Just one quick sketch, this time of Swoosie Kurtz and her elegantly melancholic face. I don't think I quite did her justice but I did enjoy sketching her - I do hope we haven't seen the last of her but if we have, well what we got was solid gold.

( Swoosie Kurtz sketch )

New Heroes season means a reawakening of my occasional wish to draw people. Just one screencap based sketch here, that of Angela. Just because I occasionally get the hump with Angela and all her wacky madcap schemes it doesn't mean I tire of drawing Cristine Rose's beautifully striking face. If the mechanics interest you, this was drawn with a 2H and 7B pencil. You know, every so often I try using other media like pen or paint and I just never feel that comfortable. So unless I one day take to using oils like a duck to water, I think I'm stuck pencil & me are stuck with each other.



( Angela sketch )

Wendy the Heroes makeup artist who Twitters a lot and apparently collects Heroes fanart featured the sketch I did of bearded S2 Nathan that I did for anansie_s . I have no idea how she found it or why my name had become detached from it by the time she did. My thanks to mrjimprofit for sending her the credits  She updated it. Also, thanks to by7the7sea for also letting me know about the whole thing.

I guess overall it is deeply cool and only slightly mortifying. If nothing else, it's one more reminder as if it were needed that no matter how little you actively promote your stuff, nor aim to stay in a little bubble, that once you post stuff online, there really is no way of controlling where it ends up. Still, I knew this anyway and therefore I aim to post nothing I should be ashamed of.  I don't have a Twitter account. If nothing else, too longwinded to effectively utilise the format ;) but I'll get around to grabbing an account to say thank you to Wendy for her kind words.

One extra sketch. anansie_s  asked if I'd ever drawn Nathan in beard mode, from back in early S2. Answer was no, partly because a ton of facial hair is an extra challenge. But mostly, embarrassingly, because the reference pics are a bit of a wrench - he looks SO sad. :(

( Nathan Drawing )

Drawings from the lamented TV show Profit, which as those of you as keen on adrian Pasdar as I am, know to be a sadly lamented yet utterly wonderful show he starred in the mid '90s. Sadly missed and very much ahead of its time. As usual, varying degrees of success with the drawings but fun to be drawing him playing a very different character. Mostly, I tried to capture that sense of menace which seemed to spring from Jim Profit's sense of being rather detached from the rest of humanity. Didn't always get it, ah well.



( Drawings )</div>

A couple of sketches, more to continue to get back into the practice of things, 'finding my eye' so to speak than anything very ambitious. This is Kristen Bell which I thought was progressing okay until I was nearly done and spotted a couple of errors that couldn't be fixed without starting over. Most irritating. The other is from a photo of Adrian Pasdar on the set of Heroes from a photo of him on set and obviously in character.


( sketches )

Yay, It is Friday - I bring sketches. I'm guessing it is possibly only me & fiorediloto  who are fans of The Mentalist so I guess the market for sketches of the leads is sluggish. Also, Simon Baker is hard to draw.  Still, here they are - this is main character Patrick Jane and his team mate, Kimball Cho.



( Sketches of Mentalist characters )




I've watched the pilot of Veronica Mars and early impressions are good - I wouldn't say I instantly fell in love with it or anything and I think it came off a tiny bit glib at times, but it was very well acted and I instantly liked a lot of the characters, especially Veronica's dad and of course, Veronica herself. My flatmate liked it too and it's always nice when that happens - he is catching my enthusiasm for the Mentalist too despite agreeing that the writing could be a whole lot better.

ETA Oh, and when I got in from work, I shouted my usual hello to Pasquale the builder and got a hi in return but as I had two heavy bags of shopping, I went straight through to the kitchen and the fridge to put the groceries away...and then screamed in fright as the pantry door opened right behind me as i was putting things into the fridge. sigh, it was Pasquale and it transpires it was his brother I had called hi to who he'd brought in today to lend a hand. Sigh - we really scared each other! Funny how the brain does these instant threat things. Flatmate has scared me like this before but never as much because I think the brain always allows for the fact that someone *might* be there. Here, I instantly knew there could and should be no-one there to open that door. *shudder*

A small sketch that I really don't seem to have the heart to fully correct (or indeed fully finish).


( Sketch of Nathan )

Gah, my ability to sketch and have the subject actually look anything LIKE them seems to have disappeared. This was the best of a bad bunch. Also included as a caution against sketching whilst eating chicken wings. Sorry about that, Claire - maybe that's why you look so grumpy.( Claire drawing )

There’s an old joke I’ve always been very fond of about two men who live in neighbouring apartments with very thin walls. One of the men works late shifts and has an ugly habit of removing his workboots when he returns home and hurling them at their adjoining wall before he goes to bed. The “Thump! Thump!” noise of each boot hitting the wall annoys his neighbour and ones day he knocks on the door to plead for him to stop. Next night, the worker takes off the first boot and, without thinking, throws it *thump* at the wall as usual before remembering the conversation and so he quietly puts the other boot under the bed instead. Three hours later, he’s awoken from his sleep by a knock at the front door. His neighbour is standing there wild eyed and begs him “Please, PLEASE throw the other boot so I can relax and go to sleep!”

As might be inferred, this is how I feel after watching the first episode of Heroes.

 

( Heroes 3.14 review - mild spoilers )

Finally, my sketching habit has once again atrophied but I bring you this sketch. I did one of Milo too but it was so bad, it looked like I'd assembled his features from a bunch of other faces via the medium of collage. so here's Nathan instead.

