Another piece by Zaush that I've 'interpreted'. You can see that I cannot do his eyes to save my life. The line along the side is my scanner automatically removing the 'gutter shadow'. Aside from that, I'm very pleased with this piece. I haven't yet learned all that I can from Zaush's artwork, but I'm at the limit of what I can learn without branching into something else. I've determined that I like the faces on Gideon's characters the best, so I'll be attempting those soon.

'm nearing the point where I can begin to make an original composition, but I'm still in the 'thinking' phases of doing so. What I think I'm going to want to do is find a common and simple pose and have several images as references, and work on them.

Another technique that I'm going to begin attempting to employ is drawing order. I have essentially started at one point and spiraled around the entire image until it is complete, drawing curves and lines as I have a reference directly next to them This has greatly increased my awareness of how lines flow together and relate to one another, and I have begun spotting small discrepancies here and there that I wouldn't have been able to pinpoint before. What I'm going to attempt now, is following the drawing through the logical progression the artist most likely took.

In this image, for instance, the line that defines the division of calf and thigh could definitely have been done in a different way than I did it. By following the image down the lefthand side and constructing the shin and calf, I could have then followed through the thigh and some parts of the chest with more solid reference already on the page.

I honestly have to say that nearly all of my initial frustration is gone, because though I'm working on other artists' work, I'm drawing images I do consider to be beautiful and complete. I feel that I've made tremendous progress in my work, and I can't wait to continue to do so.

I have no reference for this character's name, so I affectionately call him 'Jake'.

~Treth