Sketchbook: Dzeriel Reference Model

Artist's model, fabric, wire

A good friend once expressed a wish to draw like I do, "without references or models". I laughed, because if you want to be a serious comic artist, you HAVE to use references. I can draw wolves easily and quickly - because I spent years drawing them from photographs. But tell me to draw a cow or a motorcycle or a hand gripping a wrench, and I reach for the photos. Art isn't a contest to see who can draw something the most realistically. My art is all about storytelling, and in order to make the stories convincing, I have to add those little environmental details that my memory is sure to miss, like the folds of skin at a cow's throat, or a motorcycle's fuel gauge.

So what about things for which you have no reference? The wings of an anthropoid being like Dzeriel connect at the shoulders, and no real vertebrate has that kind of anatomy. Bats' wings are specialized arms, and photos of bats wouldn't show me how batlike wings would wrap around a human figure. Drawing the wings at odd angles would be especially tricky.

Animators use 3-D maquettes in their work, and when I noticed a sale on this brand of artist's model, I decided to try something similar. I bought wire and fabric from a craft store, and twisted two lengths of wire together for a stronger wing frame and a removable harness that fits the model's body. Once I made the frames, I laid the fabric on a flat surface and drew the outline of a wing in chalk, and cut two to match. I sewed the fabric to the frame, a long and cumbersome process but more effective and reliable than glue, and put the harness on the model. I've never made anything like this before, but I'm pleased with how I can move the wings around and study it from any angle I like.

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