U PHAIL

The Height Rule is thus: in a fandom, whenever you have a pairing, the taller of the two is always the aggressor. It doesn't matter if the shorter one has the alpha personality, it just doesn't look good.

And here we have Starsky demonstrating quite clearly why Hutch will always be the aggressor.



...this was a lot funnier before I figured out that Hutch, quiet though he is, is in fact the alpha personality of the two.

Damn.

Fun with lighting

More practice for shadows and lighting.

This time, instead of drawing over the top of the photos, I drew these side-by-side with the photos, to see if I could get the colours and the proportions right. I'm still using the eyedropper tool to get the colours right in these - my next stop is judging colour on my own. I get the feeling that I am going to have a lot of trouble with that one...





I think these turned out better than those drawn over the photos, go figure. I'm not happy with the image of the girl looking up, though - I think it's time for some facial angle practice.

Anyone seeing a theme?

Well, I suck at colouring. And shadows. And lighting. And all that jazz.

So, I want to do something about it, but, well, everyone starts at the bottom, right? So, I remembered listening to a pair of young concept artists giving a talk at SMASH, saying they spent hours a day practicing and that they started off just doing black and white practice pictures from photos, to get an idea as to how light worked.

So I took some of the pictures I found of male torsos and gave it a shot. These are all done in PS, using the photos as a guide layer and touching them up after getting rid of them. I think I need a lot more practice before I can get lighting like this without looking at references...

Beware, the last image is slash.











I probably ought to upload some girls, just for the balance.

...

Nah.

Well, at least he has a shirt on...

This is so out of proportion, but I just wanted the image out of my head and down on paper. It's Trace again, wondering what it was he was drinking last night. It took me so long to get this pose even REMOTELY right that once I got the vaguest resemblance, I just went right ahead and tight-pencilled it. And oh WOW, do I need to practice drapery or what. Mercy me.


No, he isn't wearing any pants.

I should stop doing this...

I have an unfortunate tendency to willingly draw anything - ANYTHING - that people ask me to draw during an arty get-together. Which is what happened here.

Kim, in superhero spandex and a tutu, riding the Stig.


Originally she had a mohawk and thick man-eyebrows, but they got phased out...

Aren't I gratuitous?

So, the fact of the matter is, I wasn't particularly happy with Trace's anatomy from the other day. His torso looked vaguely torso-like, I'll grant, but apart from a few little lines and scratches here and there to give the impression of pectorals, he didn't look...pretty.

And I wanted him to be pretty.

So I kicked about on the 'Net, and looked up some torso images to get some practice in. The single best thing about being an artist is having a legitimate reason to stare all day at well-defined men flexing. I may be crude, but I'm honest.

After a bit of drawing and sketching to reacquaint myself with the major muscle groups, I came up with these:


They aren't perfect, but they're better than the previous. Up the top there is Larrikin, and that's Trace again on the bottom. Both these images were based on photos found at...some free photo site or another. I forget which.

I don't know if it's noticeable, but I tried to make their muscletone different - Larrikin a little more built and well-defined because he actually works out, and Trace skinnier and more angular because he can put his body down to good metabolism rather than regular gym visits.

I promise my next upload won't involve a shirtless guy.

Detectives are awesome

My detective boy, "Trace" Draven.

You know, I could say I just wanted to do some more character design on him. I could say I wanted to practice anatomy, or everyday poses. Hell, I could try to cover up my true motives like I did here, by doodling little images of him getting ready for work and pretend I was doing a sequence of events, in order to justify myself.

But the fact remains:

I just wanted to draw Trace without a shirt on.

I probably would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids if I had actually looked up the poses before drawing them.

Scout

Colour sketches of my elkhound Scout. He kept moving around and wandering about the house while I was doing the top drawing, until he finally dropped off to sleep.