Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back to my new and consistently updated artblog!

Today is Thursday, which means I'll be pulling something out of my magic art bag that relates to something that's been influencing me. This week it's Egypt again. In the past few months on this blog I've done a handful of Egypt works- a drawing from a photo here, a comic illustration there- but this week I'm trying something a little different.

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There's a lot of gods in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. Many of the anthropomorphic (mixed human and animal) are known and referenced still to this day. These include Horus (half falcon), Anubis (half jackal) and Bast (half cat). The image of men and women with animal heads is very striking, still. I drew a couple of them when I did my comic on Hatchepsut a few years ago. (My favorite might've been Hathor, half woman/half cow)

Some are a little less... inspired.

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Take for example our (half) man, Kheperi. Kheperi is the god of rebirth, the sunrise and a couple other random bits. I don't think that he would have caught my eye, except for the fact that he's half Scarab Beetle. Actually no, that's not it. Let me clarify.

Scarab Beetles were sacred to the Egyptians; their young grow and then are born and emerge from a ball of dung that the scarab beetles pushes around town, and this seemed to the Egyptians to be 'rebirth' in action. That's all par for the course with Ancient Egypt.

What's interesting about Kheperi is how he was portrayed. If an Egyptian god or goddess were human, their specific attribute was held or rested on their head (see Isis or Maat) If an Egypt deity were half animal, it was the head of the animal (see my favorites Anubis and Sekmet) In my artistic opinion, the ball was dropped when they got to Kheperi. Check this out:



That's right, they just straight stood a Scarab Beetle on his neck! It's hilarious; it reminds me of the black bars that are used to protect someone's identity. I knew that there had to be a better way to approach this.

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And now we're going to continue this tomorrow. I worked out a sketch on how I thought Khepri should look, and started to work out a sketch. However, I was having too much fun with it and started to actually really draw the thing. You'll have to take my word for it right now that it's looking pretty awesome.

I'll see you back here tomorrow for part two!

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back to my new and consistently updated artblog!

Today is Thursday, which means I'll be pulling something out of my magic art bag that relates to something that's been influencing me.

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You'd be hard pressed to find me a better singer than Aretha Franklin. It can be almost too much sometimes, the range, depth and power of her voice. It's nearly impossible to shuffle her into an iTunes playlist, because whatever pops up after her is only going to sound light and amateurish in comparison.

Ms. Franklin isn't particularly known for her photos, but I found one recently that really struck me. It's cast mainly in shadows and half her face is receding back into the darkness. It's a moody shot. I decided to have a little fun with it and try to approach it in a modified realistic fashion. I first laid down a very loose sketch of the photo and then, rather than trying to parse out the contours and shapes from the darkness, I decided to let the darkness dictate my approach.

I started just crosshatching very minutely, trying to keep a rhythm with my pencil and not erase unless necessary. I then built up the layers, using only this crosshatching and not using lines per se.

It was a fun little exercise. I might have to use it again!

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back to my artblog! It's the middle of the holiday season, but still I persevere in my attempt to post every single week day, rain or shine, hell or high water, caffeine or no ca-... No, that's too far.

If I'm out of coffee, and there's none around, all bets are off. You've been warned.

Today is Thursday, which means I'll be pulling something out of my magic art bag that relates to something that's been influencing me. I've been juggling a few things on my plate lately (who isn't?) and one those has been a pair of bust commissions, one of Iron Man and one of Black Cat. I sat down today to try and tackle the Iron Man bust, and found myself again returning to John Romita, Jr.

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The man's drawn a ton of comics! Man. Really, a lot. Half a Kirby, probably. Anyways, he had a short but memorable run on Iron Man's book in the late 80's. He has also been drawing Iron Man again in on Avengers for the last few months. I hadn't been thinking consciously about JRJR's Iron Man, but once I cracked open his Avengers books for reference (I was unfamiliar with the current configuration of the armor; Iron Man changes armor like I change underwear) I couldn't get it out of mind.

JRJR is a great fit for Iron Man. He really gets the power and eneryg of the character. Iron Man's strength and technology can be really fun to draw and you can see in his work that JRJR enjoys the character. Iron Man can also be tricky at times, due to the fact that the armor's faceplate doesn't really move and so the emotion of the man in the armor is pretty restrictive. JRJR gets around that with angles and shady and other nifty tricks of the trade.

Thanks for the inspiration JRJR!

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back! I hope you've been enjoying the blog. When last I left you, just a few wee hours ago, I was having some issues with a Michael Golden sketch I was inking. Not ISSUES issues, just... issues. It felt like something was missing from my inks. A little verve or energy. I think the issue with a tight penciler such as Golden can be the rut of just feeling like you're 'tracing' (insert your own Chasing Amy joke here); I needed some help.

Enter Inspiration Thursday!, a day where I attempt to recreate, or use, or imitate, some part of an artist that's been inspiring me. This week I realized was perfect for P. Craig Russell, an amazing artists in his own right and also one of my favorite inkers (in general, but also on Golden). I pulled some Russell comics, particularly his Elric stuff (check out here and here for examples) and tried to figure out what was going on that I liked and if I could pull from it for my own work.

It's amazing, the misunderstanding that's necessary for artist creation. You can't really think of everything that an artist is everytime you sit down at the board. You find things that fit in with your work, or that inspire you. In Russell's case it was the grace and seeming perfection of his craft. I realized, while looking through his work today, that it's that word 'seeming' that is most important. Look at those pictures I linked to again: there's a grace there for sure, but that's achieved not through an attempt at being perfect, but an attempt at being supremely confident. Choosing the lines and throwing them down. It was that sureness I needed to reach for. I went back to my board and tried to bring that sureness of line to the Michael Golden sketch. I think I approached, if not success, than where I really wanted to be: intent.


Here's your 'Inspiration' sketch of the week!