Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Projects In Progress



Sketch showing the original drawing for a new toon (inspired by the Mona Lisa story from a few days ago) with some lettering thrown over the top and colorized. As you can see I'm not adverse to working on different cartoons on the same sheet of paper. I try not to be too precious with whatever it is I'm doing; re the lines from folding the paper and carrying it around in my pocket during the day. The creases I can always erase later in Photoshop when I scan the drawing for both print and web.



The John Klang memorial portrait in progress. This is drawn on a 4x6" sheet of paper which I carried around on Monday inside of a Sweetist Day card my wife gave me a few years ago and which I've had sitting atop a pile of neglected projects near my computer. It was handy, and, it kept me from ruining the drawing as I carried it around in my pocket. I did some of the shading at the Culver's Restaurant in Lakeville, Minnesota. Not finished, of course. I have an extended section I'll blend with this drawing for the finished portrait.

I draw these portraits from photographs completely by eye. I've discovered that when working from photographs it's helpful to turn them upsidedown, a technique which makes live subjects suspicious of your motives. The benefit of copying photographs from unusual angles is that it forces you to see only spatial relationships. It's much more productive to draw irregular shapes versus what you assume a nose should look like, which is by definition representative and therefore wrong. I call that 'cartooning' (see nose below).



A second version of yesterday's Pro-Life Memorial Day cartoon, which is standing in for today's toon until I first cut grass and then complete one of the above projects.

I've received a request from someone associated with Care Net for a Neverborn cartoon. Also, a relative of one of the subjects in the unfinished Heroes Of Sadr City memorial portrait has contacted me wondering if I plan to complete the portrait, which I should. My apologies. I love starting projects, but hate finishing them.

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