Detail/ Sons of Anarchy final
07/06/11 10:39 PM
Finished the Sons of Anarchy piece. Overall I'm happy with it. As a technical exercise I succeeded in pushing the level of detail too far- but this has helped me immensely in finding the point at which things break down within my style and more is simply more. I hope to incorporate some of the lessons I've learned here in the direction I take moving forward.
(Click to enlarge)
I included some detail images, these still are less than half the resolution of the original:
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Detail Challenge II
06/15/11 08:01 PM
(Click to enlarge)
Finished the Sons of Anarchy / detail sketch. Definitely has detail. At this point, at least in the sketch, it's barely even recognizable as my style. I'll need to take care in the execution of the final illustration to make sure that my style comes through, but the linework and especially textures should help.
The Detail Challenge
06/05/11 11:27 AM
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:
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)