Old Cowboy

Inspired by True Grit and feeling the need to do a bit of personal work I thought I'd do me an old cowboy. I also thought I'd show the process I went through and the various stages. So let's begin.

The sketch.
I wanted to just use my pen straight up so no pencils. It kinda frees you up if you dive right in. It's a bit like taking that first step over the cliff while abseiling: a moment of terror but then everything is beautiful. Your lines are free and interesting, there's movement.

Stage 2
Still mucking around, just putting lines down, making up a light source.

Stage 3

I've fixed up the wierd right eye (sort of).

Stage 4

He's got a coat!

Stage 5

I'm pretty happy with the image now. The right eye still stands out but not so much in the original work. Infact scanning this picture and cropping, straightening etc has given me time to look at the image objectively and I've managed to see a lot of things that have bugged me and get onto them before I decided the picture was finished and not wanted to work on it anymore. 

Now it's time to bring out the Brush!