
#Inktober Day 4: Vampire bat healer

I’ve been watching Stephen Silver’s Character Design lectures with my Schoolism subscription, and there is always a new personal revelation every lecture. There’s just something refreshing about learning something completely outside your scope of ability and slowly seeing what the teacher sees.
In this exercise, you’re supposed to draw as realistically as possible a person’s head and then stretch and mold that person’s head into different shapes. The goal isn’t to necessarily be true to the person’s likeness, but to experiment and see what new characters and ideas you get out of playing with that person’s face.
Naturally, I chose a Game of Thrones character since the season just started. 🙂
Chicago is such a beautiful city. The bridges, waterways, and trains against a historic backdrop make it all very enchanting. A quick rundown of the sketches I managed while we were doing our whirlwind tour there:
– I drew the watercolor sketch of DuSable Bridge from the Ghiradelli Cafe,
while waiting for my sister and her boyfriend to drop off the rental car. I started at sunset, but by the time I got to blocking in the colors it was already twilight/night. That’s what I get for being slow.
– The sketches from The Field Museum were from the mammals section. I was so impressed by the artistic taxidermy. Their poses were very dynamic (not captured in these sketches, hah.)
– The Goddess and The Baker is a cafe where we had a much appreciated breakfast after flying a red eye from Seattle. I loved the view of the ‘L’ / trains as they zipped across the skyline.
– The gesture drawings of passengers on the train are on the Blue Line from Chicago to the airport. There was one passenger I captured (top left with the mustache) who completely embarrassed himself the whole ride by fulfilling the whole loud American tourist stereotype. I felt so sorry for the poor British couple he was bothering. (At one point he said that he watched ‘Braveheart’ as a way to talk about Europe, yikes. My husband also noted that what that guy was drinking out of his Mountain Dew bottle didn’t look like Mountain Dew.)

My favorite fish of all time: the ocean sunfish a.k.a Mola mola. I’m really enjoying the De Atramentis Document Brown Ink I picked up from Goulet Pens. It’s waterproof and quick drying, perfect for left-handers and watercolorists. If you’re shopping for fountain pen supplies, I highly recommend them.