Taranti-not

So here it is, my first ever blog post. I'm feeling excited and nervous at the same time - not quite sure where the nerves are coming from, but they are there......how odd. Anyway, let's kick things off......

The whole point of me doing a blog is to talk about my art and drawings in a slightly more casual way than I'm able to on the main part of my site. I can show the process I go through with each piece, whether it's good enough to make my portfolio or not (and trust me, there are a lot of those.) And the design I wanted to use first is one that I just finished this afternoon......."Taranti-not"

This is a character I sketched out a while ago (although at the beginning it was just a head), and despite getting a lot of comments from people asking if it's meant to be Tarantino, I'm reluctant to say yes or no. I admit, I admit, it is based on him, but I didn't want to label it as a direct caricature just to give myself a little more flexibility with the design. (There's also the nagging worry that someone will come up to you and say, "that looks nothin' like him"!)

This is how the original sketch looked and I back then, I wasn't entirely sure where I was going with it....more of a doodle than anything, but I saw a bit of potential. I was keen on the gangster feel though. It was at the same time as Django being released, so Tarantino was fresh in my mind.

When I started on the painting, I thought I would go down the 'film noire' look and paint in black & white......but it just wasn't clicking for me. I didn't feel it was jumping off the page as much as I wanted it to. So, I went back to the drawing board (quite literally) and started to add some colour.

When I put the two versions together, the coloured version just had more weight and character to it. There are still areas that need a bit of tinkering, but it immediately gave me more direction and ideas on where I could take this character in the future.

Oh.....I also gave him some legs.........