I was paging through a comic book recently and saw this really excellent drawing of a person that bordered on portrait quality while still being comic book art. In the drawing there was great detail where a lot of the features were defined with lines — like where little shadows and minute details would be.
I decided to try out this technique myself. I took a photo off my wall (I have framed 8x10s of movie characters on the wall leading down to our basement) and tried out a sketch in pencil. It wasn’t bad… I was moderately happy with it, but not completely, so I traced my drawing the next night onto marker paper and colored it in. After I was done, I realized I had made some mistakes AND over shadowed it.
I threw it out.
Then I took another photo down and tried it again. This time I TRIED to keep it cartoony and more to shapes, but it’s REALLY difficult. I naturally want to make it a realistic portrait.
I kept working on Michael J Fox as Marty McFly and tried to discipline myself not to overdo it. I may have a bit, but I’m mostly happy with the result. I want to try more of these!
