Yesterday after the timed figure workshop, I spent some time in the evening working on techniques to draw water. One of the graphic novels I want to write/draw will involve a pool cleaner, so I really feel motivated to learn how to draw water surfaces properly.

Then today, I was looking over my figures from the past few weeks, and noticing that I haven't really been able to capture their facial expressions or get much in the way of shape in their faces with shading. I wanted to make sure that was because of the timing issue, not because I had forgotten how to do those things, so today I found a reference pic whose main characteristic was the look of concentration on the dude's face, a guy with serious cheekbones and planes in his face, and I drew that.

I'll start with the face:

Here's the water exercise. It's super basic, but I figure it's a start. I think it will be possible to warp the direction of the ripples and smooth the waves a bit to manage how swimming pool water might behave with someone in it.

I used this tutorial for the water. It presumes graphite pencils, but it worked pretty well with colored pencils.

Happy Thursday!