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Tuesday, Jan 02, 2007 - 22:36 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

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Slow On The Draw

Indulged in one of my old hobbies on and off in the past week - it was going to be using my not-so-cheaply procured Wacom graphics tablet, but then I found out that the crash a month or two ago had wiped out my Corel Painter Essentials 2 installation. No problem, I thought, I kept the bundled CD. Until it prompted me for a registration code, which I had no idea where to begin looking for. I felt mildly the same as when I discovered that the all-important Windows XP Pro product key was printed in a small font on a sticker unobtrusively stuck on a corner of the plastic wrapping of its manual. And what is the most natural thing to do with plastic wrapping after you tear it open? That's right. Throw it away.

And so, instead of "more than 50 pressure-sensitive natural media brushes", it was back to good old pencil and paper. A bit of preliminary research informed me that I was woefully underequipped - a single tutorial introduced charcoal and carbon in addition to graphite pencils, and blending stumps, tortillons, felt pads, facial tissues and chamois. Should I use Strathmore or Canson drawing paper? Decisions, decisions.


Tools of the trade, and preliminary sketch

I looked about my room. Several faint-marking HB's (which do work fine on OMR forms, despite recommendations to the contrary) and a sole 2B that has been around for some time. No kneaded rubber erasers lying around, but I found a green slab with a bit of sellotape on it. They would have to do. At least there was an abundant supply of A4 printer paper in the house, and a couple of good straightedge rulers. Won't be squaring the circle, so I'm good to go.

Now for the unwitting subjects. I've got an old Secondary Three class seating plan, and a JC yearbook. *Evil laughter*. There's a particular risk of portrait drawing people you know, and more importantly, want to continue knowing, when one isn't all that good at drawing yet - but after revealing the finished work to some of my featured pals, my score is:

Offers to financially support art career: 0
Terse statements of friendship dissolution: 0

So I guess I'm not doing too badly after all :P Maybe someday I'll approach the freehand standard of Mr. "May The Force Be With You" Tan, my TCHS Physics teacher and oftentime sketch artist. But there's always the fine balance between drawing what you see and what others want to see. Heard the story about the lame-in-one-foot and blind-in-one-eye king who fired his first painter because he drew him as is with his faults, his second one because he drew a strong and hale man who was clearly not him, and rewarded his third one for drawing him looking with his good eye through a telescope (with blind eye conveniently shut), and standing with his withered leg majestically planted on a rock?


Some lucky individuals

Started my little secret project on 23rd December. Shaded, cursed, erased my way through to the wee hours of 1st Jan. Learnt a few things in the process, such as minor errors in proportion being very fixable in Photoshop (rather than requiring a total redraw). And I think I'm getting better in hinting at shape by shading. And drawing hand postures. Yea, the quality fluctuates considerably,

1. Simply because I'm not that good
2. Because I don't have suitable source photos
3. Because most of 4O wears specs and seriously they can make a person look quite different

Still, a blind test revealed that some of my sketches can actually be positively identified by sight, even in absence of other context. And in that alone I feel pretty good. Reminds me of a poem by Nostradamus' son in David Ovason's The Nostradamus Code:

Caesaris est satis patris haec Michaelis imago
Edit hic genitor, prodit hic ille patrem
Sic pater est natus nati, pater est quoque patris
Natus et hinc rebus numina rident.

 This image of Michel, the father, is by Cesar, the son.
The former engendered the latter: he has produced his father.
If the father is born of the son, then the son is also the father of the father.
The gods smile at this birth and at this curious design.

Finally, after a week of at times tedious drawing:


With background (1024 x 768 version)


"Clean" alternative (1024 x 768 version 1280 x 800 version by request)

Many are the obscure symbolisms, but don't read too much into it - as the fine folk over at The Order Of The Stick say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.



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