Tag Archives: Bike drawings

Another stunt.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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80_FlyBy_1

It’s good to have some kind of working titles for sketches and drawings if for no other reason to enable you to find stuff as you file it all away in some hard drive somewhere having scanned it. My trick cycling cafe racers are now the Cafe Stunts series, no point being too elaborate about it.

 

This is the second one, which goes by the name of “FlyBy 1”, which means there’s a second one on its way. I’m doing these at a small scale, the colour block on this one is only 200mm, or 8 inches, across on a sheet of A4 Bristol Board. It’s quite a challenge to keep the detail level where you want it, and in order to make life a bit easier for myself I’m applying washes and subsequent inking at various stages so I can keep track of all the fiddly bits. This builds the image in stages. I wanted backgrounds that didn’t contain any detail so they act as a real counterpoint to the detail of the drawing and help lift it off the page. Big areas are tricky to fill evenly on this paper, but for me the resulting patchiness of the colour helps to reinforce the hand made nature of the images. Some of the liquid colours I’ve got here work well in this mode and others really don’t, so most of the backgrounds are at the red/brown part of the spectrum. They seem to work well with the chrome elements too. I hope you like it.

 

Fish out of water.

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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78_Cafe_Stoppie

Whilst scribbling through one of the worksheets a few weeks ago it became clear that at times, streams of ideas cross one another, and at these junctions one often finds a source of inspiration previously unseen. This image above comes from one such junction, the point where ideas about stunts and ideas about cafe racers crossed. It caught my imagination instantly and after some rough sketching there was the basis for a short series depicting such a combination.

 

The main driver of the idea is born out of an apparent change in the context of both. Stunts  like “wheelies” tend to be performed by guys on more modern bikes, though this is a sweeping generalisation of course, and cafe racers, although tending to roar about the place are never spotted doing the kinds of things shown here, the “stoppie”. I wondered what it would throw up if I took one and combined it with the other. There are probably lots of rational reasons why guys with classic bikes don’t show off in such a way, like weight, available power and the delicacy of their old clutches, but cartooning the whole idea lets you forget all that in the name of artistic license.

79_No57

Finally today here is that “smoke” moment I mentioned a couple of posts ago, the one that really didn’t finish well. I have resolved not to try rescuing it yet, it serves as a reminder of how perhaps not to do it, but have overcome any reservations about revealing it to you. More out of context cafe racers soon.

 

 

A bit of a fluke?

Posted on by Soulcraftcandyman
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76_Big_Red

There are moments during the process of attempting to learn a particular skill, method or process when ones hopes are bolstered hugely by a result which exceeds ones expectations. Although these are fantastic moments to be savoured, they often come when we least expect them, they can be the harbingers of something of a very different nature. This picture today possesses one such moment. My “big smoke” theme threw up this image which demanded to be done and, as a further opportunity to practice  my smoking tyre technique, I could not resist having a go. Heeding a kind of mental warning, stepping away from the airbrush seemed like a good plan, so focus turned very much to using a humble brush, a light wash and a layering approach to find a little more of the secret sauce. Suffice to say I’m much, much happier with the result which has some depth and texture, but maintains the cartoony feel of the picture. A rewarding result, but it could be a bit of a fluke.

 

What is the point I’m attempting to make here? Well, it is this. When we experience an early success our confidence is rightfully buoyed, but what happens next rarely follows an upward trend, my next attempt at smoke was, to me at least, utterly rubbish. In a rare display of coyness I’m declining to show that today, suffice to say that I will doubtless get over it in a day or two and reveal the awful truth. In the meantime enjoy this one, it’s one of my better efforts I think.