Earned some free beer today as a thanks for doing a (full colour Copic marker) pic for somebody at work, which I won't post as I don't really like the results...but you can't argue with free beer!
Posted above though is a piece I AM fairly happy with (or as happy as I tend to be with my stuff). I was asked to do a combined family portrait which is to be copied and given as Xmas gifts to the relevant family members. I love drawing people so sounded fun: Carolina e-mailed me a bunch of refs and I was off...
I got the refs late on Sunday afternoon and the failing light by that time presented a challenge. As this was for a few people, I wanted to take my time and get this right. I had the visual in mind (after being given the basic concept) and began with the heads: the likenesses would take the most time, everything else being relatively easy. After doing Carolina and her boyfriend Neil's heads, I realised I wasn't going to have room and had to rethink things.
Starting over, I pencilled, inked and grey-shaded with the Copics each head individually. I managed to do about five before the failing light meant I had to switch on the light and abandon work due to shadows from the light ahead.
The next day, I came up with a way around this: I lay my pad on my lightbox and used the light from that to balance out the shadows from above and voila, I could draw again! It wasn't all easy though as the refs were jpegs so I threw them on a memory stick to put into my digital photo frame so that I could comfortably work from that rather than the PC monitor. Keeping the frame in position was tricky but I eventually completed all the heads...
...except one, which I had missed as I had misunderstood the request so I stopped work to add the extra head onto the memory stick to work from. Once this was finished, I roughed in the sledge, pencilled the bodies, inked them all and finished with the dog before completing the whole thing with a quick gloss over with the markers.
I wasn't sure if Carolina would like the finished pic as I felt some likenesses were better than others but thankfully I think she did. Job done and another possible two request for the office to follow this weekend (the thought of which I shudder at as I may have to brave the Xmas shopping hordes, brrr!!)
2 comments:
Very good mate i like it, im drawing a pic for one of the roomaids at work of her husband and his mom and dad in a bar with Jack Nicolson,George Best,Al Pachino and Robert De Niro.She said she'll pay me but i never no how much to say, she only wants it in black and white so that's good.
I hate charging people, i never know what's appropriate. Most "assignments" are fun anyway and I enjoy doing them anyway: this was probably the most complicated piece I've done like this but I quite enjoyed the challenge despite the varying likenesses...
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