From Richard Avedon's "In The American West"

Yesterday I took out some art books as references to draw from. It's hard finding somebody sitting still long enough to draw them. On my way over to the 42nd street library, I did a sketch of a sleeping girl on the ferry:



However, the weather's so cold that I don't want to go out unless I need to. This limits my choice of models to...my roommates.

So I took out two books on Richard Avedon. He's a photographer, and you're always warned not to work from photographs. But his photos are very detailed, black and white, and printed big. My thinking was they'd be very suitable for drawing from.

I also took out a copy of Disney's Pinnochio on VHS. Don't tell anybody, but nostalgia only goes so far...the backgrounds are beautiful, but who watches a movie for the backgrounds? The characters are very, very dull.

This is from a photo of Debbie McClendon, a 16 year old carnival worker. My first attempt was a little too doe-eyed.



This was my second attempt at the same photo:

Ever more requests

These are some more drawings I made for the "good" *ahem* "people" um of GameFAQs. These were pencil sketches built up from basic shapes, clothed/furred, and inked. I think the last time I bothered to go through so much trouble was for my Howling Black comic, still unfinished. However, I've gotten a lot faster at it.

I enrolled in CUNY for art courses this March. I'm really excited about it!



DR583V3 wanted a giant pitbull fighting a roided up badger.



User Cosmic requested "A turtle dressed up in a cliche'd detective's outfit."

Humanizing Design

This isn't actually by me, I just found it pretty funny.



This was the front page of the Home section of the Staten Island Advance yesterday.

The article is about how home appliances are being designed in a more user friendly manner. However, the cold, angular kitchen they used to illustrate "Humanizing Design" almost looks like an editorial cartoon. There's absolutely nothing cozy or human about it! Even the typeface on the headline is cold and angular. Wonderful irony there.

A teddy bear being chased through a field by Conan O'Brian while flaming pieces of toast fly overhead.

As requested by KiddotheKid, on GameFAQs

Even more GameFAQs Requests

My drawing request topic on GameFAQs.com got some more posts from the kids and weirdos over there.

Applepieman3 suggested I draw "a woman with large breast lifting weights, but the weights aren't normal weights, they are large pieces of ham."



DrFail asked me to draw him, but I have no idea what he looks like, so I drew JD from "Scrubs" instead. He doesn't have a beard because I hate the beard he has this season and I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.



Punisher1 held true to the Internet's unsavory reputation and asked for a naked Smurfette.



SecuROM_ asked for some "anime-style" characters.



I don't really hate anime...that much.

A bunch of other people asked for stuff, but I decided to be lazy and ignore them. Maybe I'll get to them later.

EDIT: Friend and MrZopo both wanted me to draw them, and they got what-for. MrZopo in particular is proof that I occasionally watch anime, since I drew him based off of my weak remembering of Mr.Popo (how did he EVER get past the censors?) from DragonBall Z.

More GameFAQs Requests

My topic on GameFAQs.com continued with more requests from the hordes of geeks and teenage boys who populate the site.

ExRacerJames wanted a sad hotdog caught between a very angry mustard and ketchup.



Porobin Hood wanted a "hyena-dude built like a linebacker staring down a hedgehog girl with a look like 'you're food :3'". I think he MIGHT be a furry, but then again he didn't specify that the hedgehog girl be slutty and naughty.



Fenrir the Wolf was a wiseass and wanted me to draw fried milk...but I delivered.

Notes

These are some sketches and notes from my real life. I went to a meeting for SICOLAB, which is a Staten Island arts collective made up of people who are mostly 100x better than me and have grants and exhibits and shows.

GameFAQs requests

I made a topic on GameFAQs.com asking the geeks there to make drawing requests.

Jesustime (yes, Jesustime) wanted sword-chucks.



Desert_fox7 wanted a drawing of himself...only naked. I don't know what he looks like, but Internet people seem to like their naked foxes slutty and naughty, so I went with it.



KageShinobi suggested "ninja lesbians breastfeeding", which sounded great but was too high concept. I mean, ninjas pretty much wear slim-fit burkas, so how can you tell that they're lesbians or see their breasts anyway?

Finally, Vampire HunterC127 wanted the Pope shaking a cow's hand, or hoof, or appendage.

Crocheting from Life

This is also Pippi. She is crocheting a critter. I drew her face using the "don't look at the paper" method, and it worked. Then I tried to draw her hands and the wrinkles on her fleece using the "obsess over every detail" method, and it didn't work so well.



Some practice for the top drawing. I like hands, and trying to draw them while she was crocheting was a challenge. I exaggerated too much. Wrinkles are worse, but I think I did ok and am even surprised by how well I captured the form of her leg underneath the clothing. You can see an earlier drawing I did of the wrinkles in pants here.

As you can see, I did the first drawing on the back of the second. I once showed a teacher from Snug Harbor my sketchbook, and she told me not to draw on the backs of pages in case I want to display a drawing by itself. Well, I listened to her for a while, but then I decided I never display my drawings like that, I just scan them. But it looks like it's still a good idea, since the paper in this book is so thin, having drawings on both pages doesn't scan well.

Pippi and Poster

This guy's name is Avi, I think. He is sitting in an alley, but I am too lazy to draw in the brick wall. I did a lot of underdrawing and erasing for this one. First I sketched out some ideas of him sitting in a box, looking up at the poster. Then I decided it was too hard, and decided on a triangular shape for his sitting position, with his nose pointing at the poster to get your eye to follow. This guy's face is hard to draw because his bushy eyebrows tend to get mixed up into his messy hair. I need to remind myself that people tend to have foreheads.




This is Pippi. She probably looks nothing like this.

More doofs

HA HA HA



Practice.



I don't know why I drew him wearing Converse All Stars. I hate Converse All Stars. All the cool kiddies wear them as some sort of statement, even though they're expensive, kind of ugly, and made out of canvas that frays and gets soaked when the weather is bad.

They're just easy to draw, I guess.

The Derivative Mr. Doof

Bored during the census test

This was drawn on the back of a list of locations for math finals, which I ripped off a bulletin board before the test began.