Smudgy minotaur
Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 1:25 pmI’ve joined an art studio near work, so I can now go to classes and use the studio whenever I want. There are lots of classes on offer, and it’s also a nice sociable place.
My aim in taking classes is to improve my technique and stretch my mind so that I can find more interesting ways to draw or paint the subjects that give me pleasure. Which means lots of figures with animal heads, men in fancy clothes, masked Venetians, and the occasional bit of porn.
This is a new minotaur, half copied from the last one, which was copied from a couple of photos. The head teacher discourages students from working from photographs, saying that it hinders you in developing our own style because you concentrate too much on just copying the picture. And I can see her point. I’m going to try to use more drawings from life as references from now on. If I want to walk a mile or so up the canal, there’s a water buffalo tethered on a vacant block, so perhaps I should go there and try to do a life study. They’re rather handsome bovines with clean-cut faces that ought to be easy to draw. Speaking of water buffaloes, bareback water buffalo racing!
November 13th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
You seem to like long lower arms! It’s a bit weird with the minotaurs, though, because the ratio’s the opposite of cow limbs.
P.S. Alex said I should do a sprite of Gwynn. I didn’t dare try doing the others just from memory. :s Maybe one day I will gather up the courage to give him a hat and then cry at how atrociously done it will inevitably be!
November 13th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
No, I just like buggering up proportion. I love my incompetence
Gwynn sprite is <3 <3 <3!!! Downloaded, and I will see if I can get Milord to put it on this web page (if I may?)
Of course, being nothing if not a born survivor, if Gwynn did meet Alucard he would GTFO. The Rev might go all Anderson-like, but I don’t fancy his chances.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:55 am
There’s a peculiar quality to the drawing, almost like a nervous twitch, which makes u uncomfortable. My sister is very good at striking the nervous twitch and usually you see it in the eye. Here, it’s the hands. Something dirty about those hands. There is nothing wrong with this by the way. I like. Oh, yeah, the right horn has my annotation pen circled around it. This is very cool though, and I like how u’ve shaded the whole canvas as opposed to just a bit around teh subject. I find it funny that u have avoided the “distraction” element. Maybe that’s why teh hands are so striking, haha. You are growing in class
November 14th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Your sister draws too? Is her work online? With the hands there, I figured a dick would make too much fiddly stuff distracting from the face. But I’m sure his hands are very dirty. Perhaps he’d like to wash them, and that’s why he’s twitchy.
November 15th, 2009 at 6:03 am
I think it is lovely and want to worship you for capturing such lovely gradation with charcoal. It really is your medium! I can only use charcoal for bitter hard strokes, not such soft work. How long do you take apiece?
The only problem I can see is the anatomy, which only if you want to be finagly about it? Would you like me to critique it?
Also your teacher is abit elitist? Not everyone can afford the time/ money / effort to locate a life model plus if you were painting your equivalent of the Sistine chapel, you would want perfect realism.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
This one took about 3 hours. The technique was a bit time-consuming (drew the image first, then smudged charcoal over the whole paper, then rubbed back, drew, rubbed, drew…)
Please critique anatomy! His left forearm and hand was done without a reference, and I know it’s wrong. But I’m sure there’s more D:
(Edit: I was going to say she might be a tad elitist, but I take that back, as I don’t know her well enough. I think it’s mainly that she’s keen for students to develop their own style and sees photographs as a trap for the beginner — better to draw whatever/whoever is around you. I don’t know if that’s true for all people, but in my case, when I work from photos I do tend to just copy them, and I’d like to do more than that, so her prescription might be the right remedy for me.) I’d love to be able to draw from life all the time — but as you say, not always possible. A few of the pimps and what-have-you who congregate at the end of my street of a night (and piss all over it) have just the right physique for a minotaur. But. Um.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
What happens when there is no reference for what you want to draw?
November 16th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
If an opportune moment arises, I’ll ask!
November 17th, 2009 at 6:16 am
I don’t think I’ve ever told you how much I love your pencil work. I wonder if you’ve ever done drawings of sphinxes? (Besides TEC cover work of course) I’d love to see ‘em if so. I’ve tried but I can’t get the shoulders right; or anything else for that matter…
November 18th, 2009 at 6:18 am
I’ve only tried to draw a sphinx a couple of times, neither very successful. Now that you mention it, I screwed up the shoulders particularly — and they were just ordinary human shoulders too, no wings attached!