Laughing So Hard It Hurts

Awkward! It's really really hard for emotions to seem genuine. It's not enough to just copy the copy, but then you have to HAVE the copy, because otherwise how would you know exactly what someone's face is DOING when they're laughing or crying, or whatever. So here are two different versions, with slightly different media, neither of which quite "do it," but alas, practice is necessary.

(And I just made a new tag--"extreme emotions", which makes for an interesting collection. Almost all of them are joy. Doesn't that say something about me?)

Horst

What I was interested in in this picture was the the texture of the folds of the guy's face in the shadow, moving into the wrinkles around his arms, which I thought made a really nice shape. All of this in contrast to the broad white expanse of his shirt.... I don't know if this quite does it, and I might need to do another one, but it's an attempt.

Jumping Sketches

This is from an Illustration Friday topic weeks ago. I made thumbnail sketches. I had a plan. But I never had time to do anything about it. These sketches I made during 2001: A Space Odyssey that three of my Science Fiction classes are watching. It got me fired up. But when I got home, my son said he was willing to jump off some things for me to take reference photos, but when we got outside, he was only willing to jump once. I only got half of him in the frame. Maybe I can recruit someone else. These sketches are from images from the internet, and I'm not going to use those for anything other than quick sketches.