Life studies for the Calendar of Tales

Here's a batch of life studies I did for the soldier dude in my crazy January illustration for Neil Gaiman's Calendar of Tales project... (The second illustration here.) Mostly I was trying to sort out the hands and foreshortening and lighting, since you can't see most of the figure in the final. (And, yeah, that's basically me in a leather jacket trying to look badass with a deadly remote control.)

Oh, and while I was doing these a bird landed on the fire escape outside, so of course I had to stop and doodle the bird in the margin...

Figure Friday: Casual Nudes

A batch of casual nudes from my life drawing archives, these are from an old life drawing session at the Society of Illustrators...

Figure Friday: Head Study

Yes, it's a head! Technically meant as a study for this painting to figure out the lighting on the face, but drawing faces is fun so I got a bit carried away...

(Trying to get back on some sort of blog schedule here, but with my current workload, I make no guarantees...)

Figure Friday: Wayward Queen Cover Limb Studies

Life studies of limbs for the series cover of my webcomic, "The Wayward Queen" - yep, this painting again. Partway through the painting I realized I needed more better reference of the arms and legs, these sketches were the result of my last-minute revised reference scramble... More studies for the same painting here.

Figure Friday: Wayward Queen Cover Rough Studies

A couple of rough life studies for the series cover for my webcomic, "The Wayward Queen" - this painting here. The pose I wanted for the final painting turned out to be technically impossible - The full figure study here was a fast sketch of the closest pose that could be managed without having a contortionist handy. In the end I ended up doing studies of various parts of the pose and kind of glomming them together (hey, if Ingres could get away with it, why not me?) I did a number of more finished studies of hands and legs and other bits, some of which you can see here.

Figure Friday: Final Life Studies for "Moving Target"

All right, we had the unused life studies for my "Moving Target" cover back in this post and this post, so here's the later studies that were actually used for the final cover. And if you want to compare, the finished cover and progress shots were posted here. (Ha, yes, I did totally wing it on the smallest figure. Yep. No studies for him!)

Figure Friday: Unused Life Studies for "Moving Target"

Here's a batch of life studies I did for my "Moving Target" cover... These are the older studies based on the first round of sketches. Those sketches were later supplanted by a totally revised composition, so none of these poses ended up being used in the final painting... But I thought it would be neat to show the process anyway! I'll post the studies for the final poses later.

Figure Friday: Hand Studies

Figure Friday! I know, I haven't posted one in a while, have I... Too many specialty posts, I guess. Anyway, here's a bunch of hand studies I did while figuring out the sketches for this painting here - these are all related to the earlier sketches, so they didn't really get used for the final. But hey, I like drawing hands, so why not.

Figure Friday: Dominatrix

More from one of Michael Alan's old Draw-a-Thons... Late in the evening of one of them we had this dominatrix-looking gal chilling with awesome boots.

Figure Friday: Depraved Tea Party

Well, it was a tea party in the loosest sense of the term, I guess... There were teacups, anyway. And people stripping while sipping. (More weirdness from one of the old Michael Alan Draw-a-Thons...)

Figure Friday: Wedge Shoes

Just a little something from the archives, Society of Illustrators again... Model with funky wedge shoes. (Shoes are fun to draw, I admit. If the model is wearing shoes, I'm likely to end up focusing more on the shoes than the model.)

Figure Friday: Orange Nudes

Bright orange! This is Sprout, from the old Michael Alan Drawathons... Things tended to get a tad experimental in these sessions. (Did I miss Wednesday again? I did, didn't I. You know, I'm not even sure how that happened. Crazy week, yo.)

Figure Friday: Gravida

Okay, this is probably the only life drawing I have of a nude pregnant woman... This is not something you see often at life drawing sessions. (Nearly nude, anyway. This is CERTAINLY the only life drawing I've done of a nude pregnant woman in punky boots.) And now apparently I need to tackle the problem of how to get my old scanner to talk to Photoshop CS5.5 before I can scan anything else... argh!

(And yeah, Wednesday update kinda didn't happen. Migraine was happening instead. Sorry about that.)

Figure Friday: French Flaunting

More oddments from the archives, from the same session posted last Friday ("French" theme at the Society of Illustrators...) Bodacious models flaunting with striped stockings and heels, grand fun!

Figure Friday: French Backs

Okay, back from vacation and general running around, and back to normal posting schedule! (As normal as it gets, anyway.) And hey, it's Figure Friday, so that means life drawing. Here's some more odds and ends from the archives, a bunch of backs from a supposedly "French" themed session at the Society of Illustrators.

Figure Friday: Bony Landmarks

More studies from the crash course I've been taking this Summer... In this session, we were focusing on the skeleton and bony landmarks, hence all the structural lines and emphasized bones. (I do really need to brush up on my bones...)

Figure Friday: Muscle Dude

May as well post some stuff from this Crash Course I'm taking... We were focusing on muscles for this class, so we had a chunky, muscular model. (It's a pretty excellent course, actually... I'm learning a bunch of stuff we didn't fully cover in art school, and getting a much needed refresher on things I'd gotten rusty on...)

Happy Bastille Day!

Happy Bastille Day! For the occasion, how about some French-themed life drawings? Art, berets, stripes, and legs, might as well hit all the "French" clichés at once, no? We're missing wine and pastry, but consider them implied. After all, these were drawn at the Society of Illustrators, so the session did include an open bar and snacks... (Technically would've been for Figure Friday, but whatever...)

Figure Friday: Wiggly Sprout Gestures

More random tidbits from the archives, it's too hot to scan anything. These are gestures of a model called "Sprout" who used to be at Michael Alan's Draw-A-Thons. She was one of my favorites, she was so wiggly and funky and always made me want to draw hyper-stylish French Sci-Fi comics or something. So my gestures of her tended to come out rather wiggly and stylized. They were fun, though. (And yeah, I know it's really Saturday. Shush.)