Words, Art & Science by Anthony Francis
Didn't like how the re-sketch of yesterday's post was turning out, so I drilled in on the eyes, using non-repro-blue roughs (which you can see below).
I'm not happy with how I'm perceiving shapes; the eyes are too wide, and it can't just be chalked up to angle (look at the eye on the right of the drawing in particular). Also, my rendering is still off, as the iris on the left is misshapen from the rounded originals. Oh, and that tilt is back.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Quick Sharpie sketch of the famous "afghan girl" photograph. Not even going to do a comparison, as I messed up the shape of the face and there's no going back with the sharpies.
Still, drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Well, something weird happened with my blog which interfered with updates, so, boo, but nevertheless, it cleared up on its own despite my best debugging efforts, so ... yay? #nervous_laughter And updates. First, here's a quick concept sketch from JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE FLYING GARDENS OF VENUS of the antagonist character "the Parasolite" ... or, more properly, one of her bodies:
The Parasolite prime interrogating Puck in her throne room. Looking at both of these, I'm not getting the length of the human leg correct; I need to work on body proportions as much as faces.
After a long day of writing Camp Nano (oh, I'm doing FLYING GARDENS OF VENUS for Camp Nano) I gave up and did this quick sketch of Brainyon, the brain-jar spider-boy shown earlier, drafted as a mercenary by our "Robert De Niro in Casino"-styled protagonist / antagonist:
Concept sketch for the Parasolite Prime.
Drawing every day, even if I can't always post.
-the Centaur
A pretty crummy quick sketch of Peter Capaldi. Not sure where this one went wrong; there is no way to line this up with the original.
And the other drawing I'm working on had its own problems. Sigh.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
A pretty crummy quick Sharpie sketch of Indiana Jones, if I do say so myself.
I was about 5-10% off stretched and 5-10 degrees off in rotation. Yes, yes, I know I was doing a quick sketch so I could have time to work on some other drawings I'm doing, but man, this was bad:
Still, it's drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Re-sketch of Puck on the skywall, using a lightbox. That really cleans it up.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Just because I was on vacation doesn't mean I wasn't drawing ...
Above, a sketch of some desk toys ... below, I think it was a from-memory quick sketch of Indiana Jones, but I find that hard to believe.
Below, test sketch of Puck climbing a skywall from JW&TFGOV.
Test sketching the shape of a face ...
And another quick sketch of Gabby.
Drawing, even a little, every day.
-the Centaur
P.S. Monterey is, as always, awesome.
Quick Sharpie re-sketch of yesterday's drawing - no roughs, from memory. I'm almost afraid to see how I did:
Huh. The overall outline is better than I expected, but I squished his head and mixed up his arms. Interesting. Almost the opposite of Data as Mr. Light Bulb Head, we have Gabby the Pear-Headed Cat.
Welp, here's to remembering that better next time.
Drawing, even a little, every day.
-the Centaur
Pigma Micron sketch over non-repro blue roughs of Gabby the Cat. Let's see how I did:
As it turns out, I didn't pay too close attention to the landscape after the face, and so there's no way to make it line up perfectly no matter how you scale or rotate it:
Ah well. Still, drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Another take on Puck from JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE FLYING GARDENS OF VENUS, a quick sketch with roughs in non-repro blue, Pigma rendering, and flats in Photoshop - through which process I discovered she was black with blonde hair. Concrete descriptions for the representational win! Below, a quick sketch over non-repro blue of the Wings of Wisdom or Wisdom's Folly, the ramen sailshop where Puck works. All she wants to do is serve Venus some ramen, man, cut her a break.
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Just because I haven't been posting doesn't mean I haven't been drawing. Day 174 was a super quick Sharpie sketch of a face from one of my steampunk desktop backgrounds; it was too much of a quick sketch to be able to recover some of my initial mistakes:
Day 173 was a quick character sketch of Puck, the point-of-view protagonist of a new story I'm working on, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE FLYING GARDENS OF VENUS:
Day 176 was a quick sketch of Byron (or Brainyon) from JW&TFGOV:
Day 177 included some quick sketches of speakers at the Embodied AI Workshop, which I was monitoring today; I'm not going to identify the speakers because (a) privacy and (b) many of these are terrible:
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Super quick sketch of Dakota Frost with a Sharpie.
Drawing every day, even when exhausted and crashing early after a long day.
-the Centaur
Picard, Level 2: non-repro blue used as roughs for the quick Sharpie sketch. I don't like how this one turned out at all - he's frowning in the sketch, and smiling below:
Worse, despite being careful, there's no way to line up the head and features. This, I'm afraid, was another failure of measurement - an error in the "landscape".
Welp, back to the "drawing every day" board.
-the Centaur
Super-quick Sharpie sketch of Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation - I think this is from the rare lost episode "Tick Dracy in the Twenty-Fourth-and-a-Half Century" where Data plays the old cartoon villain "Light Bulb Head". I mean, man, this one is just awful, but, it's 2am, so I am going to bed.
Drawing, not always well, every day.
-the Centaur
Well, if yesterday was Picard Level 0, this is Picard Level 1, a quick Sharpie sketch based on the below headshot of a determined Captain Picard:
How did I do? Well, you can line up the head outline, or the features, but not both at the same time. Still, overall, not so bad:
Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Dr. Hugo Eckener, the "Pope" of airship pilots. Even though I carefully noted the angle of the head, I nevertheless tilted the eyebrows wrong - and even caught myself doing it. But, even though I saw the problem, and did some work to correct it, it was too late to recreate the fullness of the face:
The comparison shows a 5 degree tilt and 10 degree horizontal squash, but, frankly, there's no way to make everything line up no matter how you stretch it, as the nose is misproportioned compared to the eyes, which led the dent on the face on the left side of the page compared to the original.
Ah well. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Quick Sharpie sketch of Riker from Best of Both Worlds, Part I:
The comparison below shows that the hair and eyes are OK; the beard doesn't line up.
Ah well. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
Masego from his amazing one-take performance on "Tadow" with looping artist FKJ. How did I do? Eh, meh, it looks like I dented his face in compared to the original.
As usual, I missed the ~3 degree tilt of the head, and while dude is thin, I gave him a giraffe neck because I stopped measuring when I got to the shoulder section. Sigh.
Sigh. Drawing every day.
-the Centaur
