Haven't had time to draw this week. Just work on top of work and no energy. Then I go on Instagram and see all this work and just have to do something. So tonight, just before recording next week's show, I took some time to do some wilder, weirder versions of the head of the last portrait. None of them are outstanding or amazing but sometimes it's just fun to draw.

 I got further with this than I thought I would. I think it's done. The head was done separately, then the body and I managed to get them shoved together pretty well. I didn't end up referencing Lawrence as much as I thought I would. The colors aren't even close and I had to lose the hat in my hand as it looked like...well, it could be mistaken for something else. I redrew the hand twice to get it not to stand out. There are more layers in this than just about anything except the REALLY complex image I did a few years ago in an alley in Japan. That was nuts. This was probably in the 20s somewhere. I'm pretty happy with it. I might wish I wasn't glowering so much, but that's my 'posing' face. The ones with me smiling looked goofy so I didn't use them. I'm pretty happy with it. I don't think it's the kind of thing I could have done a year ago which means I'm learning something. Really should get back to the comic.

 Morning progress. I already did the sound editing for this week's podcast, so I had a little time before my nap (hey, I LOVE naps). I started the tonal breakdown for the current self portrait. It's at a good point to walk away so I can come back with fresh eyes. Some of it I like a lot, some of it is off. And the handling of the hair is going to be interesting to say the least. This one will take a lot more work than most, which is good. I think I go through these a little too fast and need to slow down some. 

 While I wait on my partner to be able to take a ref photo with me for to finish page 136, I decided to start on another self portrait. I've been watching a British show on YouTube called, "Fake or Fortune" which involves to British celebrities trying to track down provenance of questionable paintings. For the most part, they tend to prove that these lost paintings are indeed by who they're supposed to be. They were working on a portrait by an artist I did not know named Thomas Lawrence. I decided I liked his work and ordered a recent book on his work. One of the portraits, of Arthur Atherley, caught my attention. Since my hair is currently that long, I thought, "Why not try and replicate this portrait's pose in my own style?" So I've set out to do just that. 

There is something stately about these old formal portraits. While they don't have poses I generally like to do myself as I find them a bit too stiff for modern portraits, I thought some of the humor might come through if I just mirrored this while dressed in current day stuff. So I pulled my leather jacket, gloves and hat out of the closet and took some photos. It was a lot harder than I thought to get a post that worked, partially as the pose in Lawrence's is messed up to say the least. That cocked arm would have to be broken to get it at that angle, let me tell you. My guess is that the head and body were either done by two different people or done at different times. After ten exposures, I finally got what I wanted, though more heavily shadowed.

Last night, I set up the grid and worked on the body. The face was left purposefully indistinct as I knew I was going to do an inset, drawing the face in much more detail, larger, to be inset later. I might even play with "painting" the face at its original size then shrinking it, which will make it obviously different than the body when I finish it, not entirely unlike the original painting. I haven't decided on a final treatment of the background yet but it will be similar to the one above. Did the face tonight. Will try and work on this over the weekend but it being launch week at the store, I don't know how much energy I'll have.

 Didn't get as far as I wanted but I got some work done. I have to enlist my partner to help with a ref photo for the final figure stuff in the page. I think it's going where I want it to go so far. So that's a plus.

 It's been weeks but tonight, I finally started on the next section of City Silent. True, I didn't finish the Krankor portrait yet, but that's more an exercise than it is a finished thing, or at least, that's what I'm telling myself. Tonight I'd wanted to play video games but my partner wanted to so I went back to the studio, grumpy, took a short nap then put on a record. Soon, I was bored and decided to take a look at the next song again. It's been bugging me as to who to cast for it. I kept thinking that Digby might have been a better choice and I just couldn't get my head around it. Finally, I think I understood my own song and will indeed be casting Ricci in it.

Digby looks floating up there, I know, but there will be another image with him reacting as he sees Ricci approaching from off stage. Then, below, Ricci will grab him and start singing. I think this song's going to be shorter, less stage direction, less moving around. And...this is important, Ricci isn't going to paint anything. The song is called "The Shill," and it's about those who pretend to be "street" just to play the system. Not entirely unlike me making this whole comic, I suppose. Because of that, no painting. Not like all the rest.

The background above is made from three of my photos. The ground is just a sidewalk I took a photo of in LA. The dumpster is from Harvard Square, and the background is a big painting I did a few years ago simply called, "Graffiti." I think it works well, though we'll be segueing away from photo backgrounds, I think to something more simple. Huh I wrote a lot about very little. Let's hope the song doesn't feel that way.

 

Worked some more on Krankor. My usual style was feeling a little stale. That, coupled with the fact that I recently received a digital image from a painter I commissioned to paint me made me want to try something more painterly, more observed, less reliant on style. So I took the original sketch as some kind of basis and just started painting in Procreate. A lot of things were off, a lot of boundaries had to be reset, details refined. This is perhaps two hours' work brought down to 30 seconds in the Procreate video. I don't paint like this often and perhaps I should. Observation is a skill like any other and needs to be practiced. I think this is, so far, a good deal more successful than was the original version I was trying to do. The best part, for me, is that this is all done by hand. No graph, no tracing, nothing. Just observation. I think that's important for my development. Still, such a silly subject for such an exercise.

 Doing some sketches for the next portrait, Krankor from the Japanese movie, "Prince of Space." He's such a ridiculous character. I think he's meant to look like a bird, possibly a chicken. I don't know how that's sinister, especially with a big, humorous mustache. Which is why I want to make an image of him.