At the crit for this project, I presented my drawings of Greg and Alex and my drawings of medieval manuscript illustrations and meercats. The crit made me feel more confident in my ability to draw faces, something I tend to shy away from, especially when trying to get a likeness. I’m glad I started this project drawing by hand, but I have been planning to digitally collage these drawings to create strange caricatures and tie this project together. Since lockdown, I have downloaded Clip Studio Paint and found it to have much nicer brushes and no lag so I am excited to try more brushes and see what works best for changing the thickness of lines as I draw.
I decided to start by drawing a promotional image of Greg and Alex with the Taskmaster trophy (a gold statue of Greg’s head), I chose this image because the composition and facial expressions are really effective and it was fun to draw
I started with a straightforward digital drawing so I could try new brushes and to freshen up my images a bit and help me get back into the project. I used the Smooth India Ink brush in a variety of sized with 100 brush density and opacity. It was still not strong black all the way through so I decided to use the oil paintbrush for my second drawing. I would like to add more colour and still turn this into a postcard with some text, because although the features are not that exaggerated I think the different expressions are exaggerated by the thickness of line and express the characters of Alex, Greg, and his Trophy. I really enjoy using layers when digitally drawing, but I am also curious to experiment more with the blending options of brushes.
Ever since there was a conversation where Greg heard one of the contestants say “imagine you’re a mere” instead of “imagine you’re a mayor” in Season 9 episode 4 which made me want to draw Greg as a meercat. If Greg was to send Alex a vinegar valentines it would definitely have his own face on it while insulting Alex in some way. I was particularly pleased with my caricature of Greg with is eyebrows like this and collaged his hair from my first drawing of him to finish the head. I then redrew the meercat to refine the lines of my original drawing making them crisp and more refined. I really enjoyed drawing the chair in both this and the last drawing. I think I will add a background and refine the drawing, bringing context with text.
I would like to look more into medieval bestiaries and manuscripts and draw from these strange caricatures but I like the meercat for this project. I can imagine the characters in medieval manuscripts would be good if they interacted with each other in an environment. I looked at bestiaries in first year and I think drawing from them further could be great for developing my characters, especially when I decide what happens as I go, so I will take this interest further in other projects.
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