I'm using this book by Michael Hampton I picked up called Figure Drawing: Design and Invention. It's a little counter intuitive to how I normally would approach figure drawing, but that's a good thing. It's put together well and has a nice breakdown of muscles. Which is why I got it. This one's a bit rough, but I kept it simple still. Very static, and in this case unfinished (BBQ, burgers and ribs). Spidey is way more sculpted than I would ever really make him, but it's more of an exercise in muscle placement with webs drawn on it.
I wanted to start off pretty simple. I had some trouble coming up with something I felt could work. In the process I managed to work out about 15 or so thumbnails for future posts down the road. Pretty neat stuff actually. Once I was finished, I had a few minutes, so I photocopied the pencils and inked it real quick. My comic inking is crap, so that's also something I want to work on. Inks are below.
For a while now, I've been looking to reboot how I do things. How I draw, see objects, see anatomy and understand it. I always wanted to be an artist and I am, I make my living with it more or less, but I rarely draw anymore and my skills are not where I want them to be. I've been reading a bunch of books, researching how art and drawing was taught years ago and have come to to the conclusion that my education was not what it should have been. It did not give me what I wanted at all. So I am breaking down what I know and rebuilding it. Studying Bridgman, Hogarth, Loomis and some other instructors, I am moving to more fully realize what I can do.
The plan here is to draw and post a Spider-Man everyday. Why? Because I love drawing him and I think it'll be a lot of fun. Plus, it would be a neat way to trace a year's worth of progress. Also, he has an overall simple design with a minimal amount of features allowing me to crank one out on a busy day. Through Spidey, I'll document my progress over the next year. One Web Head posted for every day, drawn everyday. My parameters are pretty open. Red and Blue, Black, Peter Parker, whatever. Maybe even a Daredevil here or there. I'll start with mostly pencil sketches and rough drawings, possibly even some tight gesture poses or costume studies, then down the road, move to inks, markers and hopefully some paintings later on. We'll see. Because I am insanely busy and commute 6 hours a day. Some days probably won't see updates, but the drawing will be done, posted the following day and dated in the title.
I'm going to start in the next few days, perhaps even tomorrow. We'll see, Dr. Conners might need me at the lab...