 

( Nathan drawing )

Brief reactions: an enjoyable episode, lots to take in and reflect on. I still think there's a problem with pacing with everything feeling that just bit rushed, and thus the emotional impact of some of the things we see risks being lost.  ( Reactions plus pencil drawing of Claire )


ETA: Pleased to see yet ANOTHER print of the famous Nathan & Peter wedding photo. As a copy appears in just about every room of every dwelling any of the family have ever stayed so much as one night in, I am forced to conclude someone accidentally added an extra zero to the order form when they were ordering the wedding photos or something.

More drawings, none of them out the top drawer but to hell with it. As usual, all done with the aid of photo references from screencaps - (the more eagle eyed of you can have fun spotting the episode the screencaps come from). also all drawings done with an HB retractable pencil from the good people of BiC.

Firstly, Peter. Folks, unless it is just me, you have no idea how insanely hard Milo is to draw. I generally bitch about this in some feeble fashion to explain why my drawing is sub par, so I will at least explain a little better this time as to why this is so. See, one of the biggest challenges in drawing anything, but especially faces is to draw precisely what you see, not what you expect to see. This can be seen in children's drawings who, as a rule, do the 'drawing what they think is there' thing. For example, faces - children tend to draw the eyes right up the top of the head on their sketches because it seems that is where they should be - but in fact, they are more like halfway down the skull if examined closely. And obviously, when drawing as grown ups, we can remember big and obvious things like this. However, smaller things fool the brain in similar fashion. For instance, faces are never truly symmetrical and balanced, yet when drawing, there is a MASSIVE tendency to "correct" these flaws automatically. Kind of like an unconscious human photoshopping. Problem is that doing this also tends to take away those things that make someone look LIKE themselves. Anyway, all the cast of Heroes have little flaws to their faces over and above what might be obvious - Adrian Pasdar is actually very faintly cross eyed, for example (have a good look in some of the screencaps). Milo has a the paralysed nerve in the lower lip which is pretty distinctive but also has very unusual eyes. Very beautiful eyes - gorgeous in fact, but one is bigger than the other and this causes problems in calculating angles. It means one eye actually lies lower then the other and thus isn't quite in the usual straight line that can generally be traced from one eye to the other on a given face. Oh and the eyebrows are a bloody nightmare! But answers on a postcard as to why this is the case because I have no idea.

Anyway, enough caveats. ( 3 drawings, one of Peter, two of Nathan )

I had resolved to try and be a bit more accepting of Heroes many flaws but I can't help it -this week's episode plain old sucked for me.( Upset rant at bad episode - spoilers for episode )

( Oh and I did yet another drawing of Nathan )

Because I wanted to redo the Nathan drawing I had attempted previously and didn't really like but I forgot my sketch book. So this is done on my little A6 lined notebook. Not that you will be able to tell or anything. From the same reference page, I did a couple of Peter too.
( A few drawings too )

I'm off on holiday for two weeks with my flatmate from tomorrow - we are off to Sicily. Taormina to be precise. I've never been to this part of italy before and am so looking forward to it, not least because I shall be seeing my very dear fiorediloto .
Of course I'm also stressing out about the prospect of the actual travel like you wouldn't believe so my nerves are all fried, but focussing on nice things like seeing Fiore is stopping me freaking out too much.
I'll miss my flist, especially those who are going through rather tough times just now. I'll be thinking of you all and wishing you well.
A few drawings before I go:

( Heroes Drawings )

Yay, Heroes is back and so is my desire to draw pictures from all new screencaps.  As usual, I was using my trusty bic retractable pencil with its handy little eraser on the end. Also as usual, they each are flawed to a greater or lesser degree. Anyway, this first one is Ali Larter's new character and it is the first time I've drawn her.
( Drawings )

A few more Heroes drawings. Not my best work by any means but I spent so long on some of these (plus some others that were so much worse and so didn't  make the cut) that I'm posting them anyway. I long for Season three,fresh inspiration and something of an upturn in productivity and quality. Anyway  - enough caveats, let's press on.

Well, with snow and hail battering down on the windows, I've been enjoying myself watching Japanese cartoons and sketching Heroes characters again. My ability to draw apparently waxes and wanes greatly, and these are still rooted in the 'wane' phase. But are miles better than some of the crap I've been churning out (and of which you have been spared).

A  few more drawings of Nathan and of Peter, plus a couple of Adrian Pasdar as Declan from the show "Mysterious Ways". A show I was going to say was made a couple of years ago, but a moment's reflection tells me that actually  the year 2000 = 8 years ago. Which strikes me as downright frightening. Anyway, as to the drawings, as usual they are a mixed bag, quality wise. I don't think they are as good as the previous batch. Still, never mind - higher hopes for the next lot.

Witheryslash  andfiorediloto  away there are fewer fangirls to share my Heroes squeeing with, so I've been putting the oodles of spare time I find myself with this weekend towards sketching the Heroes cast from various screencaps (and watching "Barry Lyndon", the marvellous if rather downbeat movie). Some sketches I'm happier with than others. Rather like typos that successfully evade all proofreading efforts only to burst forth into extreme obviousness when the document is handed out in the meeting, so it is with drawings. The minute I've declared a sketch finished and run it through the scanner - THEN I spot the serious errors.  Ah well, you can see the flawed ones too. What the hell.