LateNightHacking Louis Artwork

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Recent Artwork - White Plains Notebook 1

2001-03-21 : Here's some recent artwork of mine. All this was drawn with mechanical pencil and kneaded eraser on white paper. Yeah, I know, real fancy equipment. :) I tell you, though, I love my kneaded eraser!

I think Gloria Higgenbottom has great skill and a really awesome drawing style. It's the way I'd like to be able to draw. At least she had a really cool style until all her characters got really skinny and started wearing combat boots. This is Twap in the older style (which I prefer). Here Twap has the drop on Nutsy. Apparently she took offense to what was meant to be a friendly overture. I didn't get around to drawing Nutsy into the picture until quite a whilte after I drew Twap, but as Gloria's style changed I felt that my appreciation for her old style was being assailed. I could empathize more with Nutsy more and managed to finish. :)       The scaling is approximately correct, given Twap is 6" high And Nutsy is 11". Twap's fencing stance is also accurate. I think I got the fencing idea because some of Gloria's pictures showed Twap with a sword. It is a bit curious that Twap's character decription on Gloria's web site mentions that Twap is afraid of sharp objects! :)

I name my computers using nouns describing people who move around and see new things. A long time ago, I drew a picture of a squirrel swordsman, and decided that he was the avatar of my computer at the time, Pathfinder. Here, looking for more subject ideas, I decided that I should create avatars for the rest of my computers. I just got a new laptop, which I named Scout. Here is its avatar: Scout is a Native American chipmunk. He's small and discrete, but powerful. Here Scout is tracking something, a deer probably.

After Scout, I had to come up with something for Rambler. Friar Tuck is just such a classic character, I though he would be a great model for Rambler. Here, Rambler is a pika, a fat friar out for a walk to visit his parishoners. Plus, not many people have fat characters and it's fun to draw something different.

When viewing the art at YERF, sometimes I am just grabbed by how much I like the artist's technique or style in a particular picture. It always makes me envious - I wish I could draw that well! In this case, I really liked the way the glasses sit with the face and with the eyes. I like the three-dimensionality of the muzzle, and the subtle expression of the mouth. (You should probably look at the original rather than my drawing to see what I mean).       Being in a drawing mood, this time I thought I would try to learn by drawing the same picture. It always worries me a little when I do this, because I know how sensitive (and over-sensitive) artists can be about people copying their art. I think this instance is OK, because I am making no claim to originality. This is a 'verbatim' copy of Emily Smith's drawing, done for learning purposes!       The picture on the left was sketched directly from the original, just trying to make an exact flat copy. After learning the details of the picture, I drew the picture again, starting from first principles as it were. (Instead of drawing the ear as three lines on a plane, I drew it as the outline of a solid object). The result is the one on the right, which came out quite well. I guess I can draw; I just can't draw without a model. Also, drawing hair falling loosely over the head yet still with a sense of volume still eludes me. It just looks like I drew a scribble on the character's head. (Both this picture and the one of Twap above have this problem.)

After the last one, I came upon another picture by Emily Smith with very three-dimensional hair, plus expressive eyes and again a three-dimensional muzzle (another problem of mine). I copied the head as best I could, trying to preserve these attributes, then decided the the picture needed some finishing. I knew she must be looking at something impressive with those big eyes, so I invented the conjured butterfly. That seems to be a consistent theme in my drawings. Butterflies are beautiful, complex, yet ephemeral, and are the sort of thing a lady would conjure up. I also like the way that the circle of light around the butterfly breaks out of the frame of background darkness. It kind of elevates the magic of the butterfly.

Of course, now having done these two copy drawings, my sense of humor kicks in. Why am I drawing other people's characters when I have my own perfectly good characters who would just love to be drawn? "You want floating objects? I can do floating objects! Come on, man! Draw me - I'm cool too!"

Gene Catlow (Albert Temple) is just one of the coolest artists in the furry community. While his style is simple, his art and his personality are always friendly, humorous, and thoughful. He is prolific, and one of the original artists at YERF. He probably also has the most pictures drawn of him by other people in the the whole gallery. I remember when one new artist posted a picture, calling it "my obligatory picture of Gene Catlow". Gene immediately drew a picture in response, demuring that anyone should feel obliged to draw him. To this I say: Gene, when that artist said 'obliged', he merely misspoke. We don't feel 'obliged' to draw you, but rather privileged to be able to post a piece of artwork as a display our appreciation of your contributions to the furry community. Well, at least I do!       I finally came up with something to draw when I followed a link from Gene's web comic strip to Scotty Arsenalt's Heebas! website. Scotty's site isn't big, but it does have a comment to the effect that if we came to Scotty's site from Gene's site, we should give Gene a noogie for him. Well, I couldn't see Nutsy giving Gene a noogie, but I could see Nutsy being confused by the whole thing. I think the drawing of Gene cam out very well, though I'm unsatisfied with the drawing of Nutsy. <Sigh>.

So, if there's one form of fighting I'd love to learn, it's quarterstaff. To be able to just pick up any stick and beat the snot out of your opponent who is armed with his preferred weapon is just too cool. Swordfighting is close behind. After all, the best part of the Phantom Menace was the final light saber battle. And if you don't slice up your opponent, what's the difference between using a stick and a sword?       I was on a bit of a quarterstaff kick for a while, and I ended up drawing this. It's supposed to be Pathfinder getting his clock cleaned. I think that Pathfinder's face came out really ugly (because of the mouth), but despite this, the picture is just so effective I had to put it up. I mean, I bet you can't look at it without wincing! I also think I did a good job of getting the rest of the body in a realistically off-balance pose.

Since poor Pathfinder is only a P90, he was relegated to the role of file server when Rambler became my main computer. I'd been trying to figure out what this would mean for the avatars. After drawing the above picture, the solution hit me. Pathfinder's getting old. What can a swordsman do when he's past his prime and needs a suitable job to retire to? Why, he can become a barkeep - a server! And there's no clearer indication that it's time to retire than when you're working out in a sparring match with your frined the fat friar and he knocks you silly. (Rambler is fat, but not compeletely out of shape - think footbal player. Nor is he a duffer with that staff - it's a rough world out there in the middle ages.)       I had a hard time getting Rambler's face correct in this picture, because of the unusual pose (facing away from the viewer). Believe it or not, I ened up sculpting his head from my kneaded eraser, and studying that to get the perspective. The result is perfect! It amazes me how a subtle difference in line can make a huge change in a picture. Rambler's face only has a few lines, but if you move or resize any of them, it will look completely wrong. (I know because it happend to me while I was drawing it!) With the physical model, I was able to get the foreshortened eye, eyebrow, muzzle line, and cheek shadow just right. I told you I love my kneaded eraser!