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.