I probably have said it before, but it bears repeating: I really strongly (strongly) dislike spring/summer fashions. Maybe especially on men. So pulling this one out was real work for me.
I don’t hate the plate, really. I actually like their tropical shirts and they were fun to draw. The shorts and the shoes, though. Ugh. Give me the willies. I’m pretty sure Lonan hates them too (though he looks good, so there is that). Niall, on the other hand, definitely strikes me as a summer person and I’m sure this is not the last of the khaki we’ll see on him. That polo shirt totally makes my skin crawl! 
I have been horrendously busy and neglecting this blog, which means I’m coming to the end of my couture buffer with no backup in sight! I’m hoping to double-down on my drawing efforts in the next few weeks, though, but posting may continue to be sort of sporadic. Summer is always a struggle, I guess.
And once again, it’s not for lack of reference material, that’s for sure. My reference folder is so out of control I could probably ignore the fashion sites for the rest of the year and never run out of material to work from.
I’d like to randomly point out, as a matter of process, that Niall’s awful shirt is the same color as Ifu’s dress from last week. This is because I mix all my own colors from a palette of alizarin crimson, indigo, and yellow ochre. Then I mix those and use Payne’s grey, sepia, and white to modulate the tones.
Aside from the crimson, technically these aren’t the colors you should mix with (bad color theory!), but I like them. It does make it hard for someone as lazy as I am to get a lot of particular shades. I still can’t make purple at all (which is why you never see purple here). I taught myself to paint with gouache that my dad got from some sign painter when I was a kid. Still have his tubes 20+ years later and the pigment is still good. So this is to say: all of my habits are bad and I probably work twice as hard as I should on this stuff.
One of my goals this summer is to make purple. Maybe add proper yellow to my palette. And proper blue as well. And maybe then the painting won’t be so hard. We shall see.
Next week: fashion from Tomé for the girls.
[click this link or the black & white plate to download a printable .pdf]
