BUT! I finally found some time (and some inspiration) to start drawing again. Over the last year or so, I've started following many comic book artists blogs. I find that incredibly inspirational in that I get to see what these masters are doing on a daily basis. In the past, I've tried to steer clear of drawing licensed characters and stick to original ideas of my own, but watching these professional artists, I've seen many of then do daily warm-up sketches of some pop-culture character or other, just to loosen up. I thought to myself that it might be fun to stretch myself a little bit and try new things with characters that I love instead of ones I create.
I found myself particularly inspired by several things I found on Yildiray Cinar's blog. First, was this painting he did of Darth Maul for a friend of his.
So, for my first one, I turned to the excellent cartoon "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," which I have been on a huge kick of lately, for inspiration. My first piece of art since the baby is Savage Opress (sah-VAHJ oh-PRESS), Darth Maul's brother.
I kept my usual meticulous pencil sketching to the bare minimum for this one. I wanted to see what it would be like to stay much looser with everything and go straight through to the colors and layer up like you can see the very talented Mr. Cinar doing in the linked video. So, I sketched an outline of the body, and the details of his face and started coloring right away. I used the color mixing brush to give the cloths a painted feel and added some solid inks lines over the tops to give it a little texture. Over all, I'm very happy with how it turned out and am looking forward to experimenting more with other characters in the near future. Hope you like it!
