Happy Thorsday from Me and Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grand Uncle Thor

After the slaying of the Cumberbatch from my last post, I was feeling pretty confident that, with blood, sweat and many eraser nubbins, I might just be able to draw whoever I'd like to a reasonable degree. So in between writing, gardening and my Day Job Thingy, I launched myself into a series of portraits of my favorite movie characters.

To celebrate #Thorsday, I HAD to attempt Chris Hemsworth in the role of my family's demi-god ancestor-- a superhero forged of stardust, steel and quality hair care products.

I also chose Mia Wasikowska as Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, in armor, preparing to fight the Jabberwock. (And -- major ALICE IN WONDERLAND NERD RANT-- I love this movie, but I'm sorry, Mr. Burton-- the creature is NOT a "Jabberwocky." That is the name of Lewis Carroll's poem. The dragon is the "Jabberwock." It's right there on the page. This bugs me every time. I understand taking liberties with the plot to create a new film, but there's simply no reason to tweak the name of the Jabberwock. It is totally non-frabjous and someone needed to say that... Ahem.) Look-- Alice looks concerned about it, too.

Post-Alice, I decided I would tackle two favorite character actors at once, by drawing Paul Bettany and Alan Tudyk as Chaucer and Wat from A Knight's Tale. Interestingly, it took me less time to draw both of these guys than it did a single Cumberbatch. All drawings for me are now going to be evaluated for their difficulty on the Cumberbatch Scale.

I've been wanting to draw Paul Bettany, anyway, because if my There Goes the Galaxy books ever became movie fodder, he would be my very first choice to play my character Rollie. Sometime, if I'm feeling brave, I may try to draw him in the role. He really only needs the orange eyes and madder hair.

Another film I've watched a million times is Ever After, so I decided to draw Drew Barrymore in the scene where she's headed off to the ball. I had to use two different reference photos to get this right since the photo of her costume didn't show her face clearly and at the angle I wanted.

And my FAVORITE of the bunch is this Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. I wasn't sure if I could pull this one off, so when the drawing actually began looking Depply, it was really exciting!

I post all of my drawings as I become happy with them on my Pinterest account here: 

http://www.pinterest.com/jennthorson/doodles-and-illustrations/

So if you enjoy them, I hope you'll follow me there. (After the many hours of drawing I've done, I'd be all excited to see folks repinning something other than that one pink moth photo I pinned off of someone else six months ago.)

Ah, but such is the Interwebs. :)

Happy Thorsday, good people!

Slaying the Cumberbatch: The Saga of Drawing and Redrawing the Elusive Benedict

I've been drawing portraits lately in the evenings, and a couple of my friends innocently requested my next project be Benedict Cumberbatch of Sherlock fame. 

Then I lost four days of my life to stalking the wild and wily Cumberbatch.

For folks who have visited lately, you've probably seen some of my drawings. They're of varied success, but usually they bear a reasonable resemblance to their subject matter. And my last two, I had considered actually decent... The interesting and complex-looking Colin Morgan of Merlin...

And my childhood hero, Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman...

So when my buds suggested Mr. Cumberbatch, I was psyched. 

I was cocky.

Little did I know that Benedict Cumberbatch is not of this world. His unusual features (and ALL of them are unusual) are not easily pinned down to paper as actual human faces are.

So after an evening's worth of work scrutinizing my DVD case and spreading graphite around, I was left with this...

Um... no. Not only is he a disembodied head, but that head bore more resemblance to Dexter than Sherlock. Where was the prominent nose? Where was the large distance between nose and mouth? What was up with that hair?

Not to be daunted, I set out on a second quest on the trail of the sly and stealthy Cumberbatch. A second evening of effort using the same photo produced this rough sketch...

Erm...

More Disembodied Head-a-go-go with a TOUCH of Hardy Boys' Parker Stevenson. Also two ears on very different trajectories.

Perhaps it was the photo that was the issue! I decided I needed a different photo, a different angle. That would solve my problems! 

Then I found my paper covered in this...

Is it Beethoven? Napoleon perhaps? Definitely a bit of 18th century composer with French revolutionary tucked in.

I began contemplating how a person could have a large nose, but a short nose at the same time. How can a person's nose be rounded AND pointed? How can it be aquiline AND have a dent in it? How can eyes be small and narrow and angular, yet not look like they're squinting? How can they be pale AND piercing?

But I had promised to do this. Friends were counting on me to come up with the goods. This is a guy lots of women adore-- I had to do the man justice! So I put my sketchbook aside and set-out to rework it the next day...

More Cumberbatchly, YES, but an Angry, Snooty, Cumberbatch. Aged Dickensian Cumberbatch with a bit of Alan Rickman for good measure, and only half a lip and a chin that could cut bread. This old, craggy Cumberbatch clearly smells something he doesn't like... 

And it's US.

By now it had become a point of honor. I would not be defeated. I would draw Cumberbatches until my fingers were claws and I had drawn my last breath.

(Or until I ran out of paper. Whichever came first.)

So just as I was about to question the very meaning of Art, of Life, of all that is good in the world beyond compelling BBC detective series, finally, FINALLY, last night, a different, larger photo helped me see a break in the Case of the Cumberbatch Conundrum. And it was after a night of restless sleep where Baskerville Hounds and Moriarty Minions pursued me, I rose with fresh eyes, to put the finishing touches on this...

"And hast thou slain the Cumberbatch?
Come to my arms, my beamish girl

O frabjous day! Calloo, Callay!"

She cheered and gave a twirl.

(Apologies to Lewis Carroll)