I Love to Draw! Featured Sketch #1

Today is August 13, 2011, and I have spent almost the entire day drawing... well, first I did a little creative writing which I will post another day. (I have more I want to write on it.) Lately I have been drawing a lot more, it seems that I am finding my love for art all over again. It really feels good. My last "Post" was talking about how I felt that I may have lost something valuable that made me want to do art... Well, whatever it was, (perhaps my passion for it?) It seems as though I may have found it again. I have been sketching pretty much daily, as you can see by the Page link over there >>>>>> (Daily Sketches) >>>>>> (I'm not going to bother generating a link to that page on this one, when there is clearly one already there...) Since I have a "Featured Recipe" Blog segment, I though perhaps I should have a "Featured Sketch" Segment... so here it is...

Now, about today's image... I have been hearing alot about "Fursonalities"... Personified creatures to represent a person, or a character. Upon learnig that there is a huge following for this concept, I was intrigued. I have come to find out that there is a whole subculture of people devoted to this idea, with people having thier Fursonas become thier profile pictures, or avatars, and then joining clans, tribes, or some other sort of social group. So far as I have learned, there are no stories to be told, no cohesive plotlines that have been developed, even though there are quite literally hundreds of thousands of characters. For me, the idea of an endless stream of possible art combinations are brewing within my brain. But for today's drawing I chose a Wolf.

I have applied the idea of "Fursonality" to my character, "Death" from my comic series, "Four from the End" .

(It has to do with the apocolypse... in a light hearted and humorous way... or something)

I really had a lot of fun with this image. I used 18" x 24" standard drawing paper, Pen, Brush and Ink, Prismacolor Pencils, Prismacolor Markers, and of course, Pencils. Of the images, My favorite was the Chibi (bottom left on the group image) done in just pen and ink. But I also really like the colored more natural image on the right. I am not too keen on my third image, which is more my traditional style... but... nobody is perfect. I spent about 11 hours today working on these, and stopped to take a few breaks in between to do things around the house, and eat meals. I hope you enjoy these at least half as much as I enjoyed making them.

As I said before, If you want to see more of my artwork, please scroll up to the top of this page, and click the "Daily Sketches" link, and thank you for stopping by my blog page!

Inspiration!

It's rare that I get inspired.

A huge change in who I've become, from who I once was.

An artist. As a kid, that's all I did, and I didn't need any inspiration. As a young teenager, I had comics and anime to mimic. I never had any problems finding the want to draw, often tuning out lectures in class, to scribble something down on paper. Then I got a really lousy art teacher... I wanted to develop my own style, and branch out into things I hadn't tried yet... She wanted to make everyone learn to do things her way... She called it, "pushing you out of your comfort zone" and to me that's not teaching art. An artist should inspire others, and a teacher should help those looking for inspiration find it. By this time I had started slipping into a need for inspiration to do anything, sketch, paint, sculpt... And nothing I put my mind to turned out right... I started doing some Tagging, a way to vent the frustrations that came with not being Inspired... But when it came to real art... I was losing something very slowly... It's been many years since then, and I still don't know what it was or where it's gone...

But once in a while it will resurface...

Sometimes something just "clicks" and I have to do something artistic.

Sometimes it just comes on for no appearant reason...

Sometimes... I get inspired.

  

18" x 24" standard drawing paper, 9H graphite pencil.
I started laying in the basic shapes for the image I wanted, making adjustments as neccessarry.



When I had a rough enough set, I switched up to a 6H and started setting some hardlines.

Then I moved down to a 2H and started adding some detail.

2B (or not 2b) Starting to add more detail and lift some things off the page, dropping in a little shadow, and setting the spots on Mika's Halter. (Who's Mika? We'll get to that later...)

Still working with the 2B adding details to Mia, laying in the earings, developing highlights/shadows for the hair... trying to get the smile just right, eyes looking in the right place.

2B, still... Eyeball details, Mia's hand and arm, and David Mack...

(Developing stubble... Dang Dave, you need to shave man!)

8B, a major jump.. but I couldn't find my 4 or my 6... ah well... Started laying in the Black... I used almost half of the pencil.

Blended out all the shading and added some highlights and fine pencil detail, to finish.

Mika Tan, about to lick a Cow's eyeball, while Mia Matsumiya helps, and David Mack watches.

David Mack

Mia Matsumiya

Cow Eyeball

Cleverly hidden signiture in the spots on Mika's Halter.

I do apologize for the poor photography. The Drawing looks much better in real life. I switched lighting to see if I could get any better shots...

No such luck.

Okay, so now you maybe wondering... "Who are these people?"

Well, to be honest.. I don't really "know" any of them. I have met David Mack, and subscribe to his FB page. He is constantly posting his artwork for all to see, and I am very happy that he does. He is simply too awesome for words. I envy the ability he has. But I am always getting to see his work, for free... and I have been wanting to give something back for a while... but I just haven't had the right push to get the pencil moving. Then the other day, he puts up some pictures from a party he was at... Seriously, this guy is constanly going somewhere or doing something fun and exciting...  At this party were several other people, and they all appeared to be having a great time. Someone recieved a gift of frozen cow eyeballs. (I believe it was Mia) I'm thinking there may have been some liqour involved for what happened next. Mika is playing around pretending to Lick one of the Eyeballs while someone takes a picture, and either, Mia thought it would be funny, or perhaps people weren't as steady on thier feet as they should have been, but somehow one of the eyeballs did in fact manage to touch Mika's tongue. 

A normal person would probably get grossed out by this...

But me... I found my inspiration...

So I wanted to give back to David Mack for all the wonderful works of art he's given to me, and everyone else over the years. I appreciate the hard work and genuine love he has for his art. It shows in everything he does, and it makes me want to be a better artist, to strive to find whatever it was that I lost. For now, I can settle with the occasional bursts as they come, and I will set out to do whatever my heart tells me when the time comes. For this one, I went with graphite for my medium, because I wanted to pay tribute to all the sketches David posts every week,  and I just wanted to say "Thank You" in my own little way.

Thank You, David Mack.

 (Source material borrowed from David's FB page for my sketch, I wanted to put the humping dog somewhere in the picture, but I just couldn't find a fit for it.)