"Finish Friday:" It's Vasco da Pollo.

So, it's Friday, and here's the intrepid explorer, Vasco da Pollo.  I like how he turned out.

It's funny how the mind brings up ideas when you're not expecting it to—as I worked on the finish for this bird, it occurred to me that the best chicken explorer name of all (see "Vasco da Llama," in my last post) would have been. . . Marco Pollo.

But I was already underway with this sketch, and with a color scheme in mind, and so I continued.  Maybe farther down the line, Marco Pollo will appear as one of these pieces.

I was interested in doing a very tonal background, with the suggestion of a city, as you often see in early paintings or prints.  If this were for a book, I'd have taken the time to do the research on a city in India which da Gama might have visited, and shown that city as the background.  Here, I just suggested the buildings.

I also remembered that da Gama was Portuguese, not Spanish, so the motto on his sash now reads:  Proteger a carne branca (see the previous post for more on this).

As with the last piece I did for this blog, this original painting of Vasco da Pollo was auctioned on eBay.

Here are some process images for this piece:

1) roughing in color washes in acrylic over the sketch on paper.  In this case, I printed out a copy of the sketch, glued it onto Strathmore 500 Series board, and painted directly on the printout.

2)  More tones coming in.

 3)  Closeup of his head.  At this point, I was happy with how his comb was popping against the background tone.  You can see I've laid in some tones in the eye to give it a little dimension and personality.

 4)  Background complete.  Trying to keep it a suggestion, rather than a tight rendering.  It's there for "flavoring" only.

5)  Finally, work on rendering Vasco da Pollo.

Vasco da Pollo —Character #2

As I was finishing up the first character last week, I started thinking about what kind of character I'd like to paint next, and what animal he or she might be.  I thought an explorer would be fun, and then decided it needed to be a rooster (I'm eager to paint a rooster's haughty and challenging eye).  The name was easy:  Vasco da Pollo.

My next thought was that the character might be better if the name (and animal) were Vasco da Llama — it is a funnier name— but I'd already gotten an image of the rooster in my mind, and I'm not in the mood for a llama.  

I read an online bio of the real da Gama, and refreshed my memory that he'd been the first European to find an ocean route to India.  Like many European explorers of the age, de Gama could be a very cruel man.  But I was amused that the article stated specifically that the ocean route to India aided in Europeans' access to pepper and cinnamon. . . which go very well with chicken.

So here he is:

Vasco da Pollo.
His family motto, which I might inscribe in his breastplate rather than paint on his sash,
reads Guardar la carne blanca (Protect the white meat)

I want to make this one as tonal as possible, with grays and rich reds, and a suggestion of a far-off city in the background, a classic portrait touch.

Comments?  I'm happy to hear them.