Lately I have been adjusting my daily drawing practice with a goal to get better at illustrating characters.
That effort includes better mastering human anatomy fundamentals and developing a methodology to draw properly proportioned subjects with confidence and speed. There are many ways to such an undertaking and I am drawing wisdom from various valuable knowledge points. For me though, following and learning from the drawing process of Japanese manga artist Akihito Yoshitomi has proved a highly beneficial and enjoyable experience.
While properly drawing the human body is the basis on which everything else stands, my current effort is also about mastering all other aspects of character development, including looks and attitudes, expressing personality and mood, rendering a character in different illustration styles.
From the body of daily sketches resulting from this work I have started cherry picking a few good ones that show potential for further development.
One is the headline illustration for this stories, of a mysterious woman slow ready by a window, day dreaming and enjoying the sunshine. Originally inspired by beautiful work by Australian illustrator Bron Payne, I have tried to develop my own interpretation in that mix of pure minimalism, pop art and op art that has been particularly inspiring to me lately and has been such a popular trend in fashion illustration.
Prints
Art prints, canvas prints, posters and postcard versions of this illustration, entitled Slow reading, are now available for order on my RedBubble shop.
