Untitled and Undecided

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After I finished up the last piece, Dread Persephone, I thought that I was done drawing real life pieces for a while so I could concentrate more on abstract and comic book looks. But then I saw this piece I started a long time ago. I thought I might as well finish this up and write-off my idea to do more athletic/fitness art as well.

Now that I have this piece finished, I’m back to being undecided. I have an idea for a comic book/graphic novel thing that I really need to get moving on. And that will involve a lot of writing, editing and concept sketching. That’s why I wanted to concentrate more on a comic style again. But something about this piece makes me wonder if that is the right decision. I’m happy with how it turned out and it reminded me of how much I enjoy illustrating sports/athletics subjects.

This piece started out as watercolor, then I moved it into a digital piece to do that line work, background and color tweaking. I used an image of crossfitter Brooke Ence for the model. Sort of related: I noticed that, while she was in the original Justice League movie in the background for just a moment, her character had a pretty good hero moment added into the Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie. Of course she played a warrior on Wonder Woman’s home island.

The First Lady of Boxing

Another one of my messy experiments in drawing athletes. It was drawn completely with Copic markers. This is Welterweight champ Cecilia Braekhus (Twitter Instagram). Reference: AP Photo by Chris Carlson.

Messy Experiments

Still plugging away at seeing how far I can push the abstraction of line work and texture consistency. It really got pushed on the image of the boxer and I am surprised at how happy I am with it. No idea who the boxer is, but the lady with the kettle bell is coach and athlete Meg Gallagher.

Preserving Something

Strongman Champion and actor Hafthor Bjornnson

If you or anyone you know is in great shape or at their peak strength (or at least has some quality reference photos of when you/they were), and would like to have a free illustration of yourself in an art style similar to the pics in this post, let’s talk. It can be you actually doing a lift, or running, or biking or whatever. It can be a pic of you posing too. You did all the work of getting there, now let’s preserve that with a little art!

CrossFit Champion Heather Bergeron

For some backstory, I used to love to draw comic book characters in a comic book style. It’s still fun but it just isn’t as enriching as it used to be. Using photo reference to draw actual people has become something I am thoroughly enjoying though. One thing that could be a hybrid of this is drawing people who look like they could be superheroes but live and breath. People who are in the fitness industry, or just really into being fit seems like the way to go. Plus, spending so much time in and out of gyms over the last 20 years has given me such a respect for people who can put in the work, and exercise the discipline it takes achieve the kinds of goals that are just too daunting for most people to maintain (like myself). I would love to try to capture or preserve that in what I draw.

I’ve begun doing a bunch of small pieces like the ones in this post. I think I would like to build up a bit of a fitness specific portfolio before I pursue charging people and turning it into a business. So you’d be helping me out too.

So if this sounds like something that might be of interest to you, send me a message.