Screaming My Lungs Out (With Nothing to Say)

Spring break is over… Time to get back to school and knock some of that rust off. Never fails, after a break I’m never totally satisfied with my work. The big hitch this time? Proportions. After the INTENSE proportion lessons I had last semester, I thought I’d had it pretty well in hand. But both my teachers had to come by and tell me to correct proportions on two different pieces…

I wasn’t really digging this piece while I was drawing it… But now that I look at it again, it looks better than I remembered it. Proportions were definitely a struggle here, and I’m not sure I completely resolved the issues… But I think it might be enough to make the drawing look okay.

I was trying out these Carbothello pencils… which are basically pastel pencils. I’m not sure if I like them yet. I’m having problems getting the line quality I want out of them, but then again, I’m never really happy with my line quality. More practice I think.

I did this piece today, and, again, tough time with the proportions. Initially the girl’s right hip was a little too high – stunting her body. Her left leg might still be a little small. Little more rusty with the Nupastels than I was with anything else because I absolutely haven’t touched ‘em in more than a week. But by the end of class things felt like they were coming back to me.

Well, my D string broke on my guitar. I don’t know why, but once a guitar string breaks, I’m amazingly lackluster about changing it. It just seems like a lot of trouble. But it’s sort of a blessing in disguise. I have a bunch of work to do, and not being able to play my guitar takes at least one distraction out of the equation.

In any case, I wanted to have all the inks for that comic finished by today… Fat chance. I’ve been working on a different project the whole weekend and just didn’t really get much done in terms of inks.

It never fails, if someone else gives me a deadline, no matter what else is going on, I’ll move hell and earth to finish it on time or early. But if I set a deadline for myself, I rarely meet it. Typical. So, instead of posting those inks, here’s another of those figure drawing workshop pictures I actually never planned on posting…

So, convention season is starting up, time for me to get my ego knocked off the cloud it’s currently floating on. The con I usually attend is Wondercon in San Francisco. I take my portfolio around to all the editors and professionals who will give me the time of day, and proceed to have it completely ripped apart by their critical eye. Generally, everyone I’ve talked to has been fantastic and very helpful… And NO ONE has dissuaded me from continue in trying; which is very important. Still, it’s a very humbling, but altogether necessary experience for anyone trying to break into the biz. Plus it helps me target the exact areas where I need improvement.

Initially I thought I would only have one short submission to bring in this year, but luckily my school had this spring break. A really pleasant surprise which I didn’t even know about until about two weeks before it started. So, I’ve been using it to hammer out that 5 page Imaginary Friends submission. I got the pencils done pretty quick and they all flew through approval… So I guess I’m on the right track. Anyways… Here they are:

Quite a bit for one post, I know… But, why not? I especially like the last three or so panels on page 4. When I started this story, I had no idea I’d be drawing a Wolfman in it… Another pleasant surprise.

Hey all, quick post today because I’m working on some stuff that’s a little bit time sensitive.

I like this one okay, I just need to remember to differentiate between my lights and shadows a little bit more; try to make those lights POP! Ah well, learn something new everyday.

SPRING BREAK, YA’LL! Yeah! I’m gonna party like it 1999! What? 1999 was over a decade ago? Oh. Then I guess I’m going to sit in my room and catch up on homework…

I really dig the shirt on this guy. You can really tell where the light’s coming from and there’s lots of colors in there (despite it being a white shirt). I really wish I had more time on these so I could get a little bit closer to finishing… But then again, I like the way the legs get all sketchy…

More head drawing stuff…

I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I may have pushed the darks a little too dark, but I really can’t tell. I’ve been trying to push for some semblance of photo-realism, but sometimes my “comic” style likes to peek it’s head through. That being said, I think there are some fantastic redeeming qualities about this piece. I think the likeness was pretty good (although I’d need the model to double check). And I really like the hair.

One of the biggest bummer things when you’re doing live model head drawing is that everyone looks sad or depressed. It’s makes sense, it’s really hard to hold a smile for a four to six hour pose so the model’s generally try to relax their faces. It’s just a bummer because she was really a very pretty girl with sort of a classic, renaissance look. Sadly, his pose makes her look a little older and more melancholy than she really was. Anyways…

OH! Happy Saint Patty’s Day. Just remember… Pints of Guinness make you strong.

I always regarded myself as a music snob. Anyone who owns as many Blink-182 albums as I do really shouldn’t be able to claim snobbery, but still, I hold my musical taste in high regard. That is, until I met these guys at work. Their ridicule pointed out how terrible and small my musical library truly was. They turned me on to folks like Warren Zevon, Old Crow Medicine Show, and, most notably, The Avett Brothers. I went out and picked up their CD, “Emotionalism” and was completely swept away. I now own all their CDs (with the exception of their live one), seen them in concert (and I’m hoping to see them again in April), and wear a t-shirt brandishing their logo all the time. Even the name for my blog, “Screaming My Lungs Out (With Nothing To Say)” is taken from one of their songs (“Please Pardon Yourself” off of Mignonette). In any case, for a class project, I figured I’d draw a picture inspired by the band:

Here’s the original photo that I used for reference…

Anyhow, check the band out if you get a chance. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

It’s a daily double today, two pictures for the price of one! Why? I dunno, I just sort of feel like posting both of these:

More Nupastels, mostly because people have been liking them. They’re saying my Nupastel work is, “a nice departure from your usual stuff,” which I’m not sure is good or bad. Does that mean they don’t like my usual stuff or am I just being too self conscious?

As usual, I like and dislike certain elements with this one. Mostly I’m not stoked on the face, I think the head might be a little too wide as well, but the model might’ve been that way. ::shrugs:: In any case, it looks a little weird without the model sitting there for reference. The body and the blanket are nice, however, and I like how the hand disappears into scribbles.

I hate my camera… or, rather, I hate that I can’t figure out how to effectively use my camera. I had to use the flash so this photo wouldn’t turn out blurry, but unfortunately it also washed out all the color. So, I took a detail picture without the flash. Not perfect, but a little closer to the actual colors:

I put a lot of effort into the face. Nupastels are really fun, but somewhat time consuming – mostly because I’m never exactly sure what I’m doing. Hence why you rarely will see a 100% fully rendered Nupastel from me (at least not one drawn from life). See, my system for working in Nupastel is pretty loose. Basically, I use one, medium dark color to block in the proportions of the figure and the shadows. Once I get the shapes about right, then just start going in with color. From here the process is pretty haphazard, I just keep reworking an area until it looks good then move on. Inevitably, after I move on from an area, I’ll later step back and see areas that I’ve previously finished aren’t working well together, so I have to fix them. The picture isn’t done until everything sort of has a unity to it and it’s directing the viewer’s eye where I want. So, it’s an effort of working, then reworking, then reworking, then erasing, then tweeking, then reworking until everything looks good. It probably sounds really tedious, but I gotta tell you, it’s amazingly fun. And if you can really get those colors to “pop” it’s worth every little bit of effort.

Wow… Only five spam comments between today and Monday. Usually counts up into the twenties somewhere. I guess they’ve finally realized that I don’t need cheap Cialis… yet.

Anyhow! Here’s something I drew in Head Drawing on Monday:

I’m pretty stoked on this image, and it didn’t really take that long to complete (about two hours). I was walking around like I was hot stuff for a day or two (then I showed up for class today and remembered why I’m in school again). But, it’s these little moments where you feel great about what your abilities that make all my complaining and self-deprecation worthwhile.