That's a fancy shootin' iron, son

Continuing with the western theme...

I had this idea to do this perspective shot of some manner of outlaw holding a pistol in the air. So, this is what I came up with. Normally when I'm drawing a figure, I'll lay out the entire figure as a stick figure, then go in and reposition the limbs and body, till I can get a reasonable approximation of what I'm going for. Then, I'll start adding the 'meat' to the body, making it look (hopefully) more human, and more like what's in my head.

Not so, here. I pretty much started with the gun and worked my way down. It was initially working out pretty well; I was pleased with the positioning, and the body, and so on.

Then I tried the damn legs. I don't know what it is about legs that makes them so hard to draw- it's not like I've never seen them before. But, like so many other things, legs are a weakness of mine. It's just so hard to figure out what to do with them. Maybe that's why I'm such a lousy dancer. Anyway, I struggled through and got them onto the paper. And THEN I realized they weren't in perspective with the rest of the figure. They'd be fine if I'd not tried to exaggerate the gun and hand. But, since I did, the legs look all stumpy and misplaced.

Ah well, chalk it up in the learning curve. Better luck next time around.

That's it for now.

Music: "Something to Sing About" - Sarah Michelle Gellar/ James Marsters

Where's the Rum?

Welcome back. Not much to post today, unfortunately. Nothing I was planning on posting today was working out, so I'll fall back on the old standby- sketches! There's nothing too special to say about this one- the main comment about these is a technical one- both were finished using what's called a brush pen. Essentially, it's a felt tip marker that has a semi-rigid tip shaped like, well, a brush. This little beauty allows you to alter the width of the line you're putting down on paper, just like a brush. It's a far cry from the technical pens I grew up using to 'ink' my pictures. I really enjoy using the brush pen- it gives much more organic lines to the drawings, and a weight that I really can't give them with pencils alone.
Also, if you'll notice in the picture, I left in the blue lines. Typically when I draw nowadays I first sketch the picture using non-photo blue lead, which gives me the advantage of letting me be as messy and experimental as I want to be before committing to actual pencils. The beauty of non-photo blue lead is that, with 2 clicks in Photoshop, it disappears completely from your drawing. Woo! This is the usual method of choice for drawing with comic artists, and I jumped onboard with the idea after watching the Brothers Weaver use them.

Let's see- the pictures themselves? Just some emo-looking kid and Captain Jack Sparrow. The Captain is photo-referenced, but damn, is it hard to make a picture look like Johnny Depp. Another of my many weaknesses are likenesses, although I can occasionally pull off a "hey, isn't that-?".

So, there you go. Sorry it's not more interesting, or I'm not more amusing at the moment- I'm pretty pissed that the computer is not working for me right now. Hopefully the land of joy and humor will return Wednesday. Otherwise, things will go 'splody.

Music: "He's a Pirate" - Hans Zimmer