Gourd-face started out as a tiny doodle in my sketchbook but I couldn't stop thinking about him. So I drew several gourd-faces. This one has the unfortunate circumstance of growing on his face. Poor Gourdy. I drew him with pencil and then colored on the computer. Cheers!
Steve is a musician and head sound engineer for Microsoft in Seattle. I drew him after visiting, trying to capture a bit o the otherworldliness of his music.
My first venture into artist grade colouring pencils - and I'm smitten! I never thought I could achieve such boldness and blendability with them! I'm still getting used to them and will think about choosing smoother paper with less tooth next time. The texture and weight was more for the water-based gouache along with alcohol inks (which are very unforgiving to even primed heavy paper!). Apologies for the unevenness of lighting between the 2 sides of paper; will correct that when I'm making proper image files.
I spent 4 days working on this drawing using nothing but my laptops trackpad. I took inspiration from drips of paint and then stretched them apart to span between where bones should be.
The eye contour area was designed that way in order for it to stretch and collapse almost the same as how muscles contract and relax.