Dr. McCoy portrait, part 1

Excuse me while I geek all over the place.

Even though I was born about 20 years after the original series of Star Trek ended, I like to say that I grew up with the show. My Dad protests, "no you didn't, I did!" But he's the one who introduced me to the show when I was little, so he should know better. Dr. McCoy is one of my favorite characters on Star Trek, and he has a great face with lots of unique features. When I was searching through Google for a good photo of him, I found that some other people had drawn him in pencil as well. Notice that, despite their different styles and skill levels, they all drew in McCoy's distinctive uneven eyebrows.

Clockwise, from top left: By Kagomelovesinu , by Eve M , by Elorie , by DostoevskysMouse

So here is my initial sketch. I'm excited about working on this.

And this is truly awesome, though if you haven't seen the show you might not get it: 

"Every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time"

Title by Death Cab for Cutie.

Here are some listings I'd like to add to my Etsy shop. I need to make a sample drawing for each one, so people can see what they'd be getting.

1. Double bridal portrait, 9x12
2. Double portrait, 11x14
3. Triple portrait, 9x12

These are all fairly timestaking (is that a word? It should be) drawings, so I want inspiring photos to work from. If any of you, dear readers, have a photo that would fit one of the categories above, let me know. Maybe I'll give you a discount.

This does not fit any of the categories above, but what I would like to draw is this beautiful photograph of my style idol, Zooey Deschanel.

Scan of Instyle Magazine from flickr.

But if I did draw her, I'm not sure if I would include her arm holding the peach. Because in black and white, it looks more like a round blob than a peach. It might just be confusing.

Anniversary Portrait, part 3

Most of the woman's face and hair are completed for now. I always go back and make little changes. The hair was almost not visible in the reference photo; the shadows made it look solid black. So the hair I drew is a composite of my imagination and a second reference photo, where the woman has her hair down.

I seem to find photos that I WANT to draw faster than I can make drawings! Besides the photo of Han Solo, I also want to draw this picture of my lovely, longtime penpal who is descended from a race of giants. That would be a NORMAL size hat on anyone else. Seriously.
Must...draw...more!

A Star Wars drawing

My brother-in-law owns almost every piece of Star Wars memorabilia that has ever been produced upon this earth. He keeps them in a special Star Wars Room, a large walk-in closet packed floor to ceiling with Star Wars trinkets and some very large Lego models.

Yesterday he came to stay the night at our house. He was impressed by my still-in-progress drawing of Renee, and asked if I could make him a Star Wars drawing. "The only thing I don't have," he said, "is an original drawworm."

I asked what character he wanted me to draw, and he said "surprise me." So I'm thinking that Han Solo is a pretty safe bet. I mean, who doesn't like Han Solo? Even people who don't like Star Wars like Han Solo.

So I do a Google image search, and try and find a good reference photo.
Here's the first one I found. At first glance it's got all the important elements for a good drawing: a closeup with high resolution and clear details. The blaster would be fun to draw, with all those sweet highlights. But this picture is kind of...boring. Even Ford's expression looks kind of blah.
Here's a more exciting shot. Good action pose, less "blah" expression. But the cons are obvious: even though the lighting is ok, and the eyes are clear, it's a low-res image. Even if I could find a higher-res version of this picture, the left hand is out of focus and the blaster looks kind of like a black lumpy thing.
I think we may have a winner here. It's not perfect: it's not that large of an image and there are a lot of harsh shadows. However, the focus is very sharp and there is some nice reflected light on the left side of Han's face that might be fun to draw. Even though the pose is almost the same as in the previous photo, the left hand and blaster are in focus. The folds in his shirt are visually interesting. His pants are very tight. Not that that means anything from a drawing perspective.

I'm a bit intimidated by the amount of black space in this drawing. Dark photos are more difficult to draw than light ones, because you have to lay down so much graphite. (That's why I didn't choose to draw Darth Vader.) But hey, maybe I should look at this as an exercise? A challenge? Maybe I can experiment with using charcoal for the first time.

All the same, if you know of a better pic of Han Solo, or even have some suggestions for other Star Wars characters, leave a comment. You have to provide a link to a good photo, though. I know there are lots of cool characters in Star Wars, but it all comes down to who has a good photo.

The Lady of Devonshire

Meet Renee, longtime friend and Renaissance Faire geek. I forget her character's name right now, but her title is the Lady of Devonshire. You can be absolutely sure that every aspect of her outfit is historically accurate: the style, the colors, the type of fabric, everything. Renee tells me all about it.


Photo by Gar Travis.

I'm drawing a picture of her. Yeah, yeah, I know I said I was working on the cat, but it wasn't going well and I was getting frustrated. As a result of being frustrated, I was avoiding drawing, and that's not my goal here. What can I say, I just love drawing faces - especially the faces of friends. Maybe I need to make friends with some cats.

The drawing is going well so far, and I have started working on her black velvet cap. I think I'll wait to post a picture until the drawing is finished. For full effect, you know.

On another note, Google weather said we would have thunderstorms this week, but we did not. I am disappointed.