Digitally painted sketches of 3 original character headshots (left to right: Ian, Andy, Bruno) over a brown background. Each character is lit from their front left. Ian is a Latino man with light freckled skin, blonde hair tied into an unkempt ponytail, and a large white scar running through the left side of his mouth. His face is knit into a scowl so deep that his jaw is clenched. Andy is a black woman with dark skin, no hair or eyebrows, and an unreadable deadpan expression. Bruno is a Sicilian man with tan skin and black hair, including a short, well-groomed beard. He's smirking, but it reads more as confident than smug.
For me, drawing people takes a lot of time and effort because I have to look up references and agonize for hours about whether everything looks right. On the other hand, painting an already-drawn human is a chill and weirdly brainless activity. All I have to do is flesh out a structure that's already been established.
I've been way too tired to draw lately, so I pulled out some old ref sheet headshots to paint instead. I really like thinking about how the drawings should translate into 3-D structures, and it's just fun because it adds a layer of believability to the whole thing. Some general thoughts about these clowns:
Ian's features are interesting because he would look young for his age if he wasn't varying levels of angry all the time, but he is, so now his face is just stuck like that forever. He has a lot of history that I keep meaning to talk about here, but one thing that's funny to me is he started out a lot lankier and sharper but has rounded out over time as he's gained weight.
Speaking of lanky, Andy has taken over that job and is doing great at it. I love her face structure, and it's fun to draw because there's never any hair to cover it up. Also, if you know me at all, you'll know I love drawing thick, expressive eyebrows, so it's been a fun challenge getting her to emote without them.
Bruno is just friend shaped. That's all. He always needs to look a little cocky, but in an endearing way, so I enjoy figuring out how to telegraph that even in something boring like this.
I found out about a local secondhand art store earlier this year, and it's turned into my first stop when I want new art supplies. I've been able to try a lot of new mediums that I wouldn't have thought to buy otherwise. It's easier to find surprises when the inventory changes constantly (and you have to dig through bins to see all of it). Good quality supplies are also pretty cost-prohibitive, and I hate to spend so much money on stuff that might sit and gather dust.
I've seen a lot of end of year reviews of people's purchases of new stuff, but not a lot in the way of new used stuff. So this is a recap of notable secondhand purchases from this year (and, by extension, cool stuff I've gotten to try).
Two drawings of sunflower bouquets in brown ink and alcohol marker. The marker was used in single-colored rectangles surrounding each of the flowers. The drawing on the right features black eyed susans and uses yellow, light and dark green, and orange. The drawing on the left features lilies and uses yellow, pink, orange, and peach. The author is bad at flower identification and can't tell you much about the rest of the flowers.
I've been faffing around with a Sailor fude nib I bought a few weeks ago. Fude nibs are bent upwards so they provide line variation as you change your pen angle, similar to a brush or brush pen. I'm still pretty bad at using the nib intentionally, but it does cool stuff if you mindlessly draw with it. You can block in color really fast with it, which is awesome but also requires frequent dipping, even with the built-in feed it comes with, because that is a fuckton of ink.
I think fude lines are bold enough to stand on their own, but I plonked the marker on top to make things more fun!
Don't talk to me or my son or my other son ever again
My training to write more stuff on paper has been successful enough that I was able to justify buying a passport-sized Traveler's Notebook in March! And then... another one last week. The passport is perfectly pocket sized and more conducive for carrying around everywhere.
An ink and watercolor painting of a plate of dim sum. (Clockwise from top left: pork bun, pan-fried dumplings, snow pea leaves, barbeque pork, and shrimp dumplings, with chili oil). A pair of black chopsticks rests on the edge of the plate, which is porcelain with floral patterns glazed on in blue.
The paint palette and pen used on this painting are pictured beside it.
I picked up a box of Platinum Carbon Black cartridges at a local art supply store yesterday. It's waterproof, so I thought it would be a good tool to have when I'm out and want to draw something to paint later.
I was holding out on trying Carbon Black because it tends to dry out from neglect in speedy fashion, and I'm a professional art supply neglecter (real title, it's on my resume). Fortunately for me, Tina Koyama's idle testing found that Platinum pen caps seal tight enough to keep even pigment-based ink wet for months. I had a spare Platinum Preppy laying around, so it's the designated Carbon Black pen now (and until the end of time, probably)!
I got lazy mixing colors, so I used a whopping ten paints (not counting white). I panic-added yellow gouache at the end because I didn't feel like the chili oil was orange enough, and I don't have yellow watercolor... Perks of only using secondhand tubes!
