This is a little long but worth reading if you are a penciler who sometimes struggles with your work.

ok;

I went in an reworked Luke's crooked and odd shape mouth. His face is really tough to do in some ways. There's not much that's distinct about him where he has a interesting nose or just some overbearing oddity that makes him almost a caricature of himself. He's pretty vanilla. Which is almost always tougher to capture in a drawing.

I know that the actor Mark Hamill had been in a car accident right before the making of Empire and so by the time of that movie his face was sort of jacked up. I think part of his face is paralyzed from smashing into the windshield of his car if I remember correctly. So in this Jedi piece I was trying to get a little of that and also I think more specifically (which really fit with the movie) where the character had final reached in his evolution up to this point. BUT. You want it to look cool and there shouldn't have to be side notes to enjoy the drawing..

I wanted a little of that in this pic and the balancing act of that inconsistency was really tough to achieve. Most artists I think go for a certain look. A really nice version of reality and I wanted that for sure. But at this point in the movie Luke had been through some deep shit and was really start to crack in some ways from the pressure.

I also wanted that.

Two things I can share as advise or maybe a couple of huge things I've gained from doing this piece (so far) and drawing the last 4 years is SCAN your art constantly when you are drawing or as you finish things. You will immediately see what's working and what's not. Doesn't mean it's going to be easy to fix but I can pretty much bet money if something is jacked up...you will see it if you hadn't noticed something drifting already.

Number 2. Dig in and fix what's wrong. I have spent a lot of time on Luke's face and although there were times where I thought it was hopeless and maybe there were a lot of little things all over his face adding up to the mouth looking off.....I stuck to it and although this isn't perfect. I know I really went in and followed through which is a must if you want to improve your skills.

I literally erased and redrew Luke's mouth I bet easily 12 to 15 times (over 3 different days). There's nothing scarier than having something a little off and knowing the best way to approach the fix is to take the WHOLE thing OUT.

When I first started drawing something I would nail a hand...a hand that would be really hard for me to draw again but the arm was jacked up. I'd try and try to fix the arm to meet with the hand and still work with the whole pose. If you draw and pay attention long enough you will probably realize it's better to erase that whole arm (and that great hand you drew) and start over.

If you've ever seen the Ian McCaig dvds from gnomon...the guy is fearless. He will erase something that looks amazing and rework it into something even better. But that's really where you have to get...