1573 - Bar Car Sketch

The efficient bar car on board The Canadian, Canadian National's flagship passenger train.  The bar is well-stocked, but because it's on a train it's also really small.  From what I know, tall fat people like me would have a hard time staying employed as staff on a train since we're simply too big to be helpful.  

The bar car, though, has the most comfortable seats on the train.  I guess not many people sit there, although the bar is certainly popular and the bartenders are always busy.   

 

1572 - Lounge Car Sketch

Late October, my wife and I were thrilled to experience our dream vacation, travel by rail all the way across Canada.  The train is the Canadian National #1, the flagship of the passenger fleet, called "The Canadian".  If you have a Canadian ten dollar bill with picture of a train on the back, that's the one. 

 

The trip was amazing, and the CN staff were very friendly and most helpful at every stage of our journey.  It really was the trip of a lifetime!  Of course we took a lot of pictures, documenting Canada from east to west.  I'll probably post a few of the better ones as time goes by.  

 

However much we loved the train, it wasn't a great venue for visual art.  It's insular: you're cut off from the rest of the world as the train trundles along.  There's not much in the way of electronics or technology, either.   Riding the train is very much like going back in time.  My wife and I really enjoyed it.  But the one thing I didn't count on was that the train jolted around quite a bit as it ran, making fine-lined artwork difficult unless the train was stopped. 

 

I did make a few sketches along the way:

 

 

This is a view of the luxurious Lounge Car, which the is the final car on the train.  It has curved windows all around the back to allow for many interesting views of the scenery.  Comfy padded chairs make the Lounge an excellent place for passengers to congregate.




 

1571 - World Domination #2

Right after I bought it, my World Domination notebook fell into the wrong hands, just as I predicted.  Some master spy (with my wife's handwriting, looks like) sketched in Plan For World Domination #2.  

 

1570 - World Domination #1

I bought this book, "Plans For World Domination".  It's just a notebook with a fancy cover that I like a lot.  Things have been complicated lately, so I felt I needed a good portable notebook to keep track of events.  

I've decided to throw in a few actual plans for world domination, just in case this book falls into the wrong hands.  I'd like to give spies something to think about!  Below is Plan Number One:

 

1569 - Four Studies Of Tarkin

Now I have some studies of Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars.  Since there are a lot of sources for this, I followed them fairly closely.  I didn't try to be creative.  I did try to be more careful with my line quality.  

Just like Marlon Brando, Peter Cushing also had a life cast made of his face.  It was this life cast that was used to create the computer-generated Tarkin in the Star Wars story Rogue One (2016).  Interestingly, the life cast was originally made for the comedy Top Secret (1984): Peter Cushing was part of an elaborate, surreal joke involving a magnifying glass and an oversized eyeball.  The cast survived in a warehouse and was used to re-create the fearsome Tarkin many years after Peter Cushing had passed away.  

Some of my all-time favourite Star Wars trivia: you only see Grand Moff Tarkin's feet once in Star Wars.  That's because the boots provided for Mr. Cushing were a couple sizes too small.  After enduring the boots for one day's shooting, Mr. Cushing stood firm that he would film the remainder of his scenes in his fuzzy bedroom slippers.  Does that make Tarkin less fearsome, or more so?  

Grand Moff Tarkin is the intellectual property of Disney.  

1568 - Archangel VI

I've focused om rendering garments.  Although the colours are different, the folds of the cloth in this angel are as similar as I can make them to those of my previous angel.  The shapes should be mirror images.  

 

1567 - Maple Leaf

A colourful study of a maple leaf.  It took little time to make this.  I like the colours, though. 

 

 

 

 

 

1566 - Archangel V

Today's progress on my icon acts as a cautionary reminder for every artist always to bring all of your art supplies to work with you!!  I forgot most of my brushes and visual references, so as a result all I could complete was monkey work and the things I could do by memory alone.  

"Monkey work" is just the process of laying down boring, low-skill paint strokes.  It helps to colour inside the lines, though.

 

1565 - Three Studies On Jor-El

I've been making studies of Jor-El, Superman's father.  I need to gear up for a big science-fiction project I am wanting to attempt.  I am way out of practice for this kind of drawing, so the only way to get any better is to draw more and more.  

These studies aren't all that bad, though.  I've been using Marlon Brando as an inspiration.  I find Mr. Brando to be one of the most fascinating actors the Hollywood studios have ever produced.  He had a tough life, but a very rich one, and was full of insight.  He also was compulsive about recording himself, so there exist hundreds of hours of tapes that form his autobiography.  Apart from his films, Mr. Brando also had life-casts made of his face and he allowed himself to be laser-scanned by Electronic Arts.  There are quite a number of easy visual references to the man.

Of course I'm not trying to copy them, but Marlon Brando did make a terrific Jor-El and I would like to capture some of that essence for my own project. 

The character of Jor-El is the intellectual property of DC Comics Inc., a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment.  

1564 - Archangel IV

Here's progress on my archangel icon.  Ooh, it's kind of reddish, isn't it?  Maybe this angel is embarrassed that I am taking so long to finish.  Also: the underpainting tends to be dark and rough-looking.

 

1563 - Puck In The Saddle Again

Back in the saddle again!  After a substantial time away from JSVB, I've returned to present yet another Ungood Art piece.  On the thirteenth of every month, I try to post some of my Ungood Art.  These are works that I have created that for whatever reason just did not turn out.  I think it's important to celebrate these failures because we all fail at doing things and from these botched efforts we learn to be better.  That and it can be fun for you to laugh at my mistakes, I get that.

Today's Ungood Art is one of the blandest ever, though.  It's just a hockey puck from my failed and abandoned painted hockey puck project.   I put the puck on my flatbed scanner (see the scanner in action by on JSVB Post #1462 - click here!).  In high resolution, the paint on the puck looks terrible.  It's a good thing it all peeled off.  Who knew you can't paint hockey pucks?