the tables on Etta during her last sketch of the day and do a quick portrait of her. I think this was an 8 or 10 min sketch which I drew in the Procreate Pocket app on my iPhone. Drawing on such a small screen with your fingers—and so quickly!—makes my drawings look looser. But the lack of precise control combined with the effort to exert control makes it seem more fun and natural, methinks. .

Fashion Shapes 2

I thought about how in fashion illustration, some teachers really want you to observe the shapes being made in the clothing. So it was with this in mind that I took note of what people were wearing at the recent shows I attended. Nothing much was new, but these two shapes stuck out in my mind, mostly because they're layering options I already wear or want to wear myself.

Judith 2

I never thought of it before but Judith is a pretty name. Anyhow continuing the fine tuning of this caricature.

Paired Duo, Done

For good or ill, these guys are done, since I posted them on Instagram already. Wish I had rendered the brown coat better but hopefully I'll find some way to do better fabric.

Judith

Working on a new 'avatar' that a new client wants to give as a present to a celebrity friend.

Fashion Shapes

Today was the first day of New York Fashion Week: Men's, and while a lot of the shows were kinda meh to me (I went to the group shows called New York Men's Day), it's a great day for people watching. Some attendees really bring it. One black guy smiled at me, and I smiled back because I approved of his outfit. This was the general proportion of it.

New Hipster Uniform

I've noticed there's kind of a geeky, new hipster look going around. It usually involved a moustache and a beanie, plus an oversized coat and cropped high-waisted trousers and usually white socks (well, I wear white socks a lot so maybe it could be any color). this guy I saw coming out of Trader Joe's on 6th Avenue and I felt he looked like my co worker, and a few others, then it hit me it could be a trend.

Bad iPad Drawing

I can't even blame the wine I had this evening. It's just a terrible drawing.

Innocent 3

I'm definitely at that stage where I think I'm making progress, then all the progress I assumed I made just makes me see all the mistakes, and it feels like I took two hundred steps back. No wonder I'm slow!!

Paired Duo 6

I fixed up his leg and the shoes and adjusted the colors, so I'm closer to finishing it, although I still want to clean out the details. But so far so good.