May The Fourth Be With You

It's Star Wars Day!

   

IRON MAN

The new Iron Man movie opens today. I probably won't get a chance to see it until next week, but I'm pretty excited for it. I never cared much about Iron Man in the comics, but I've liked the movies a lot, mostly due to Robert Downey Jr.'s performance.

One thing I did always like about Iron Man was the way his armor was drawn back in the sixties by Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Later renditions of the suit featured sculpted musculature, which often made him look like he was just wearing painted-on spandex like the rest of the superheroes. The original versions were bulky and barrel-chested. They were also covered with bolts and rivets. It really looked like a guy in a suit made of metal cans. More recent versions really play up the tech that would be involved with such a suit, and have lots of parts and joints. It looks cool, but it's hard to draw.


The Iron Man suit was in constant flux in the early years, before settling on a streamlined version that lasted from the late 1960's through the 1980's. I'm partial to this version, with the face-plate with the pointy ends sticking up and the grill over his mouth. I also liked the little transitor-radio-like antenna he had on his shoulder. Who needs wi-fi?

Another thing I liked about the older depiction was the way you could see his eyeballs behind his mask. I just discovered that there was in fact a rationale for it . . .

Watch out, Mr. Doll!

I also liked how lo-fi his armor was. I'm sure at the time this seemed space-age, but today it's amusing to see how proud Tony Stark was of his armor that ran on magnets, transistor radios,  gyroscopes, and batteries.

Also note how much storage he's built into his suit, including a first aid kid into his boot. That Tony Stark thinks of everything!

I started my Iron Man sketch in pencil, and then inked and colored it in Photoshop. Here's the earlier stages:

Bali Part 2

More of my sketches from Bali, mostly from the southern area of Jimbaran.

View from the balcony of our hotel in Ubud. Pen and ink and experimenting with watercolor pencils. Not very successful, I think, because I didn't know what I was doing with those pencils, and it's been forever since I've done any work in watercolor. And I was never great at watercolor in the first place.

Landscape from the private beach at the resort in Jimbaran. All watercolor pencils, more successful, I think.

And finally on the way home. Layover at Chicago O'Hare Airport, after about 20 hours in the air.

Bali

Some more drawings from my recent trip to Asia. These are from the town of Ubud, considered the cultural center of Bali. The area is full of artists and craftsmen, and there are traditional dance performances every night at the temples.


                                        Detail of the rooftop of our hotel.

 

 

Statue at the Ubud Palace

Between our hotel and the town was the Monkey Forest Road, which is exactly what it sounds like.

Quick sketches from a performance of the Ramayana Ballet, performed at the beautiful Water Palace. It was one of the traditional forms of Balinese dance known as Legong, with an all-female gamelan musical band. These are all very quick sketches, or course, and only suggest at the elaborateness of the costumes.

Tree and shrine at our hotel

 

This guy just had a great moustache.

 

Singapore

Recently we went to Singapore and Bali for two weeks. It was only the second time I've been overseas and my first trip to Asia.

This is a statue on Sentosa Island of the "merlion," the ancient mythic symbol of the Singaporean peoples. Actually, it's not ancient. It was created by the Singapore Tourism Board in 1964. This statue stands about 121 feet tall. To get a sense of scale, there's an observation platform in the merlion's mouth.

These are of the Sultan Mosque, from the Arab Street area.

One of the kookiest and most interesting spots in Singapore is Haw Par Villa, a sort of amusement park created by the owner of the company that makes Tiger Balm. Most of the place features statues and dioramas of Chinese mythology, especially lurid, explicit depictions of the Ten Courts of Hell. But there was also a couple of these cute Tiger Balm mascot statues. They look like they're circa 1960s.

We stayed with our friends at a fancy residential complex. This was the community clubhouse by the pool.

The Gardens by the Bay, as seen from the top of the Singapore Flyer, a giant ferris wheel. The two oblong buildings are giant greenhouses, and those structures to the right of it are "supertrees," giant vertical gardens. Beyond it you can see dozens of ships waiting to come into port.

That skull had a tongue in it and could sing once.

I have to finish drafting a light plot for a production of Hamlet I’m designing, but the main question is: how can I procrastinate to avoid doing it? I know! I’ll post something on my sketchblog, and make it relate to Hamlet, so it sort of feels like I’m actually thinking about the play.

Here’s a drawing of a skull I did at the drawing studio. They have a couple of skeletons around, and sometimes I draw them when there’s a break or when I’m not interested in the model’s pose. Also, I often attend the weekly anatomy class, and sometimes these bones get passed around. Skulls are a lot smaller than you’d expect, as well as the skeleton in general. People are a lot smaller when you take off all the muscle, fat, skin, and organs!

In Shakespeare Our Contemporary, Jan Kott wrote that Hamlet “… is one of the few literary heroes who live apart from the text, apart from the theatre. His name means something even to those who have never seen or read Shakespeare’s play.” I think everyone recognizes the image of Hamlet with Yorick’s skull, and the famous line, “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him well.” Even though that’s not quite the line.

 

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath borne me on his back a thousand times, and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. —Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning? Quite chapfallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.

This is a student production of Hamlet. Whenever we have our students read Shakespeare, they complain about the language. As one of my students put it last semester regarding The Tempest, “I read the play, but I don’t get it.” I know many, perhaps most, of them just read the Sparksnotes “No Fear Shakespeare” version, which ‘modernizes’ the language. I actually don’t completely object to that. I know I didn’t learn how to really read Shakespeare until I was much older, and I still struggle with it at times. Also, a lot of my students have English as a second language, and regular contemporary vernacular is challenge enough for them. But I think it’s a shame if they rely solely on the Sparksnotes. Here’s the No Fear Shakespeare modern version of that same passage:

Let me see. (he takes the skull) Oh, poor Yorick! I used to know him, Horatio—a very funny guy, and with an excellent imagination. He carried me on his back a thousand times, and now—how terrible—this is him. It makes my stomach turn. I don’t know how many times I kissed the lips that used to be right here. Where are your jokes now? Your pranks? Your songs? Your flashes of wit that used to set the whole table laughing? You don’t make anybody smile now. Are you sad about that? You need to go to my lady’s room and tell her that no matter how much makeup she slathers on, she’ll end up just like you some day. That’ll make her laugh.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think just a little bit is lost in this adaptation. “You don’t make anybody smile now. Are you sad about that?” Well, are you?

Amanda's back

I don't know exactly why I have so many drawings of this model's back. It's from a human anatomy life drawing class, so maybe the focus that day was on the back?

 

Oh, here's her front . . .