Vitruvian Frustration

I just finished the pencil roughs for SS2, which ironically has a lot to do with frustration.

It's been good though because unlike drawing a full blown comic, where you just have to plough through heaps of talking head panels and necessary action sequences involving people running, fighting or just plain walking down a street, this project is all about large scale detailed pictures (relative to comic book panels).

I'm kind of itching now to get back to comics, but it is true what they say: relish the times when you're frustrated because that is when you are learning.

I have a couple of abstract compositions in it all, but the fact of the matter at the end of the day is, you can't really fuck up abstract too bad. It's not frustrating to work with, and infact it's kind of a travesty that someone who did nothing but distortion like Brett Whitely is better remembered and sells for more than someone that had to paint near photo-realistic compositions like errr... Elvgreen.

But it's trying to get shit right that makes it all frustrating, and it's overcoming that frustration that gives me work I'm actually proud of. I have to scan in my pencil roughs now, and then I guess, we'll see how the whole collection comes together before inking, painting etc.

But today let's just say I was working on an 'italian' inspired composition, and I wanted to do something in the rough neighbourhood of the Florentine Renaissance Masters. Now obviously I am no match for and I quote:

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( pronunciation (help·info), April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an Italian polymath, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance man, a man whose unquenchable curiosity was equaled only by his powers of invention.[1] He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

But what I can do is take his guide to proportions for 'The Vitruvian Man' which are:

a palm is the width of four fingers
a foot is the width of four palms (i.e., 12 inches)
a cubit is the width of six palms
a pace is four cubits
a man's height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms)
the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height
the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height
the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height
the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man's height
the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the middle of the chest to the top of the head is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is a quarter of a man's height
the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height
the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
the length of a man's foot is one-sixth of his height

If you actually read tot he bottom of that, bravo. This seemed like a good idea, before I tried to do it. As indicated it does seem the industry uses this somewhat with their 'A head is 1/8th of the height' because Tim Sale talked about it in his book. But alas, I decided to switch to mannerist school of Michelangelo, whom held up that the composition should be supernaturally impressive. Which I interpret as licence to fuck around with proportions.

The other thing I realised, was that the renaissance masters have a luxury, that being we tend to see the end results of all their years in training, the very best results they ever obtained, like the Vitruvian Man, David, the Mona Lisa, Birth of Venus etc. We don't see the pages and pages and pages of Vitruvian men that Da Vinci fucked up. Remember they didn't really have much rubber back in those days, so erasing was out of the question.

When I think about whilst I would probably, even trying my hardest not be able to ever compete with Da Vinci, maybe, just maybe if I had been sent to an accomplished artists studio like Verrocio to work day in day out on drawing, sculpting etc. I would have been pretty fucking good too.