Decided to play around with some of the gouache brushes in Procreate. I'm sort of doing the same thing with the 'cut paper' style stuff, so why not just go there instead of having to use AD? There's even some brushiness to it that I like. Colors were suggested by a filter app I got for my phone recently. I prefer them to real colors anyway.

 

Variations. Played some more with this one. I like the middle one a lot, though some of the color is a little sloppy. It's muddier but feels more like night to me and the direction of the light is a lot more enhanced. The top version is how it would appear in the comic. While I don't dislike it, I think it's missing some atmosphere. I'm also just not willing to change the style again and the watercolor is not only impossible to vectorize, it's a whole different approach. Still, fun to do little spot illos like this.

Terry being quite rude. Still working on a happy medium for the mice and City Silent. They have a hell of a life, considering that they appeared in ONE panel in Tamino. They weren't even characters, just two little punks Tamino questioned on his way. Since then, they've shown up quite a bit and will play a large part in City Silent. Tezuka used to have this cast of characters that would show up in his comics, almost like a corral of actors selected to play parts. I really like this idea and while I wasn't considering this on purpose, it's almost worked out that way. Smatt and Terry (and their cousin Rooster) haven't really changed parts so much as filled different needs. Smatt and Terry have been in Tamino, a short comic called "Last Stop Right," and Rooster joined them for "Smatt's Journey," which was a comic about me dealing with the death of my mom. Rooster died in that one but what the hell, he's the most fun to draw of the three. Terry is usually the more quiet, laid back of them but even he will have his moments in City Silent. Howard, too is from Tamino and has stepped up to a larger part. The comic will change in act 2 mostly as I will have to introduce word balloons (gasp). The mice will all be singing aloud, not thinking as Silas does. It will change the aesthetic in a way I hope will add more feeling of graffiti to the comic.

One click. I turned off the layer with all the lines and wrinkles in it and, to me, it makes the piece stronger with that omission. There's a slight loss of expression or character, but it still reads as Adam to me, there's still the smile but there's less clutter. This happens a lot with me. I have this love of line but with this style, it's all about the shapes and the colors. Well, I only have me to please so there you go.

New portrait. I've been watching Adam Savage on "Mythbusters" for years and always generally liked him. Since he's been on his own, making videos about making things, about other people making things and just generally showing his passions for things, I've found myself liking him more and more. He's so animated it's damned hard to choose one single image that might capture something of him. I took a lot of still frame screen shots. I like these things to be simple, so while I thought about making multiple images in one portrait as a kind of cubist animation, in the end, I went with my first instincts. Might tinker with it a bit or I might leave it be. I got some of his boyish smile which is important. Used a Dutch Masters sort of palette, partially as I really like the browns. I'm fairly happy with it.

 Just a last post to show the paintings of myself and my partner side by side. Of course mine is bigger because HUGE EGO...or really just different planning. I think his is better. Still, I like seeing them together. I think I like the roughness of my partner's better, so that's something to learn from. As long as I learn something.

Finished this tonight. It's obvious that the image was drawn a long while back, about 8 inches of hair ago. I also shaved. I wanted an image with me in it to show scale. I'm pretty happy with it. I think the size has a lot to do with this as there's impact because of it. Might actually try one of these with cut paper at some point. Might not. Still, a good experiment, I think. Acrylic on canvas. 

Progress, but not finished. I did one thing that made a huge difference; I took it off the wall and placed it on a table to be able to move it around and get to the edges more easily. I have to fix the mouth as it's too dark and do a second coat of the hair. Otherwise, I think it's coming out pretty well.

 

Some progress. Decided to fix the problems with registration. Hope to finish this today. 

A little progress today but the registration was off for the sweater which is weird. I'm not sure I'm going to fix it. This would not be the final painting per se if I were doing a show as the canvas is too small. I just wanted to paint. 

Sure enough, I'm taking the last one to paint. I don't really have enough canvas to cover this but what the hell. I'll make it fit. It'll never hang anywhere so I don't have to worry so much. It will be a kind of pair to the one I did of my partner. Roughly 24x30. 

Slept on it feeling that the other version was too pink. When I woke up this morning, I felt the same way. Knowing that I like browns the way I do, I did a search for a swatch of burnt sienna and based the whole palette on just that color. This is the result and I will likely take this to paint. 

Sort of cheating on this. I was looking at the painting I did of my partner recently, done from one of the 'cut paper' series of digital portraits and I wondered about the one I did of myself. The original version was just the lined version with the line layer turned off, something I do a lot to amuse myself.  What my partner's portrait had going for it, I thought, was the VERY tight palette; four colors. The version I posted was all over the place. So I went back and played with what I had and managed to get this down to five. it think it works a lot better than the earlier version. It's very pink but so am I. This would also work as a large painting and perhaps it will be my next.

Got a costume in the mail today to help me with the skater mice, Smatt in particular. Was thinking about British 'gangsters' the other day, and how they seem to like the matching track suit 'style.' Personally, I think it looks terrible but it's the right kind of terrible for these guys, I think. So Smatt/I now own what I call an "Oik Suit," oik being a term Brits seem to use for someone they dislike/idiot/jerk/etc. Smatt is indeed an oik. 

Morning workout, self portrait style. Been wanting to do one with my currently crazy hair for awhile. No reason not to do one today. Pencil sketch first, Procreate after and Affinity Designer for the finish. Blue and brown is my favorite color combination. Also been re-watching Portrait and Landscape Artist of the year, so I've been in the mood. I really wonder how well this style would stand up to that kind of competition. I wouldn't win, but it would be fun to try.