It took exactly 10 days for me to hit the creative wall.

This is, in the past, where ventures such as this have stopped dead in their tracks. As soon as something that’s supposed to be fun gets hard I immediately reach into my bottomless “fuck-it bucket” and ignore whatever it is that’s frustrating me.

Part of this whole project, especially the rather vocal and public sharing of it, is to force me into a position where I can’t do that. I’ve read in various places that the act of DOING is what helps generate motivation not the other way around (my favorite example), so no matter what I had to draw something. You could say I’m attempting a little cognitive behavioral therapy on myself.

So today, after a nice afternoon bike ride and a vegan cappuccino I found myself staring at a blank page and panicked a little on the inside when nothing came to mind. Before I knew it I had pulled my phone out and was dicking around on Facebook and giving in to my reflexive laziness.

Realizing this I took a moment to feel like a failure (not fishing for sympathy just acknowledging that I do it) and then decided that if I couldn’t come up with anything original I’d just draw something I’d done a million times before and try to do it just a little bit better. I’ve drawn more than a few zombies in my day and it was the first thing that popped into my head. Sure enough, as soon as I started rough pencils I had another idea to document the process. This only confirmed my the “action precedes motivation” theory.

So below are the various stages I go through when drawing. I hope you get something out of it. if not, and you see something I could do better, speak up!

Pencils

Super rough, super scratchy. proportions of the head / major features. I like to leave wiggle room.

Rough Ink

major features and details. again, not perfectly over the pencils just what ever feels right.

Light Shadows

After the Ink I erase most of the pencil (I lighten the eyes cuz I suck at iris’ for some reason and end up needing guides) and hit it w/ a first pass of shadows to define where the light is coming from. I use Prismacolor French Grey’s (30% / 50% / 80%).

Darker Shadows / Meat / Hair

Basically it’s just more Prismacolor.

First Fine Line Pass

More detail, defining directions of things. Adding more texture to things like exposed muscle on the jaw / cracks in teeth / eye blisters.

More Detail

I darkened the hair area cuz I wanted the face framed better. Also at this point I noticed my felt ink pen was blurring every time i hit it w/ the Prismacolor markers so I was going over areas again.

Highlights!!!

One of the things I like to play with when drawing is that light colors come forward and dark goes back. So I go for the neutral brown paper sketchbook because I can spend a bunch of time pushing things back and then just a little white pops a shit load of depth into the whole thing. In this instance I’m using white acrylic ink. it was cheap and the only thing my local supply store had and damnit i wanted to try it.

For the record, I am brand-fucking-new to the white ink club. I’ve seen other people use it in the past and always been enamored of their work but I’m obviously still playing with it (hence the globs of bullshit on the teeth and ear). In spite of the mistakes I do think it added some nice tactile globby texture which really adds to a drawing of something that’s supposed to be decomposing.

Finishing

I wound up going back over where their’s too much white or putting in a darker shadow next to the white to really amp up the contrast and make some of those cheek ridges pop. also lots of little scratchy lines cuz I love em and it’s a good way for me to just space out. I also went over most of the white on the left of the face w/ the 50% Grey so it felt darker than the side that was supposed to be closer to the light.

So that’s the process, or at least the process I used on this one. I probably could of spent more time on some of the details of the face and the neck could sure as hell use more work. But, the sun was going down and I needed to head home. Next time I might get some black ink too and play with controlled spattering and really getting gory.