Finally, finally, finally the wind has been in the right direction and the third of the Cafe Racer series is now done. Boy, did this one suffer an awkward and time consuming birth! After all of the misgivings expressed in the previous post about teetering along the line between reality and caricature, it took a bit of effort to apply the finishing touches. There was no way that I was going to be able to drag it back towards cartoon humour, so the best thing to do was just focus on what would suit the central image and concentrate on that. Needless to say, I think it’s turned out not too badly considering the hand wringing of the last few days.

When the central characters and bikes are stationary in a drawing it’s interesting to note that my mind’s eye considers and composes completely different approaches to the contextual background, or what goes in to help place the image on the page. This is almost a subconscious act. When things are in motion, my imagination automatically starts thinking very graphically, with lines and blocks as a way of emphasising that motion. When things are stationary quite the opposite occurs, with visions of horizons and landscapes being the main focus. Not a bad situation to be in, a fertile imagination is a great thing but, it does lead to quite different feeling final outcomes. Somewhere along the line it would probably be worth trying to swap these two traits around to see what comes out but, for the purposes of not wanting to create too many distractions before this series is finished I’ll leave that for now.

Look out for Cafe Racer No.4, coming very soon.