Yep I know, it’s the end of February and I’m only making my first post of the year. Pretty lame huh. All I can say is that my work commitments (and specifically my design work commitments) have kept me extraordinarily busy.

But hey, I’m back now so let’s get on with things. So, first up for 2012, It was very nice of Planet Pulp to invite me to their online gallery. Even though in general I’m planning to do less ‘fan art’ this year, their February theme was Indy, so basically I just ‘had’ to create something for it.

With their monthly themes, Planet Pulp feels like it could be a good way to satiate my pop culture desires, so keep an eye out for more contributions in the future.

Rather than illustrating the man himself, I was just thinking that as a kid, when I first saw Temple of Doom, while Indy was cool and everything, to be honest I just wanted to be Short Round. He could drive (with just the help of a brick), do kung-fu, and got to go along for the whole adventure with the man in the hat. So below you’ll find my portrait of him.

I really brought out the darker tones on this one so it almost feels a bit Sumi-e in the shadows on his jacket and neck. Essentially this piece was colourised in Photoshop following the Painter sketch, enabling me to just concentrate on the tones, and go for a fairly desaturated palette, balancing the green/blue tints in the background with the pale oranges and browns of the portrait.

At the moment I just can’t get enough of duplicating some of my Painter calligraphy strokes in Photoshop, setting them on a lower layer, displacing them slightly and tinting them with a solid colour. I just find that it enhances the overall energy and unites the colour harmony. I guess I’ve been doing this for quite some time now and it’s become a bit of a signature thing, but it’s interesting because these kind of things are never planned – they just evolve. Anyway, here’s a bit more of a close-up.