Managed to get this done tonight...twice. I posted it, made a post here about it and only later realized I'd done the same lyrics twice. Oops. Wasn't too hard to fix it, another benefit of working in separates and NOT drawing things all out on one page.

Sometimes I upload before I think enough about what I just made. This was one of those times. I needed the sleeping figure of Silas to do more than just disappear. The movement wasn't making sense. I easily rectified that by dropping the opacity in the middle two pages. Updated them on Flickr. NOW I can move on.

 

Had a little spurt of activity today, which is good. I wanted a little movement between verses and I wanted to add a little to the dreamy quality, which I think I did. The colors are damned bright and likely wouldn't print but hey, it might never come to print so I might as well continue as I do.
 

 Well, that didn't last long. The self portrait I did at the end of the year was outside my usual process in that I held the pencil way far back and let myself be a lot less precise with it. The one I did yesterday was back to my old approach. I was at the dealership having my car worked on and had my iPad and thought, well, I have the sketch, why not just have another go? And I did. And I think I like it better than the original. It's more painterly and may have more feeling to it. I tried it in blue then went back to the old Dutch palette and liked it better. So, hey. Two images from one sketch. Wasn't the first time, won't be the last.

 

Finished this today. The grey tones didn't take too long but the colors went through three versions. I was trying initially for something with a lot more wild colors but it wasn't quite jelling for me. So I made a duplicate and colored it more traditionally. Boring. Then I started working with monotones, tried one in pinks that almost worked but finally chose the blues. The reference photo was taken while waiting for a movie to start so I thought I could give the feeling of actually watching something on the screen with the blues. So, here it is, first self portrait of the year. Likely there will be many to come.

 I will sometimes take photos hoping that I will use them later for work. This is one of them. Or at least it's a sketch based on one. I took it at my favorite theater, The Brattle, while waiting for a movie to start. We'll see how it goes from here but it's freehand, no grid, no nothing. I even flipped it to make sure, and I'm pretty happy with it. Sometimes I think I draw better than I think I can. Or I just got lucky.

 Been sick the last three days. It's that time of year. Seems I always get sick this time of year. I think it's the holidays and the stress. Today, I managed to get a page done and that's always something. So, here's to moving on through the new year.

 And one more for the day. I think the movement is really working for me in this sequence. Thanks, Gene Kelly!

 And...page 206. This sequence will be a good deal easier to do as it's a dream sequence, sort of and as such takes place in a pink void. This is good as I need some forward movement.

 So 2025 starts off with a big correction. I hope that's not a sign of the coming year. I didn't realize I'd got the track name wrong, that I'd skipped a song when starting this out. Luckily, because of the way I work, I didn't have redo whole pages' worth of stuff, I only had to redo the text. On the downside, sometimes I'm too clever for my own good and I have to try and reverse-engineer what the hell I did in the first place so I can recreate the original results. Took me off project, working on the NEW page but it had to be done sooner than later, so...it's done. Moving on. Page later today.

 Almost forgot this thing. It's one of those social media, what I did with me in the middle kinds of things. What I can't understand is why I used the self portrait I did and not the last one I made as it was the best one of the year. Well, whatever. This is more or less 2024's art in a nutshell. I hope for more and better in '25.

 One final image for 2024, finally getting going on this track. I have the aesthetic down that I want and I know the direction in which to move. I just need to put a lot more effort into it in this coming year. Otherwise, it will never get done. I'm not going to make it by the time I turn 60 but I will get it done.

Ok, I admit, I pulled this out of my ass. There was a reference photo I took of myself looking tired in the hotel room when we were in Chicago. It's very posed in that I was sitting there, waiting for nothing and noticed that I was framed in the room's mirror. So I grabbed my phone and took a 'candid' photo thinking I might use it for another self portrait. Today, after working with pretty tight details, having to be exact, I was in the mood for something looser. So, with no grid, no nothing, I did a quick sketch. Later, after dinner, I did a very quick Procreate version over 20 layers, holding the pencil as loosely and as far back as I could. Then, with minimal fiddling, I vectorized it, sampled colors from here and there and let it go. I really like the looseness and 'painterliness' of it. I might do more like this later. For now, it's probably the last image I'll make in 2024 and that's ok. For a quick experiment, I like it fine.
 

