ILX Art Gallery: Tregaskin Memorial Wing (do not read if you hate me)

... waitin' for the ink to dry* ...

(just to give you some idea of the timescale of these things)

The next step is gonna be painful, it's gonna be sort of like I imagine it's like for women who post pictures of themselves without makeup for the first time ever, or things like that. I don't like people seeing these things until they're perfect so this is slightly embarrassing.

*If I don't give the ink good drying time, I'll get horrible smears when I go to take the pencil off with a kneaded eraser. Which I can fix in photoshop, but I'd rather not.

I've now inked it and scanned it. THIS IS NOT SO BAD! Like, it's pretty ugh and I feel weird about posting it to the internet like this, but... there's no massive inking errors (like when a line jerks off somewhere it shouldn't be, or the two halves of a curve don't meet up) and I haven't smeared anything or spilled wine all over it

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7040/6892564943_9175a8a07e_o.jpg

The only thing that really bugs me is those eyes, but that is what photoshop is for.

But I will spend hours playing with it (first off, boosting the contrast so the lines are perfectly black, then cleaning out the felt tip marks) and possibly erasing the whole face and starting again digitally (I do this embarrassingly often) and this will probably take up the rest of my night, tra la la, this is totally my idea of fun.

(I've also decided to do the background separately, so that will be another job, repeating the process for the pattern that will go in the background, I want to do a sort of halo of plaited tree branches, Alfons Mucha stylee.)

Love seeing this sneak peek into the creative process of your work!

Stupid question maybe but the (c)KDT thing is only on the digitized images right?

some flyer/poster/sleeve work I did over the last few years.
http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/226283_10150182520595047_30650290046_7338074_3849046_n.jpg
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc3/14566_171818390046_30650290046_3391868_1062871_n.jpg
http://a2.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/127/079815d151364d1da4fc4e775fa630f2/l.jpg
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/59442_426499630046_30650290046_5530017_3061144_n.jpg
http://www.societyofrockets.org/ff_cover.gif

pretty much done with this style, movin on to other stuff recently

and I haven't smeared anything or spilled wine all over it

haha OTM
I don't like working digitally but it's so much easier to fix mistakes and not have my Pigpen nature ruin a pic
plus sometimes the results look so crisp
tbh I like sketchy grid Greenwood much better, what an uncanny shot of his sad wan essence

whoa wait I didn't realize you were hand-inking these and then scanning them
fuck you're a good inker!!

^^ otm

"sad wan essence" is the first thing I've seen on ILX that has tempted me towards changing my display name.

It's really interesting to get to peek in on the process, WCC

Also, that is great work WCC! You're not the first artist I've seen say that his face is almost too strange to draw, but I think you captured that weird gaunt alien E.T. he had in the 90s really well.

you are a very talent artist

shakey's stuff was nice too, like the OG SF psych feel

I need to do more arts, it just makes me a better person.

I've definitely slowed down in terms of finished pieces lately (been focusing on doing a stop motion animation piece primarily)

WHOA Shakey Mo! I was gonna shout at you ask you nicely if I could keep this thread for just my stuff, but flipping heck, those are lovely! Post away! Thank you so much for sharing them. I really enjoyed seeing those. I do love that 60s SF poster feel - but you're right, there's only so far you can go with it. What's your technique - are they hand inked, digital or what?

yes, the (c) this is only on the digital image as obviously the sad wan man essence sketch hasn't got one because it was taken with iPhone so I couldn't watermark it.

Haha, Abbotttttt I am so glad I'm not the only person who ends up destroying her own artwork through simply being a slob. Rings from teacups, flakes of chocolate that I don't realise it's chocolate until I try to flick it away and there's a brown stain on the edge of my sketchbook. And I used to draw in bars, a lot, but I had to stop after one too many beer flood disaster taking out an entire sketchbook. (ARGH.)

Thanks, I have always been quite proud of my inking skillz, I used to ink other comic book artists' stuff when I was at art school, I love doing it so much.

"Sad wan essence" fucken LOL.

I'm kind of annoyed, because looking at the pencil, I realise that I must have done something to the left side of his hair, which actually brought it more in line with the original source photo - but the slight curve of the line of hair makes it look much more Jonny-like for the simple reason that that hair is usually in motion, flying over the top of a telecaster or a theremin or something. (I love this original photo because he is holding a pair of scissors and is actually hacking the shit out of Thom's hair without even looking at it, which is why Thom had such terrible hair for much of the Pablo Honey era.)

