Illustration: Louis swim trunks

 This was another from my now dwindling amount of old photo sessions I am using for drawing inspiration. It was done in 90s for a friend who wanted a career in adult films, so not all the rest of the photos are this family friendly. He was in a swimsuit so I thought it would be good for my athlete series of drawings. Why not? He was a very thin and very pale guy as I think you can see. I did not like the lighting in the photos it was was too harsh and the multiple lights were poorly positioned so I made up a better lighting set up in my head. The hands were a real problem with this one. I did several practice sketches just of the hands and when it came time to do them for real, it still didn't look right so I had to paint over them a few times each until I was happy enough with them.

Drawn in Krita and I used some brushes I hadn't thought of before which helped me make corrections much easier. This was a fast one, it only took about 8 hours of work which is pretty fast for me.

Plongeur / Out games MTL / diver 01

 

Much quicker turnaround this time from start to finish! Only about 7 hours of work. The reference photo was old grainy and not great but I liked the pose and the sort of calm before the storm look many athletes have directly before an event starts. I had more detail planned for this one, like painting the pool in and there should be railings on the diving board visible - but I felt they were distracting elements, adding nothing. Once I finished the diving board it looked done to me. I found another image that might make a nice pen and ink style drawing. I really need to find a way to get reference images of more athletes doing their sport. And yoga as well. And dancers. I used to have easy access to all that years ago and never really had the time to take advantage of it, now I'm not sure how to find willing models at this point.