 

Managed to sneak in one last portrait of the year. This one's of my friend Chris, Ian's boyfriend. Chris smiles a lot and I really wanted to capture one of him doing so. A lot of folks won't touch reference that has open mouths as it's often really hard to do. I like doing them, not least of which because they're more expressive than the 'looking at you 3/4 with a blank stare' pose. That being said, I still struggle with that kind of pose. This one was giving me trouble until I edited down the number of colors and edited out most of the shadows. Might be that up to half of the work in portraits is the editing and choosing of colors.

I start with the pencil sketch, above, done from a grid and my reference photo which is itself cropped. Then I pencil everything out, even things I'm not going to use later on. Knowing where something is means I can make things more vague later -because- I know where things should be. Then I go to Procreate and create a black and white toned version, each tone getting its own layer.

Lastly, each layer gets vectorized and re-assembled in AD. Then the color process starts. Sometimes, like with this, I sample colors from the original photo though I rarely keep them. I did that here then moved on to palettes created by sampling Rembrandt self portraits and some Van Gogh flower paintings. Even after that, I mess around with saturation and lightness a whole lot. The only thing I worry about at this point is that my style for these might be getting stale. That being said, I think the one of Ian is my favorite in a long time.

 Did a lot of touch up and detail work on this one but got it done. I started off sampling colors from the photo I used, then switched to the palette I made from "The Blue Boy," saved it and then started using more saturated colors to try and get away from my usual stuff. That made a big difference. Though these colors aren't 'right,' they have more life to them, especially the skin tones. Luckily, the model likes it, too. I think this might be my favorite of the year. The lower angle imparts a feeling of strength that I'm glad is there. Anyway, one more done. Might try and get one more in. The work schedule currently sucks and I have very little left to give.

 

I was looking through my Flickr account the other day, trying to see what I'd accomplished for the year. I wasn't all that happy with what I found. I managed only ONE track for the comic this year. That's really unaccountably slow. While it is a project no one is looking to see finished but me, that's really shitty. Even though I am well on the way to the next track, this is the second half and that's not anywhere near where I wanted to be. On the other hand, I did complete 23 portraits this year and I am happy with most of those. Still, it spurred me on to try and get at least one more portrait done before the end of the year. My work schedule has been terrible lately which isn't helping. There have also been a LOT of social activities, five this week alone so 'free time' has not been a thing.

The above is Ian, a friend of ours we recently hung out with in Chicago. I snuck a few photos of him and his partner Chris in hopes of doing a portrait at some point. Though it's not obvious, he was selling art at this convention we went to. I removed all the background stuff as I don't think it's important. I am glad I shot him while seated as we're now looking up at him and I think it gives him a sense of power or strength. Did the drawing yesterday, the painting today but I need to sit on it a bit to make sure. I'm not positive the likeness is there, but so far, I am liking it.

 Ok, THIS is what I wanted. I just had the whole thing backwards. I needed Silas' graffiti to take a new step, be something expressive and be something that likely wouldn't go over well with the rest of his artistic community. That's this. I took a bunch of screen shots from the "Gotta Dance" section of "Singin' in the Rain" as it's Gene Kelly at his best. At first, I did a paint-over of one of those to see how that would work but then just freehanded the whole thing which actually came out a lot better. I wanted that movement, expressiveness and very quick feeling and this is it. Now I have to come up with a lettering style to go with it which won't be as easy. It's finally some progress forward.

 This is not the answer, but it is a step. While I like the style, I don't think it's how Silas would paint. And THAT has been the problem. I need to know how he would paint and why his style wouldn't be accepted. Honestly, the style of the Silas in the foreground is more like what I should be doing for his STYLE and the one in the background should be more like the character. Or something. I'll figure it out eventually. But it's damned hard figuring out how a fictional character would make art.

 Finished this today after having added some background and colors. The person I made it for was happy and that's all that matters. I mostly like it but will likely use this to do an actual portrait of the person whose character is depicted. Glad I could make someone happy.

 I was away last week to go to a *gulp* furry con in Chicago. I've been before, quite a few times. Mostly we go to hang out with friends. A lot of the con we don't really attend. I did want to give a panel on either Procreate or "How NOT to Make Comics," but I didn't know how to apply. Ah, well. While there, I took photos of people I wanted to later make portraits of. This one, of a friend, Ian, is him while he was vending his art. His character is a doberman, like Howard from "City Silent," so I traded his head out for that. I will likely do a strict portrait of him using the same elements later. So far, I think it's coming along pretty well. There's going to be a background to this as I think the inclusion of the table he's standing behind is important. For a night's quick work, I think it's pretty good.

