Michael Phelps: like a fish out of watercolor.... what?

Here's a Michael Phelps illustration I just finished. I came up with the concept after doing a couple quick sketches, and this one stuck out. So I worked it up at a larger size, and went to town. I was pretty pleased with the inking job, but when I started with the watercolors, my mood quickly sank. I think I nailed down the fleshtones pretty well (though some of the color was lost when I scanned it). But the water and the smoke aren't nearly as successful. After finishing, I started to rethink the green smoke elevating out of Phelps, as a reference to his recreational drug usage. I think it makes him look too much like some sort of smoke stack releasing toxic waste. But on the other hand, I'm guessing the news is recent enough that viewers will make the connection. As for the likeness, I dont know that I quite captured the goonish face of Phelps. One would think it would be an easy face to caricature- big ears, big nose, weird mouth, skinny face, big chin, eyes close together, fairly defined brow ridge, etc. Somehow though all those characteristics were featured, I just missed him somewhere. It might be the hair, or the eyes might be a tad big. I'll figure it out sooner or later.

Toonage

Here's a few cartoons. Not a whole lot to say about these. I'm a little disappointed in the drawings and how they turned out. I did some good crosshatching on the fat cat and muscle-bound donkey(which I think looks more like a bull). But other than that, nothing was really going right while drawing them. I think a couple of the gags turned out well so as long as the message gets across, i guess its best not to get hung up on the poor drawing.

Are we there yet??

The portrait of my little brother is complete... I think. I worked on the hair and shirt today. The hair came out a little more blond than I wanted, but I'll cope. I did a red under-painting for the shirt which showed through very well when I roughed in the colors. I really didn't want to lose that, so I thought I would just add some tints, tones, and highlights and see how it turned out. Well thats how you see it now, but I feel like it looks unfinished compared to the rest of the painting. I don't think it's too distracting, and the red under-painting is still popping through like I wanted. Anyway, painting aside, there's my reference photo right below it. I had to play with the lighting a bit. Also, I missed his likeness a little bit, but for the most part I'm satisfied with how it turned out.

Below those two are a bunch of sketches I pulled out of my sketchbook.

Vertebrae and an angry misshapen skeleton dude.

Here's a few of the vertebrae. The first is an example of a thoracic vertebrae. I really enjoyed drawing the form of that one. The front 3/4 view drawing was a bit more successful. The proportions are much better and it has good symmetry where the second is lacking in both areas. The second drawing is of a lumbar vertebrae, and both of them are pretty successful with regards to proportion and symmetry. I wish I would have used the values to push the perspective and give it more depth (something I did much better with the thoracic vertebrae.) I'm finding myself using a lot better variation in line this semester, and I'm really happy about it. In life drawing I, I didn't think line variation was as important in these drawings as it really is. Now I can see that, and I know how much further I still need to push myself.

Drawing the rib cage was a lot of fun. It's very tedious and a little more difficult, but lets face it, the rib cage is pretty sweet. Any way, one thing I really need to work on is putting value on the planes to make the form feel more solid and give it more volume. I didn't really add any value to the rib cage and because of the slender feel of the ribs, it becomes too outlined and flat.

The little guy on top is a disgruntled retiree who enjoys whittling little wooden birds, tying flies, and throwing rocks and beer cans at the neighborhood children as they pass his yard.

Acrylic Adventures

I'm currently working on a portrait of my little brother with a working title of "The Brotherly Bond is Tainted When Paint is Applied" Not sure where the idea came from, but I like it. Anyway, it's still in progress, but most of it is roughed in. It's been a little while since I've painted any portraits so I really tried to slow up and nail down some flesh tones. Right below the portrait is a painting I did on my palette to use up some paint at the end of the day. It was weird and I did it in about 5 minutes, but I thought better of letting such a masterpiece go to waste.

Uno Mas

Blagojevich gets the boot!

Bailout Bonuses... a thing of the past?

Here's a cartoon on the proposal for a salary cap for CEOs who are getting part of the bailout package. Sen. McCaskill of Missouri first introduced a bill after Obama had called Wall Streets use of the money "shameful". McCaskill went on to cite some $18 billion dollars that had been used for corporate bonuses. I would say that might be deserving of the word shameful.

The drawing is a little different from other stuff I've been doing lately. I wanted to use a lot of hatching to describe the forms. I think it worked out all right. The inking however took a lot more time.