This is the last huzzah of the 10 minute portrait project. I was commissioned by Neil Roche to draw 3 of these for his boss' 50th birthday, and because it would be the last batch I'd be doing for the forseeable future I wanted to go out with a bit of a bang and decided to throw in a fourth one free, and to tone them digitally (rather than just present the inks alone).
So they started life as quick pencil sketches, 12cm x 9cm like all my other 10 minute portraits. You can see at this point that one or two things aren't quite right (Marvin's left eye in particular), but rather than keep working at the pencil stage I scale them up in Photoshop, print them out in faint blueline and ink by hand with my Pentel brush pen, refining things like this as I go. These are then scanned back into PS and the tones and texture added digitally. I try to achieve a hand-painted look, almost like watercolour, which I think works quite well.
Anyway, they are from the top: Marvin Gaye, Tammi Terrell, Wilbur Smith & Bobby Womack.
