Commission + Process - Toro

This one is definitely on my list of favorite commissions, and finishing it this year was a nice way to start 2022 (and a nice bull man to finish the year of the Ox)!  This is Derr, adiosTorito's moo man, who I keep calling Torito in my mind because that sounds pretty cute.

A very comfort-zone piece, a pinup of a shirtless man, which, as comfy as it is, I have a hard time trying to make it so they don't all feel like different versions of the same artwork. And I was pretty happy with the direction things were going, but the simple flat red background was really boring. Something that I'm hoping to work on during this year is considering the background as a part of the piece, not as an afterthought. 

Here's a bit of a timeline to how my process goes, as a treat. This one was pretty linear, since Torito (the client, not Derrick) already had the pose in mind. First, a really rough sketch done only with the pose reference so I can grasp the idea and the direction. Then I look around my many references for the ones that match that pose the best so I can adjust the anatomy and everything. Then lineart, which is not one of my favorite bits, and finally the flats!

By mid-December, Derr was pretty much finished, after I struggled a bit with shading his wonderfully massive pecs. Still unhappy with the background. Tried a couple simple ideas, like plants and random flowers, but the different colors they added weren't as good as the red, and made the piece feel crowded, since Derr takes up a lot of space in it. And so, after adding the body hair and doing some important fixes, I got stuck. Nothing seemed better than the red and the red was too flat. Thankfully I keep all the graphic design assets I used before, and thought I could just use a simple glued paper texture on it, and some distress on top of that to help bring everything together. And Torito really liked it and said that the texture made it look like the capote of a matador. And THAT was an awesome idea and much much better than just the texture itself, so I painted over it to turn it into a dramatic capote and the piece turned into something else.

 Yet another example of how I think it's always better to work with the commissioner, not for them!

I got really, really happy with the result and the process! We even joked about adding a perfume bottle before finishing it and I thought that looked very much like an 80's ad.

Introducing... Matador. The new fragrance from TAVROS. Be a man. Be a moo.

What do you guys think? :D