I only managed to get three books at Comicon, but since things are pretty pricey at Stuart Ng books, this was my limit!

Picked up a book of Henry Yan’s beautiful figure drawings. Henry is an instructor here in SF at the Academy of Art, and his figure work is particularly striking to me because of the energy and dynamic quality he is able to capture, while keeping everything loose and playful. Really gorgeous stuff.

Also finally picked up two books of Toppi’s work. My colleague Brian O’Connell introduced me to Toppi a few years ago, and I was stunned by his linework, composition, use of silhouette, negative space, and looseness. The texture and patterns he incorporates are incredibly appealing and rich. I’ve been salivating over picking up some of his work ever since. There are definite influences of Gustav Klimt, and I see quite a bit of Barron Storey and Bill Sienkiewicz in there as well. The copy in both books is entirely in French, however, and I have a lot of brushing up to do to help me get through it!

This is my fifth figure sculpt, a standing woman. Working with clay is still very new to me and a real challenge. A whole new way of trying to get anatomy, proportion, and gesture feeling right. I’m trying to learn to push gesture more, and I feel it could have been nudged quite farther here. But it depends on what feeling you’re trying to capture. Depending on your vantage, she can look demure or quite haughty.

Solveig is a wonderful model who we work with occassionaly at Expression College for Digital Arts. I’ve been spending time at the college instructing drawing labs. Feels good teaching the importance of a solid foundation of drawing skills to the students. Plus a chance for me to keep up the figure drawing and try to get better. There is always room for improvement. How those skills secretly slip away if you don’t keep up on a regular basis. Like doing scales for a musical instrument, drawing from life is imperative to keep your mind and eye sharp as to understading form, weight, light and composition.