And yeah, Melissa, he is SO strange looking. Obviously, he is not unattractive, in fact, his oddly composed features come together in a pleasing way to create a very handsome man. But individually, the pieces of his face are just so odd they're really hard to draw. His jaw is completely disconnected from what is going on in the rest of his face.

Once I do the shading, and put the pupils of his eyes back in (it's amazing how just adding that white dot in the pupil turns a flat picture into a portrait) he'll come back to pale and wan sad life.

This not the actual reference photo, but it's from the same session. I just love the expression on Thom's face so much, like "what have you DONE to me?!?!?"

http://www.radiox.ru/pics/mag/1994-patpope/1994patpope04.jpg

Sorry. I will not phangurl out. I will get back to drawing.

no worries WCC wasn't sure if this was just a new version of other ILX0r gallery threads or what. oddly we seem to rely on fairly similar techniques for the most part - I do the pencilling and inking by hand, scan it in and clean up stray marks etc and then lay in the colors digitally in photoshop.

although when I'm sketching or doodling I tend to just stick to ink. a lot of the pattern-y stuff above was all inks/no pencils once I had the general layout worked out.

I'm getting kinda sick of the sight of the dude at this point, but carrying on the experiment. Here is the retouched version, wherein I have fixed the wonky unevenness of the eyes. Slight fear I might have moved them too far in the opposite direction, but it's definitely looking better to me, and I've fixed his hair, too, so it has more movement, more like the pencil sketch.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/6893818699_a45c6e25b8_o.jpg

that def looks better - alignment of the eyes was off in the original, I think

I knew the eyes were off in the original - seriously off - but I liked the expression in them, so I knew I could just go with it and fix it in retouching.

If I'm feeling kinda insecure or not sure about a sketch in the line art stage (and it often looks weird and two dimensional because, well, it's line art) then I'll do some basic colour blocking in black and white (usually with 25% or 50% fills in grey) to build up an idea of how it's going to look when it's coloured in.

Because it's a heck of a lot easier to fix something like a badly angled eyebrow or a lopsided lip when it's in black and white, and you're only dealing with two colours, than once it's coloured and has gradients in it and everything has to be colour matched and corrected if it's changed. And this is the thing that always strikes me - how completely you can change the expression on someone's face just by adding, removing, angling or thickening a single line in the face - especially in the eyes or lips. Faces are amazing like that.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7056/6893818705_3062e8ec79_o.jpg

It's also funny because this is when I notice that I really have to accentuate the adam's apple, because if I don't, he really does look like a GURL.

Now I'm going to bed.

yeah faces are incredible - if I don't have a photo reference to work from I end up with some really bizarre looking people

This is why I swear by using grids to get eyes and noses in approximately human proportions! (Obviously this doesn't always work, as evidenced by the pencil sketch)

I once did a Julian Opie style moving portrait in a gif, where the guy blinked and kind of twitched his nose a bit, changing his face with just a few tiny lines. It's really amazing how expressive a single line can be.

kinda one of the things I love about cel animation, so much done with so little

It's that abstraction process - on both sides, what the artist knows to put out/leave in - but also how the human brain fills in emotion based on very minimal cues. It's amazing, I love it.

Anyway, Jonny is looking hilarious today! It's like Carter the Painter's Cat when he was only half painted and had to go out without a tail. Or, a mouth in this case.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7042/6896396763_858b04cdb3_o.jpg

You can tell what bits I work on, and in which order. I usually do the hair first - not just because I love hair, but because it provides the frame for the face, and sets the colour palette - especially if the person is a brunette, it makes the colours of the face "pop" against it - if I do hair last, I always tend to end up making the face too dark simply as a reaction against the white of the page. Every new colour and new bit you add ends up affecting the colour composition of the whole thing, and I'm constantly adjusting to make it all harmonious. (I suppose I really should block out the lips in colour on another layer so that he doesn't look so alien, but I want to adjust the pink of his lips to the colour of his face, not the other way around.)

I use the blobs above his head as a palette - I usually sample the colours directly off a photograph of the person, but often have to brighten them, so I need a record of the processed colour I'm using. (Shadows are not black, they have colours, this is the most important thing I ever learned, and I learned it from a novel, not a painting class, oddly enough.)

I do a basic gradient on the face to get it blocked out, and a few bits of shading to make it look curved, the go straight in to the eyes - once you've got a person's eyes right, the rest of them really kind of falls into place. Really wanted to capture Jonny's bright-eyed, alert expression, but also get the wan sadness. But it is funny to see his eyes looking v v realistic and his nose and mouth so flat. LOL.

Aaaaannnnnnndddd... a bit more airbrushing to give him a MOUTH and a proper nose (ugh, I hate drawing noses, why are they SO hard?) and heeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrre's JONNY!

