It's high time I posted a proper update to the ol' bliggity-blog. Therefore, having slacked long enough on illustrating
The Emperor's New Suit (a.k.a.:
The Emperor's New *Clothes*), I took the opportunity to get in some tablet practice while I was at it. The result? Not too shabby, I think - although it's really just a rough sketch - but the tablet (as I may have mentioned) causes me to feel that I am drawing without the use of my dominant hand.
Anyhow, a bit about the drawing itself: I decided that the Emperor should be of a somewhat ambiguous sexuality and clad in his custom royal undies (not invisible themselves), and wearing an expression half-cocky, half-insecure. He's not sure if he's naked or not, but he knows he's the center of attention. It really turned out to be quite a fun figure-drawing exercise. Something I haven't done since college, and miss terribly - it's loads of fun. While I can draw the female form (or a close approximation thereof) entirely out of my head, I require a reference for a man's body. Otherwise, I tend to draw them all shoulders and biceps: lanky and bizarre-looking. This brought me to the problem of finding a suitable reference photo. Googling "naked man" or "man in underwear" is probably unwise, as was my first idea: trolling the
Deviant Art stock photos (
not recommended). Then it came to me: where is there an abundance of notoriously bad, bordering-on-amateur-softcore-porn photography with a totally gay bent to it?
American Apparel, that's where! So that's where I found my source image.
This dude even had the expression I was looking for on his face. Score.
How well it fits him!
A note about the panties: Yes, this was the part I was originally excited about drawing; purple undies with little crowns on them. The crown idea didn't work out like I'd planned (probably should have been working with a higher-resolution image) and they metamorphosed into fleurs-de-lis. I'm just as sick of those things as anyone else, but for some reason it worked. I'm sure anyone in NOLA would be clamoring to get their ass into a pair of these.
