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.