Thursday, December 11, 2008

Sketchbook 013


(click image to enlarge)

More of the same. I broke out the old crowquill pen for the three smaller faces on the right side.

These pages are all starting to look the same to me, but you can never get enough practice drawing faces. On the other hand, the same thing applies to figures, so I think I'll try to do more of that on future pages.

10 comments:

Sam said...

Man, Steve, it really looks like you were born to draw characters from the 20's til'50s...they look really beautiful.

Jason Latino said...

The dude in the tie reminds me of Joseph McCarthy, but less greasy.

It's funny, whenever I look at these sketch pages I'm always trying to weave a story between the characters.

Alan said...

Practice like this must help to get the kind of variety you manage, as opposed to a stock face. Like the commenter above says, there does seem to be a classic or period feel to some of these. Nice work

Nelson Hernandez said...

Mr. Epting,

I stumbled upon your blog today while looking for some Dean Cornwell images. Just wanted to say that I am a big fan and your current stuff (besides this awesome stuff on your blog) on Captain America is stellar! Known about your work for a while, really took notice during Factor-X during AoA. I think your work has evolved and is beautiful. Always look forward to seeing your name in the credits on the first page. Continued Success!

Francesco Francavilla said...

Hi Steve,

I was very familiar (and in love) with your Marvel work but I didn't know about the wonderful sketches: that's a fabolous series of drawing and I wish you would put them together in a print copy for sale (so I can get my hands on it ;)).
Also it's cool to see that some of your work is digital: everything look done in traditional media so that means you are doing it right ;)

Cheers,
Francesco

Steve Epting said...

Avenger and Jason Latino - Thanks guys. Some of these faces actually came from a book of old movie stills, which should account for the 20s-50s look - though I don't think Joe McCarthy was in there.:)

Alan - I hope this helps as far as improving variety in faces, since I feel that is one of my weak points when it comes to the main characters.

Nelson - I'm glad you found the blog and thanks very much for taking the time to comment and for your kind words.

Francesco - Thanks very much. I'm trying to find a good balance between the traditional and digital look, but I lean toward the traditonal. By the way, I love your blog and I'm going to add it to my list of links on the sidebar. Everybody reading this should go check it out immediately!

Michael Dooney said...

Steve, since I no longer believe anything I see online, let me know if you are actually drawing these in a sketchbook with tan paper or just presenting them here to look that way! Either way they're great. I know how you feel about the head drawing practice thing, I tend to lean that way myself, I think that it's because there is no margin for error on a face....you can fudge things on drawing an arm or torso, but folks will nail you on a badly drawn face.

Steve Epting said...

Michael - someone once said that as long as the faces and hands look accurate you can fake the rest and no one will notice. That sounds pretty reasonable to me. It is amazing how one little line in the wrong place can completely change a face (take a look at the wonky mouth on the guy at the bottom left for instance). As for the tan sketchbook paper - yes, I'm just dropping that in digitally. I guess I just like the way it looks. If you ever come across an actual sketchbook with paper like that, let me know!

Michael Dooney said...

I figgered the brown paper was a digital thing. But, Canson makes a great brown paper pad that comes in a bunch of sizes, it's intended for scrapbooking but I've used for drawing, inks, paint etc. It's heavy weight and can stand up to paints without much buckle. There is something nice about drawing on off white paper and if you add some highlights with white prismacolor pencil or white paint it looks so artsy!
here's a link on Dick Blick to the pads
http://www.dickblick.com/zz129/47b/

Steve Epting said...

That looks pretty cool Michael. Thanks for the link!