Muddy Waters’s cheeks
Here’s a piece I recently did for Paste illustrating a chart about the homes of Bob Dylan, Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Elvis Presley, John & Yoko, and the Allman Brothers. It was good fun and José Reyes was great to work with as usual.
For some reason, I got really carried away drawing Muddy Waters and his amazing V-cheeks. Not only was his face fun to draw, so was his famous old cabin. On top of that, one of the trivia facts featured ZZ Top taking the lumber of his cabin to make a guitar. Unfortunately, Muddy Waters is probably the least recognizable of the musicians, so I had to push him into the background.
They ended up going with the first sketch, but changed the size from quarter to half page. I contemplated fitting ZZ Top in there just for their ridiculous beards, but it ended up being too cluttered. At least I got Elvis’s UFO in there.
June 13th, 2008 at 5:57 am
Very nice! You used great expressions here. I know what you mean about the v-cheeks! They’re great! I’m obsessed with cheekbones and jawlines personally. I love that sketch of ZZ top taking the wood from his house shaped like a guitar and running away with it. May I ask what you use to create your illustrations? Is it a combination of ink and digital? Looks great…
June 13th, 2008 at 6:22 am
Thanks! I usually work with watercolors and then fiddle with it digitally.
Apologies to all the other comments that mysteriously disappeared. I’ve been getting a lot of spam and accidentally erased a whole slew of legitimate comments.
June 15th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The Nathananite in all his glory.