Darth Vader, White on Black

After finishing my Darth Vader portrait in pencil, it got me thinking...since Darth Vader is so black, why not start with black paper and just draw in the white?  I didn't have any black paper laying around but I did have some butcher paper, and as long as I was working on butcher paper, I might as well just use crayons! And we are not talking fancy conte crayons or anything close. I grabbed a jumbo crayola. Go big or go home, right? So the size of this piece is about  27" x 36", pretty big for my standards. I used the same reference photo as I did for the pencil drawing. This actually took much less time than the pencil drawing even though it is much bigger.

Darth Vader pencil drawing

So I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here: Kylo Ren, a stormtrooper, and Boba Fett. So it wouldn't be complete without a portrait of Darth Vader! It is very interesting to see how a character that is completely black turns out to actually be all different values reflecting more light than would be expected.
So is this a sketch or a drawing? Although this is not on high quality drawing paper, it did start out as a sketch in my sketchbook. But as I added in more finishing touches, I think it developed more into a drawing. Is there a time limit on a sketch? I once read that sketches are less than an hour, and since his took a couple hours (it's hard to tell exactly since this was three different short sittings), I am going to call it a drawing.
It seems like today's trend is to be ultra-realistic, but that is definitely not my style. I love being able to see the strokes of the artist, or pencil lines in this case. I'm sure I could go in with a blending stump and remove all of the lines (if my sketchbook paper could handle it) but I think leaving it the way it is gives it character and movement within the portrait.

Boba fett, photo progression

I guess I've got a Star Wars theme going here. Here is some retro Star Wars for you: Boba Fett. I started this portrait as a quick pencil sketch (not shown) with the intention of tracing it onto watercolor paper so that I could do this in watercolor. But then I just kept adding on to the original sketch which was on copy paper.  First I added in all the shading with just pencil...

Then I started to add in some color with colored pencil...not something I work with very often so I wasn't too happy with it at this point, so let's keep working it...

Smoothed out some of the colored pencil lines and added in a background but the shading originally done with pencil has lost its some of its effect...

What do you think?  I still like the one in just pencil but it is interesting how far a simple sketch can go!

Stormtrooper mixed media

In keeping with my New Year's resolution of taking risks with my art, I have taken my Stormtrooper and transformed it into Finn...or is it FN-2187? (is that a spoiler?) Using some watercolor paint, I put in a black background as well as blood on the helmet (yes, I applied it mostly with my fingers... what fun!) Since I was still working in my sketchbook, I had to be careful to not use much water because the paper does not take moisture well.

Stormtrooper: Star Wars pencil sketch

I got some new pencils for Christmas and decided to take them for a spin. I am always sketching with a #2 pencil and that is what I am used to. The new pencils range from 2H (hardest) through 8B (softest).  It was almost like learning to draw again. I was able to get some deep blacks with the soft pencils but I thought I struggled with smearing before with a #2. These smear a lot. I tried to use it to my advantage. The soft pencils don't erase as well either. The erasure just smears it also. I guess they will just take some getting use to. I can already see that the pencils have created a much broader spectrum of values than my last Star Wars sketch of Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren, Star Wars pencil portrait

Star Wars is all the rage right now, so I thought I would try my skills at Kylo Ren, the new Star Wars villain. I won't put any spoilers in here, but just by looking at him, you can tell he will be villainous. He basically is all black, so I threw in some highlights to break up the solid blacks that would have been his mask. I used some of the movie posters that are out there for reference photos...it is interesting how the mask is slightly different in the posters.