Angelina Sphinx

Over at the DrawingBoard, the August Drawing Jam study is Angelina Jolie. Since they provided some fairly good references, I thought I'd do some studies of my own. For whatever reason, her face keeps reminding me of the Sphinx I recall seeing in some movie years ago...maybe it was in the NeverEnding Story; or maybe it was from a book I read. Must be the cheekbones. I'll have to think about it.

So, here's the thumbnail sketch I created to figure out my composition of "The Riddle of the Sphinx". I initially had a full moon shining behind the head of the Sphinx, but decided that I wanted to add in a path for the viewer to be walking toward her; and the best way to highlight that would be to have a nice light coming in from the left. I'll be working on a tighter sketch and some quick value studies tomorrow.

In other news, I'm doing some spec concept artwork for some former co-workers of a friend for a CG feature animation pitch. The story seems fun and I really like the visual tone that they want to have. And, the best thing, they provided lots and lots of references to help explain the visual direction that they want. Excellent for rapid development for characters, props and environments. In any case, it gives me something to do that isn't necessarily cute and for Christmas. I'm feeling very humbug about my work "work" at the moment. Need some Halloween gore or at least something that isn't supposed to be all cute and fluffy. Where's the variety that they promised me? My cute little characters will start carrying knives and getting bloody soon, believe me.

Hmm....there's an idea.

Argh...my hands aren't yet quite back up to my usual typing dexterity. Darn that muscle inflamation, hand tingles and aggravated nervous system! But, I'm feeling a wee bit more normal every day.

Yay!