The Pros and Cons of Drawing After Bedtime

So, about fifteen minutes or so before bedtime, I had the sudden urge to create.  I decided Dianne has had enough of my attention for the time being and went back to my page of Red expressions.  I actually started on two expressions a day or two ago, but failed to generate anything but frustration and disappointment ( you can see some of the leftovers of that experience in the bottom left hand corner).

First I decided to finish up the crying sketch I started but gave up on.

Reference for this emotion.

Where I left off the other day…

I started to see the areas of opportunity once I rotated the image and referred back to my head turn-around.

Next I chose one of the “Smirking” poses out of the book.

Pulled out my full body sketch to ensure I was getting as close to the intended proportions as possible.

Something I’ve been noticing more often now that I’ve been drawing so consistently and pushing volume more.  I’m not sure what they call these little slivers of an edge that stick out.  It’s like my first gut reaction to where the edge of the shape is – plus this little extra that peeks out only after I’ve found that first edge… I’m sure it’s a known thing… probably something they mentioned somewhere in my many years at school… but I forgot.  :(

Anywho, I’ll be looking for it in the future as it seems to be helping me move my drawings further and further into the third dimension.

So, at this point it was about two hours past my bedtime and while I had acquired a healthy does of motivation, I was loosing focus.  Should have took a small break, maybe grabbed a snack… Anyway, I started thinking about the confident (almost heroic) pose and how it would really fit Red before life threw a monkey wrench at her.

I must have been thinking about her in a confident pose in her Futuristic Sport outfit (Not sure of the name of the sport yet, using Calvin Ball as a placeholder simply because of how I’m merging so many different sports together that any onlookers wouldn’t be able to understand the rules/concepts of the game… almost as if they were making it up as they went… hence the name Calvin Ball), because the next thing I know I was using circles to signify the planes of the side of her head and forehead and then this happened.

Seeing as this is the only image I have of what those suits look like, I decided to run with it.

I felt like I was loosing the aerodynamic feel to her helmet, so I went ahead and threw in the towel for the day… got some grub and put all the sketches together.

I like the level of comfort I get drawing Red each time I complete one of these sketches.  It feels less and less foreign and more natural.  Looking forward to my next drawing session, hopefully when I have more time on my hands.

-Jesse

“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.”