pioneer

Last piece of the year, done for this week's Illustration Friday theme: pioneer. The first thing I thought of was an Indiana Jones-ish explorer guy, so I ran with it. The more I play around with this coloring style the more I like it, and you'll notice this contains both a GUY and a BACKGROUND, two things that I rarely, if ever, draw - and not a scantily-clad girl in sight. I mentioned in a previous post that I'm trying to work on backgrounds - well, the same goes for menfolk, because what with them making up roughly half the population it's really impractical to pretend they don't exist.

In this case I'm quite pleased with how both came out. I feel like this piece and the cavegirl I posted previously sort of represent the direction I want my work to go in - they've both had a level of polish that I often feel my stuff is lacking, if only due to my own laziness - and I'm excited to keep going with it.

Since faux-Indy is blocking out most of the background in the finished piece, I thought I'd post it on its own. Considering that the only planning I did for this was a rough thumbnail (literally the size of my thumbnail, too), I think it's serviceable. Apparently I really like drawing rocks and cliffs and stuff. Who knew.

And with that it's almost time to close out 2009. Happy new year, everyone!