February 09, 2009

176: A Man For His Time

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An oddly random link cropped up in a thread on HOW magazine's online forum – this one, to be precise; an image gallery on a seemingly forgotten genealogy page – which painted a strong picture of a time in none-too-distant history that, for many reasons, many who witnessed would choose to forget. Take a look at the link and you'll see. I may one day think the same thing about my own favourite period of nostalgia (the grunge era) – but for now, not likely.

Coincidentally, Illustration Friday offers up the goes-in-all-directions theme of time. And I decided as such, that I wanted to pay tribute to the mutton-chopped chap in the go-go, whiz-bang 1960s information retrieval industry, and to a unique period of time in fashion (and facial hair).

This illustration, drawn with a fine-nib Pigma Micron and a pseudo-calligraphic pen, does not venture far from its original source material. But afterwards I opted for a certain colour scheme, and style, that accentuates the man's place in time; and had fun sticking to a two-toned palette. The erasing away of the background shapes was done with custom Photoshop brushes I made, based from old scans of sumac bush leaves.

There's detail in the inking that this blog – and its 500-pixel picture dimensions – does not do justice. So for that I say look here, for a better glimpse of what I was attempting.

7 comments:

joseph's art and stuff said...

Cool chops! Fads do come and go... great illustration!

lady cupcake said...

MUTTON CHOPS!!!!!!! F YEAH. I actually posted my IF submission right after you, and, yes, I'm stalking you. Deal. ;-)

Rui Sousa said...

Great work, really nice interpretation about the theme.
Regards.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I sort of thought you'd added those chops as creative license...until I clicked on that site.

Anonymous said...

Nice work, Jeope. The chops are timeless.

Jeope said...

Thanks all! Even the stalker!

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...I remember that time vividly...it seems like yesterday, much like grunge! :) Interesting concept and cool delivery!