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Okay, I'm turning away from this one for a while. There's still some work to be done, but the mistake I made with this piece was a basic one and a big no-no; You start a painting, finish it, then move on to the next one. If you get hung up on one painting and never finish it, laboring over small details, you just get frustrated, the painting looks labored and you don't develop as an artist.
I'l come back to this one bit by bit and finish it off for good (it's mostly just missing some jewelry and ornamentation on the sword), but right now it's time to move on. Suburban Tribe #3 needs a cover!
Although I haven't posted a new sketch for three days, I do have a good reason. I can honestly tell you that I have been working on this digital painting for at least several hours a day.
I am at a very high level of frustration with this piece. For the amount of time that I have put into it, it should be done by now. It's just a nude with some clothwork and a prop. Why is it such a struggle?
The real aggravating thing is that this may be the closest I have come to a portfolio piece for my digital illustration work. Although the finish line is so far away, it's also so very close...
Gonna be teaching for the next two days, so maybe if I do dome cartoon sketches of some unruly middle school students, it'll get me over this hurdle.
Because I will finish this!
Han Solo as pictured on my Star Wars wall calendar. I really hope that there is no Indiana Jones IV, but I know that's just me.
Here's a Work in Progress for you; a sketch and digital painting of one of the characters from my forever-in-development comic Empyreal Fall. Her name is Juneau Winter. Thief, spy, sorceress and mistress to the King.
I'll post the finished painting when it's complete.
Another photo ref. from John Hedgecoe today. I need some photo references for animals and cityscapes, I think. Can't say that this is a good likeness of the model. In photography, you can get away with glamourizing the model, but if you do it with drawing or painting, it tends to really suck all the life out of the image.
Pencil sketch of a dancer, from a photograph by John Hedgecoe. No time for markers today, I have freelance deadlines and I have to get a new chili recipe into the crock pot for dinner tonight.
This was fun, in spite of the fact that I cut off her left foot. We may be seeing more of this girl.
Every time the new TV season starts, I am astounded by the number of shows that feature cops/detectives, lawyers or doctors. What's with all the adoration of authority in this society? It really makes me miss shows like Buffy and The X-files.
Back in September, my wife and I went to our first Renaissance Fair in Ohio. I was mostly interested in just seeing what all the fuss was about, but I was surprised by how much I liked it.
One thing that struck me the most was the sense of hyper-reality that was created and commonly maintained by all the people in attendance. Combining the costumes - which undoubtedly had an not-too-subtle sexual undercurrent - with the gourmet coffee stands, modern perfume and make-up and freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies gives you the distinct impression that everyone was creating a shared fantasy experience, rather than an accurate historical representation of the era.
Not that anything's wrong with that; I think it's quite healthy, actually. But I think it really speaks to how much America has replaced any culture of its own with pop-consumerism and overwork. Everyone just seems to want to escape it all...
When I wrote the Flashback story for Suburban Tribe that took us back to college, a good part of the narrative was dedicated to showing how Alan, Dave, Tiff and Carol met. My problem was that I had established very early on that Tiffany knew of Dave and knew that Alan lived with him, but Carol had never even met him.
So how should I write this story and give Dave enough to do? Answer: Establish a prior record of his troubles with Tiffany's cats! The lifespan of cats dictated that Caesar would not have been around while the gang was in college, (not to mention that the story of how Tiffany acquired Caesar is yet to be told) so I had to create a cat who was Caesar's Predecessor, one who would meet an unfortunate end at the hands of Dave.
Enter the old and incontinent Mister Nibbles. A few cat lovers took a shine to the obnoxious fella, and one even sensed where the story was going and asked me not to kill him. My heartless response was to show Dave leaving him in a KFC bucket in an overflowing dumpster. (Which was my plan all along, alas.)
So in this sketch we see that Mister Nibbles lives on. May he forgive me.
Pencil sketch and digital marker color of Salieri, from the movie Amadeus. Not only is it one of The Great Movies, the director's cut DVD comes in handy when I need to run my MacBook battery all the way down when I condition it every few months. :)
Every artist can relate to Salieri, I'm sure, although Mozart's struggles with the "suits" in the Emperor Joseph's court to get them to buy into his vision are also universal.
The first Suburban Tribe trade paperback will be called Too Many Notes and will feature all the strips printed in Suburban Tribe #1 - #3, as well as a fair amount of sketches and commentary. The cover will likely show Alan as Mozart, Carol as Katerina, Tiffany as Rosenberg, etc. That means lots of practice for me drawing 18th century Vienna fashions before it hits the shelves late this year. Watch this space!