 Had a lot to do today and NONE of it was shopping. Or working. Go, me. I did have the podcast to do; another episode in the can awaiting editing. Then I had to go see "Wicked" in the theater for the next episode, which won't be for two weeks. Had laundry to do but managed tow work on a sketch of roughly what I had in mind. The above mix is NOT how it's going to look, it's just the idea of it. I need to make the graffiti Silas a bit more extreme, especially in the hands and feet, I think, movements more exaggerated as well. I think I found my style. He will mimic the foreground Silas and he will be able to speak, through graffiti where the 'real' Silas can't. So, another step.

 Forgot this, too. I did start the next page and THIS is where I stalled. Still like the colors and aesthetics so far. It's the graffiti part that always trips me up.

 This is actually from a couple days ago, but I forgot to post it here. A beginning. Then I stalled on the style of the images he was going to be dancing in front of. But I think I got a better idea of what to do so the time might have been well spent. We'll see.

Finally got back on this. While it was a quick and easy start, it is a start and that matters. I like a little 'animation' here and there and I also like playing with the idea of Silas kind of jumping in front of himself as it if was some kind of performance, which it is. This whole comic is meant to have hints of 'stage play' in it. It is an opera, after all. So while this isn't much, it's at least me getting back onto the horse.
 

 Couple of things. Did some work on this today. I'm sitting on it for at least another day to see how I feel. Overall, I think it's decent, not my best, not my worst. Not sure of the colors at all. I did zoom in a bit as I felt there was a lot of wasted blank area. I think I got likeness, just...well, he IS a clown. That's problematic in a way. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Worked a little on another test for the next track of City Silent. I want a much more painterly approach to the characters but, after doing this, decided I wanted a contrast with the background. I will likely have Silas dancing against huge representations of his new work. Unless you click on it, you can't see the detail on the image above. But that's ok, because I did a quick and dirty piece of graffiti and then plunked this in front of it:

I want to soften the edges of this, make it look more painted, likely put it into perspective with just a hint of the wall texture behind it, but this is kind of what I had in mind. It's all inspired by the "Gotta Dance" sequence of "Singin' in the Rain." I think more of a silhouette will actually work well, and it will allow me to get some more wild colors back into the comic.

 Distracted! Big surprise. Really, though, work has been sucking any creative spark out of me. While I WANT to make art, I just don't have the energy and there's so much else to do. Because of that, I let myself draw whatever I want when I actually can be bothered. Puddles Pity Party is a YouTube 'star,' though I don't know how popular he actually is. A very tall man with an amazing voice, he tends to do covers and does them quite well. He just chooses to do them in a clown suit. It might be a gimmick, especially as he's mute unless singing but hey, whatever it takes these days, right? I took some screen shots of one of his recent videos, looking for poses that were the most Puddles. This is one of them. I got decently far tonight though am at that point where I want to stop to get some perspective. The issue is that I'm worried my portraits style is getting stale. Dunno. Might continue with this, might start over. Haven't decided.

 Did a LOT of messing about with all the details of the face and got something I thought looked a lot more like my partner than did the original. When I showed them to him, he liked the original better. Well, nothing to be done about that. I think this looks like him and is more refined, especially without the line work which is also something he liked. Oh, well. This is all for me anyway. Might still poke about with it, but mostly, it's done. Here's the original for comparison.

 No reason I can't get distracted. I did work on the Harvard Square piece a bit but "Portrait Artist of the Year" is on again and I get in that mood. There was a portrait I did of my partner a few years ago and I've never been truly happy with his likeness. I like the rest of it, just not him. So tonight, I decided to find the original photo and see about changing him up. This is where I got to. Still not satisfied. Will keep poking at it.

 Tiny tiny progress as it was a damned busy weekend. Looking at the last WIP of this, I could see where the colors were a looking a little faded out. If I'm going to go more towards a fauvist palette, I might as well just go. So I intensified pretty much all the colors here which I think adds a distinct glow. No idea how this is going to print out but there's only one way to find out.  Bigger, more complex pieces like this really need time to sit back and look, just not TOO much or all I do is look and never draw.