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7046/6897361733_f8a2870a8b_o.jpg

I did some colour blocking to add a background because it looked so unfinished against the white (I will at some point put in a proper background, maybe, but I like it the way it is right now.)

is wandering greenwood eye grid-sketch for sale?

Not that you'd know it from an old 90s scan of him, but his eyes are that sort of hazel color where they're very green around the outer edge with a red-gold ring around the pupil. But I really love how this is coming together so far! The colors have really brought it to life. x-posts

And the fully colored version is stunning, sorry I didn't see it before I posted!

Yeah, I know about the Greenwoods' amazing hazel-gold-green eye colour (I mean, I'm not that bothered about Jonny, but his brother - ::SWOON::) and I tried to make it more pronouncedly green-gold but it just wasn't working with the light, so I made them more brown-gold. (they were at one point purple, which was... interesting. Colours in drawings don't always look right if they're completely naturalistic, it's weird.)

Sorry, Philip, if you mean the pencil sketch, that's long gone, the pencil gets erased during the inking process. I tend to discard the paper as soon as it's scanned, because it's not that important to me. (I mean, I keep them, they're usually floating somewhere round the flat) but they're not what matters.

Really tempted to draw a Thom to go with him but jesus christ, I think I drew Thom approximately 40,000 times between 1993 and 2001, I think it would be ridiculous.

I have some photos I'd like to see you attempt!

What, photos of Thom? You could ... share them ... and I could have a go. But, y'know, because you asked me to. Not because I *want* to or anything, you understand.

Of course.

Let me look around my files for a second.

...

tee hee hee

...

OH GOD I AM SUCH A WHORE FOR THOM YORKE WHY AM I GOING TO DRAW HIM YET AGAIN?!?!?

(I think my favourite drawing I did of him is that one of him at 18, in the beret, it was called "if I should lose my faith in art" but I'm fucked if I know what happened to it. Actually I might look for that...)

Wow I really really love some of these. Nice work WCC.

http://i.imgur.com/HnWV4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rIvDf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/88QmO.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zUo5z.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/9SEiG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/sVthK.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/aJRSf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8dbIS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/hBXtZ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/29Vxa.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FugLG.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/tos4D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/5Jbnh.jpg (more Colin than Thom)

Oh sweet Jesus, so many Thoms!

(What on earth *is* he doing in that last one?)

I have no idea, to be honest.

1) masking his face so that he can sneak up on Colin unseen? (like that hedgehog hair isn't a dead giveaway)

2) Ed just told him "christ, you smell, mate" and he's trying to figure out if it's him or his clothes?

...

......

..........

Either way, jesus, Coz is hott.

He looks more like he's pretending to be some sort of shirt monster.

Bonus Jonathan - http://i.imgur.com/RgrSE.jpg

Sometimes I pull my t-shirt up like that to wipe sweat off my face.

Really enjoying this thread.

rrrrroooowwwwrrrrr it is the Yorkeian shirt monster! BEWARE!!!

I'm trying to figure out which one of those already looks the most like one of my drawings. Probably either the first one, or the one of him under Southwark (??) Bridge?

How is someone so completely weird looking and everything I find unattractive (short! balding!) so absolutely amazingly beautiful.

I'm going to go and get some wine and try to decide.

Aw, what a sweet Jonny! Since drawing him, I've decided he looks less like Alex James and more like Brian Cox, but honestly all three of them hatched from the same pod.

(oh dear this thread has abandonned any pretense of being about art and is just all about LUST now tee hee hee)

I think the degree to which he's balding is often overstated. He has had the same terrible hairline since he was 20. x-post

Do you think Cillian Murphy also hatched out of that pod?

I mean - http://i.imgur.com/PzGCn.jpg

Yes, Cillian Murphy was definitely in that there pod with them. He got that same weird jawline that Jonny did. HA HA HA HA HA x-post I agree.

And Thom's hairline comes and goes and always has (I mean, the worst it ever was, was the Karma Police video, but I suspect that was partially post hair extension damage, the way the hair is in clumps like that - and partially pretty much anyone's hair falls out after spending two years solid on tour) but there was that recent photo from the HUGE Magazine fashion shoot where he was leaning against a tree (Thom? A tree? Imagine that) and pushing his long hair out of his face, and you could see that yes, his hairline has actually run quite a lot further back than it used to be.

AND I STILL WANT TO LICK EVERY INCH OF IT.

What is wrong with me.

Now stop distracting me with pretty Radiohead boys, do you want a drawing of Thom or don't you?

:-P

;-)