Playing catch-up again

I keep using YouTube thumbs for my practice pieces. And when you do that, there's always the danger that you're working from a photoshopped image, which turns out to be the case with this pic of Hulk Hogan @ 62 - his arms are not that skinny, and I think the guy made him look fatter than he really is. I did manage to find the real image (where the Hulkster is sporting some pretty impressive guns!), but I kept mine the way it is because it's a much more striking image - the contrast between that massive chest and the stalk-like arms is funny and eye-catching. It's what grabbed my attention in the first place, as well as that really great shadow covering his abdomen area.

In no particular order these are some catchup images since the last post, plus a few more recent ones.

I decided I had got about as far as I could go just concentrating on digital painting, and I need to really get in and work on my drawing. I used to draw all the time, and I haven't for over a decade. When I would draw for my tablet paintings I was just scribbling out a hasty image, depending on being able to fix it in photoshop (never a good idea). I somehow thought I was going to develop the ability to work as well in digital as I can on paper, but that never happened, and I don't think it will.

So this is where the graphite hits the paper. A big part of my recent drawing inspiration was when I discovered a comic book artist named David Finch (who drew the Batman head I copied above).

Finch has a few drawing lessons on Gnomon - I signed up and took advantage of the 3 day trial period to watch his videos plus one by Steven Platt (Splatt as he goes by when he signs his comics). He said the absolute key to getting good is to draw hundreds of these little quick-sketch figures until you can do it blindfolded - it's at this level of resolution that you develop your skills the most, then details can be added on later. But you need to learn how to sketch out these little figures in great poses and make them flow- make them look natural and human (of course human and natural are relative terms, especially in comic book drawing). Some of his looked vaguely familiar, so I dug out my copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and sure enough - there they are! Makes sense, since he's drawn for both Marvel and DC.

Besides the little comic book quick-sketch figures, I'm also doing some longer figure drawings from photo ref.

And studying after some of the masters, like Frazetta. Here I copied his figures from a John Carter painting in comic-book quick-sketch style and added his shadows, both on the figures and the ground, which is what ties it all together into a tight grouping and grounds the figures nicely.