William Carthan

WOO! Finally, got him finished! Two weeks of work is sitting before your eyes here. Not quite two weeks of straight work, since I had schoolwork to do first, but just about every spare moment was spent slowly working with the graphite pencils to finish him up. There are some anatomy issues, especially around his eyes, but I'm not redrawing all of this purely to fix that. They're really not that noticeable if you don't look too closely. So, first of the hyper-realism portraits of my Chicago Menavor characters. I went with Will first 'cause he's the oldest I have (7 years in my head), so I have the clearest image of what he looks like. And this is THE most accurate piece to date of what he really looks like (well, really looks like to me. He might look different to you). And, er, he's not the most attractive man on the planet. Jennifer sure as hell doesn't hook up with him because of looks here. And yes, the drooping eye thing is intentional. He's an older vampire, and once they get past around age 150, the muscles in their eyelids start to paralyze slightly, which gives most of the older ones that hooded I'm-either-so-bored-or-so-doped-up-that-I-wouldn't-notice-pink-unicorns-dancing-in-front-of-me look. Will is no exception, though on his face, it tends to make him look really stoned. And his HANDS. They're like, giant jelly hands full of double joints and creepy tendons.

The symbol behind him is the Menavor clan sign, though a little more ornate than what they tattoo on their arms or mark on their walls. This is sort of a more formal version. The blood is just there for aesthetic purposes.

100% Graphite pencil on top of a printed photoshop sketch (it stops indentations from forming in the paper from sketch lines...nice, smooth slate ready to take in graphite without scratches). I scanned it and did some adjustments (such as darkening the graphite, cropping, and moving my signature over) and added the Menavor sign and his name.
It was really nice working with the graphite. I'd almost forgotten how to work with it, but I caught on. And the hyper-realism was interesting to work with too. I'm trying this new technique where I work up from the skeleton and add muscle and then skin over the top. It's turning out to be a far more accurate way to draw realistic characters than what I used to be doing.
I'm thinking I might grungeify the Menavor sign up there but I'm not sure.

One down. Many, many more to go. I want to eventually have the whole cast, viewpoint, primary, and secondary characters, all done in this hyper realism graphite style. I'm thinking that not only will it give me a very, very clear image to describe them with in the book, but I can also use it to promote my art and my writing simultaneously.

Oh, and by the way, I'm offering these hyper-realism original character portraits for commission. Expect to pay me around $80-$100+ per image though. They're not easy and they are very time consuming.

*sigh* Stupid stash glitches, erasing all my artists comments and glitching.