Taking a Break from Work to Do Different Work

Over the past few days, I realized that I had taken on quite a bit for work. Two speedpaint/art series, producing one piece (ONE PIECE!) a week for one and two pieces for the other, plus a fourth piece for current videos because I'm not uploading the series' vids just yet. With "We City Folk" coming to an end on July 29, some relief is in sight, but I felt I would benefit from taking a break from the day-to-day schedule for a week. So during this weekend, I snogged the grindstone and completed all necessary work for this week. My schedule is, as of this moment, essentially free. Provided nothing comes up, I now have about seven days of freedom.

So of course, because it's me, I'm taking a break from one work thing to do another work thing.

I like that banner I have for my Twitter and Facebook. That steampunk-ish pic of Overcast was one of my favorites from the series I did of him. But... it's a bit old now, and my skill, or lack thereof, has advanced past that level. Last night, I started these pencils to replace the current banner. Clearly, it's not done, but I'm more or less happy with the beginning of this.

Part of the process for this was scaring up plenty of photo reference. I have a fat load of boards on Pinterest full of very helpful examples of retro lamps, hats, radios, and other stuff.

First was planning a general layout idea for his desk. For visual interest, there ought to be plenty of stuff on his desk but not so much that it looks cluttered. Overcast is fairly fastidious, so a messy desk wouldn't make sense. Then, as I do with a lot of my more recent pictures, I did a pose test to make sure it all worked well enough before I attempted to realize it fully. As of now, it's at a fairly reasonable stage, though there are still some things to change in post.

• Overcast's torso to be lengthened, thus making the desk taller and/or the chair shorter

• His head to tilted down to look at the paper he's holding

• The coat to be finished

• Fingers to be delineated

• Mask pieces to be shrunken

• Suspender straps to be lined up

• Inorganic surfaces to be straightened

• Background wall to be added

• All proportions to be checked

No speedpaint for this, at least none that I envision. I wanna take my time with it and not have to worry about filming. If I'm in there process of doing something interesting, I might record it, but this is background stuff.

#sketch #cartoon #lineart #genrechowderstudios