Shooting for the...

Guns. Huge, freakin' massive guns. Maybe built into a mountain or perched high up a hill, maybe even partially dug into the hill iteslf and fires missles, giant molten balls of metal, or maybe just energy blasts of hyper charged plasma on some far city.

That's what I imagined. I've probably been listening to too much news about North Korea, but anyway, that was the inspiration.

I knew as I was drawing that I would not be able to get it quite as I wanted to. I didn't have a ruler (was using a spare pencil as a straight edge), I knew the perspective would probably be a bit off and also that I wanted people in it, perhaps soldiers or a top General and his attendant standing very close to the camera, looking off into the distance with stern expressions. I thought they would be done best drawn on a different layer, and I wasn't in front of my light table, so I couldn't easily manage that right then. Also, I was under a bit of time pressure. This one took about 50 minutes.

I guess I was imagining this could be a propaganda poster of sorts, complete with a flag background behind the guns, the human element (people visible somewhere), and maybe some interesting lettering in a foriegn language and bold font saying who knows what.

So now that I look at it and think about what I intended, I'm wondering if I should give it a go, try to finish it as I initailly imagined it.

Having said all that, it worked out pretty well. The inking is quite good. I did my best to get clean, non sketchy lines, but also allowed them to be rough-ish, and it works. I like the sooty ends of the gun barrels. I like the design of the place, though I know it needs more stairways, more observation platforms and enclosed command towers. It could use some other vehicles like tanks or jeeps or cranes around. I do like the lift on the bottom right with it's cockpit that is a bit like one on a crane. I also like the ammo cartridges on the bottom left. You can see how they might get loaded into the thing. I'm pleased that I've been able to draw it in such a way that you can feel how it might be to really be there.

Devil May Care

When one of these compilation works out, it works out really well. I like drawing demons/devils and here I did a bunch and some of the other minions or denizens of hell.

I find the trick of drawing one of these pages is three part:

• Try not to care what they look like
• Draw them close together
• Fill the page

Check out the one just below the winged one on the top left.  He's got a really odd mouth and his eyes are black with white pupils.  SCAAARY!!!  I liked the long fingers with long nails. Starting it all off with a good one, not a great one, but an interesting one really helps to get the whole thing going because I have a place to go with it. I didn't "say" all I wanted to with that one, so I did the one to it's immediate right with spindly arms and odd fingers - fingers are not so obvious because he's holding a stick.

Every ring of hell needs a huge muscly demon in a bondage type harness, ram's horns and no pants. Extra scary. So that's why I did the one in the bondage harness. I think doing that one freed me up to just go for it and draw whatever, which is why I drew the bird type things with the single eye. Hell... carion, carion with one eye that sees everything. It's an easy logic step!

When I was sufficiently freed up, I had a yen to draw the one on the bottom center... yes, he's "making a pile" as it were. I wasn't going to draw him actually deficating, but by this point I felt I was drawing what isn't usually allowed and that was fun, especially with demons. It was probably at that point that I decided the devil in the bondage harness needed a wee wee, and so he got a very wee wee wee.

There are two others that are particularly interesting.  The bull-headed one and the griffin like creature shown below

I thought they were pretty cool because I didn't think they fit the grouping. They do because of the line style and use of dark accents, but they are actually quite beautiful, not ugly or repulsive like the others, which is an interesting idea. Are there devils that are beautiful and amazing, not hideous or repellent?

Who knows? When I go to hell, I'll let you know what I find!

The Long View

Sometimes I start drawing something like what you see above and stop. Stop and erase! This kind of thing in my sketchbook doesn't really work, because the scope is a bit too big, and it takes too long to draw, and I feel I need to spend more time getting the perspective right - for a few reasons I avoid doing it in the sketchbook.

But actually, this is just the sort of thing I should be "exploring" in a sketchbook - those crazy nutbar, super ambitious drawings that may never get anywhere - put 'em in the sketchbook, mess around with them, play with them, go wild, if it doesn't work, well... how many people are going to look at your sketchbook and say "Hmm.... perspective's off and that one guy looks too big. SUBSTANDARD, not interested, moving on." Nobody. Well, very few people.

What I like about this one is the scope, the view, the sheer size of the vision. I can see for (at least) a mile. I might go back and add more heavy black lines to define the depth a bit more, but I think it works as is. I also like how the light sources are just indistinct balls of circles. I love the bridges (would really like to walk across them, find some bodega or some place, sit, have a drink... getting off track) and as my lovely Christine said, the mix of old (perhaps primitive) and new is really neat. I also like how even though very little of it is shaded, you still get an idea of the light.

Not bad, Mr. Wood. Let's see more of that.  

What, me worry?!

Yesterday I saw a caricature a colleague did of himself. I've been working on learning some Photoshop techniques, so I thought, "that looks like fun, I'll do one of myself".

Ok, this is my second attempt at doing digital painting in a serious (ahem... concerted) way, and before you pop my balloon, Mr. Ghost, I think it turned out pretty gerflichin' well!

Ok, so the colour is a bit saturated (about the glowing ears... mine glow!), and the area between the lower lip and chin crease needs a bit of work.  It might be funnier if the nose were more red, and perhaps the hair needs to have more depth.  But I like it.  I think the proportions have been pushed in a funny while retaining a likeness (no, if you don't know what I look like, I'm not going to put a photo of me up for comparison!).

I did it mostly with a brush that had shape dynamics texture that made it look a bit like a pastel and then used the mixer brush a whole lot to blend the tones as you might do with an oil painting. Love that technique. 

The thing that cracks me up though, is how much this looks (to me) like it could have been in Mad Magazine. I feel like I caught the style. I haven't looked at a Mad Magazine in ages, but somehow that style is in my head. I think that's pretty cool and interesting.

Walking Tour With Your Mind

Sometimes the drawing just happens.  You get an idea and keep going and keep going.  This one took about an hour to draw rough and then another hour or so to ink.

Turned out quite nicely.  I really like the feeling of depth in it, and the sense of light.  I wanted (and think I achieved) a feeling that this place is carved into a rock wall and because of it's orientation, might not get full light all the time.

The one thing I wasn't too keen on was the size of the figure at the bottom.  He's good and small in the image above, but was a fair bit bigger in the original.  I wanted him small to communicate how HUGE this place is, but it also might have been interesting if he were larger than the city's inhabitants, like double or triple their size.  Could you imagine walking through a city if you were that big?

This sort of drawing is so much fun because it invites that sort of musing.  It lets you explore it in your mind.