Frank's Sketchbook Entry of the Day

Look, up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's...holy shit, it does look like a plane...except it's got no wings, and it's not flying as much as it's plummeting. OK...yeah, I can see it better now. It's definitely a plane. Do they still call them planes if they don't have wings? Oh, wait, I can see the wings now too, they're kind of doing a mix of plummet and spiral. Hey, it's a lot easier to see now—I can even make out what airline it is...or was or will be was? Wow...I kind of feel a bit silly thinking it was Superman at first, streaking through the sky to save the day. Hmmm, now where was I?

Interesting times, you know?

I needed to add a drawing for February (which has been a freakishly warm month). I did a quick sketch in Photoshop, then inked in Illustrator, using the brush (rather than pen), used Live Paint for the flat color, had another layer for different brush strokes, then used the knife tool to add shading.

The basic idea was I wanted to do something where shading was essential to the image, to the story it told, rather than just something that implied where a light source was or was not located. And the shadowing from above seened like a good way to do that. I think the perspective isn't horrible. Most of it was without references. So for a quick-ish drawing, I'm satisfied with it. I wanted to have the arms imply more mid-stride walking—that's the main thing that didn't work (the right arm needs to be more forward, oh well). I wanted to have a bit more gradient shading of the umbra and penumbra of the shadow, but I didn't want to spend more time on it.