Process #4

Here's the final version of my Charlton Heston sketch:


I laid the wash down pretty loosely - I didn't want this to feel stiff as a lot of photo referenced drawings tend to feel. The paper got too wet when I was putting in the background so it's kind of messed up. That's what I get for doing this on a piece of scrap paper.

Oh well, it was a fun change of pace.

Process #3

Got a chance to finish off the inks tonight:
Since I'm going to lay in some ink wash, I left a lot of medium & darker values undefined in the inks, especially towards the bottom of the figure. We'll see how it goes this weekend.

Process #2

Not quite done with the inks tonight, but it's getting there:


I don't ink with a brush very much anymore, so I'm feeling my way through this one. I had hoped I'd pull off some crazy new way of doing things as a result, but I'm not confident enough to let that happen. As usual, I've fallen back onto the same old crutches I've always used.

Maybe I'll redo this one when it's done and force myself to ink it differently. I'd like to get away from any and all feathering and find more varied ways of laying in texture and shadow. Why? I just think it time for an overhaul. I'll never be Wally Wood so I might as well explore some other approaches.

Process #1

I'd been wanting to draw Charlton Heston since I'd heard that he'd passed away. As a kid, we didn't have big budget CG extravaganza superhero movies coming out every week so Charlton Heston was as close to a superhero as we had. On any given weekend, you could catch a re-run of Planet of the Apes or The Omega Man on TV and of course, every Easter we got to watch The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. I certainly didn't agree with the man's politics, but he could play bigger than life heroes like few others.

I just had time to do some rough pencils today, so I thought I'd post each step of the process. I'm thinking this is going to be pen & ink with some ink wash laid in when it's done. We'll see:

Edited to add the reference photo I'm using (a still from Ben Hur):