A New Western Hero

Traditional + digital media. Pencil, pen and copic marker before digital coloring.

I grew up watching and reading Westerns with my father. So when we talked about those stories with friends and family, a lot of the same characters kept popping up. They are America’s mythology with John Wayne being a sort of King Arthur at the head of the round table. The characters of Louis L’amour and Zane Grey sometimes came up. Mostly the Western heroes of cinema loomed over our sense of story and downright coolness. And we didn’t split hairs over where the Western was made. We all watched a lot “Spaghetti Westerns” and never once cared that some movies had righteous heroes and some had dubious anti-heroes. Anytime we would be together looking at the engine of the vehicle someone bought, working on someone’s house, or cleaning birds after a little hunting, conversation always involved some of the same movies. No one was surprised when the names of ‘The Duke’, Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef, Katherine Ross, Henry Fonda, Steve McQueen, Raquel Welch, Gary Cooper, Ben Johnson, Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Alan Ladd, or George Kennedy came up. We all chuckled anytime someone would whistle or “wah ooh wah ooh wah” the iconic sounds of A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, or The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

Since then, I’ve come to appreciate a lot of westerns made after that era as well. Tombstone, Lonesome Dove, Unforgiven, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Hi-Lo Country, All the Pretty Horses, Deadwood, et. al. Hell, I liked both iterations of The Magnificent Seven so much that it made me watch The Seven Samurai, which was a gateway drug to the works of Akira Kurosawa, and his contemporaries.

Traditional + digital media. Pencil, pen and copic marker before digital coloring.

I’ve also broadened my definition of a Western. Meaning that, it may not be set in “the old west” of America. The first time I watched The Crow, I remember thinking… “I can’t put my finger on it, but this sure feels like a Western”. The second part of Kill Bill made a lot of creative decisions to make it feel like a Western. No Country for Old Men and Hell or High Water are perhaps two of the best examples I can think of when it comes to “not really westerns… but totally damn good westerns” movies.

I am an American male born the same year that the first Star Wars movie was released. So it is a safe assumption that I am a fan of the franchise. I mean, I’m 42 and here I am at Disney World posing with a guy just because he is really tall and wearing a Chewbacca costume.

I know that Westerns have always been in the DNA of Star Wars. But when I saw how the new Disney+ series The Mandalorian not only embraced that heritage, but celebrated it, I took notice. The protagonist uses few words but is quick and true with is weapons. He also has a code that he lives by. He is in so many ways, the quintessential Western hero. I know it’s super popular now for artists to draw the Mandalorian and “The Child”. But I really wanted to make this little piece as a synthesis of of my admiration for the archetypes I grew up with in story and in real life (looking at you, sons of Lloyd & Dory Scoblic and Derald & Margaret Hay), as well as those great archetypes being practically changeless in modern storytelling.

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.

Copic Marker and Digital Color Experiments

The reference is Canadian bodybuilder Natasha Aughey from a photo by Gord Weber.

For the last few months, I have been experimenting with copic markers. But it wasn’t until I saw a few Instagram videos by Terrance Whitlow that I realized a whole new level (to me) of how they can be used.

He takes a more painterly approach to their application. This can be seen by how he adds several layers of marker color, as well as a white wash of some sort for highlights. I wanted to be able to do all of this in a way that was much more mobile, so instead of a really wet white like he uses, I’ve been using General’s Charcoal White 558 pencils and a Sakura Gelly Roll pen. I started with white colored pencil, but I found the waxy buildup that colored pencils give you doesn’t work well at all with trying to apply marker over it. I also wanted a look that was much less creamy, and more granular. So, the charcoal looked great for that as well.

The next step was to color it. I still love watercolor and watercolor pencils for their textures and for the tactile feel of using them. But in the last few years, technology has hit the point where digital coloring, with the right brushes, looks natural and authentic. A good eye can still spot the differences of course, but overall, digital painting has hit the point where it looks right with what I want to accomplish. So after all the tone and line work was done, I scanned it in and brought it into Procreate for the iPad. I generally stick with a modified gouache brush for both color and eraser with a modified brush pen for line work touch-ups.

If you have any experiences with copics, white washes or digital coloring, leave a comment. I love to hear what other people think of using them as well as how they use them.