Lately I've been rethinking my drawing style. In my older illustrations I tried to simplify my drawing style as much as possible- to use the least amount of linework to communicate a bare minimum of necessary information. This comes in part from my photography background- "anything that doesn't add to the image takes away from the image" some photographer once said. With illustration, I felt that this minimalist approach also served to keep my figures universal. If I put hair on a figure's head, all of a sudden it became male or female, add a shirt and tie now it's a businessman, etc. And didn't that take away from the viewer identifying with the figure in the illustration if they weren't the same gender, etc.?

While I think that approach had it's place and still does, I began to wonder if I'd taken it a bit too far. On more recent illustrations I have drawn a lot more detail than I would have before. My previous post of the stock illustration piece is a good example, especially in the foreground figure, and I think it's a stronger piece because of the added detail.

So to explore the concept of adding more detail to my drawing style, I decided to work on a piece that pushed detail almost too far. I've been re-watching the first few seasons of the excellent FX series "Sons of Anarchy" on Netflix lately and the ensemble cast seemed like an ideal subject matter for pushing detail to the maximum. The cutoff motorcycle jackets with multiple patches, intricately carved wooden meeting table and character likenesses present the perfect challenge. Here's the first Sketch:

(Click to enlarge)

Tags: Detail