Taking a break, RIP Sir Terry Pratchett

I've been working on The Lady every lunchbreak at work for the last 4 weeks. This equates to about 10 hours, which is sloooow! I know where I can pick up speed in Photoshop, but by the time I realised it was a bit late for turning back with the piece. I've finished it off today and added some colour:

Original (photo reference my own)

The Lady

I wanted to learn how to draw anatomy from this piece, however I found that I had done the figure in a couple of days' lunch breaks, and the rest was shading. I think next time I want to learn some anatomy I need to do some 'quick' drawings of the figure, rather than focussing on the whole. I am quite please with how this turned out though, and I had to deliberately lighten the piece for it to look OK on screen. For some reason my Photoshop view vs when I load it on here darkens it considerably. Any C&C welcome :)

Any avid reader of the Fantasy genre will know that Sir Terry Pratchett passed away on Thursday. I first read a Pratchett book when a friend lent me Mort (after sticking rigidly with Philip Pullman and Harry Potter). When reading Mort I could not believe the scope of Pratchett's imagination, or the way he would have me laughing out loud whilst reading a book! His satirical way with words, paired with a fantasy world like no other lead him to be the best-selling author in the UK until JK Rowling knocked him from the top spot.

I was absolutely stunned when Pratchett passed away. He'd been suffering from a rare form of Alzheimer's since 2007, so his death was not unexpected, but it's still knocked me for six. I follow him on Twitter, and I should've realised something was wrong as he's not tweeted for months. I will sorely miss him, and the fact I won't get to read any more of his amazing stories and watch his characters and the Discworld develop. I'm grateful he wrote as many books as he did, and I've nearly read them all now (Making Money is the next book in my list). Thankyou Terry for the laughs, the escape from the Roundworld, and the legacy you have left, rest in peace.

In tribute I was thinking of getting a small tattoo done, and I've quickly worked up a piece I like. A lot of people have the Death of Rats inked on them, but its not a character I've quite gelled with. Then I was thinking of getting Death himself, but that would be a mass of dark ink on my skin, and I like to keep my tattoo's nice and simple. Then I thought of getting the Discworld tattoo'd (a flat world, supported on the backs of 4 elephants, in turn standing on the back of a giant turtle 'flying' through space), but it would have to be quite a big tattoo to do it justice:

The Great A'Tuin, artwork copyright the fantastic Paul Kidby

So I've opted for something a little more simple. A quote Roundworld people use is 'the turtle moves', so I've come up with this:

I think it's a fitting tribute to a man who has made my life so much richer. I thought I was a bit weird in my grief over his death, as no-one at my work reads his books so don't understand, but I'm part of the Discworld Monthly group on Facebook and there are hundreds, if not thousands of people that share the same grief as me. I'm not usually a sad person, but it's nice to know there are other people that feel the same, and I'm lucky in that my partner understands too.

I didn't set myself any tasks last week, as I think I knew I needed a break from drawing in my lunch break, so I've gone back to reading a book (funnily enough it was Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett!), and I feel recharged.

This week I would like to keep on at my usual theme I've had since starting this blog:

Critique at least one piece of artwork

Contribute to an active art forum

I've thought of a name I would like to work under for freelancing artwork & graphic design, so I'd like to make a start on a logo this week.

And I've also spotted a competition I'd like to do, it's drawing in pencil either a portrait of someone, or a landscape. I've decided I'll draw my best friend's little boy, as he's the cutest thing. It's been a while since I've used pencils & crayons, but crayons used to be on of my preferred methods of drawing, so it'll be nice to get back into it.

I also started Tropico 4 last week (a strategy computer game), which I'm slightly addicted to, ha! I only bought the game 2 years ago and now I'm getting round to playing it. So I'll try to not play too much of that this week.

Have a good week everyone!

"Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life" - Sir Terry Pratchett.