Sketching Beastie was (and is) fun. She’s not beautiful, she wears overalls and likes punching big guys into next week (and bigger monsters into next month). What’s not to like about that?

A variety of sketches, the only two from life being the ones of the cat at the top. The cat would be Paliki, a little black cat that is sitting on my lap as I type this. She definitely wasn’t on my lap when I did the sketches. Or if she was she wasn’t there voluntarily. In 1996 she was a much more nervous, skittish animal. She didn’t like being too close to human beings for too long. And she certainly didn’t demand that I provide her with a lap as she does now.

Sketchy sketch sketch.

One of the big challenges for me, when I draw human figures, is drawing people with any mass to their form. It doesn’t matter whether the character is muscular or fat the added flesh around their bones changes the way they need to be drawn. Clothes hang differently. Wrinkles and folds appear in different places. Not that I had to worry about clothes with this guy.

Naked guys! Don’t look at these sketches at work! Unless you work in a naked guy factory. And if that’s the case, what are you doing online?

A page of figure sketches. I seem to have been practicing drawing figures in action.

I love this drawing. It’s simple. It’s clean. It looks like I knew what I was doing.