Dave Bautista

Another stylized portrait, this one of Dave Bautista as Sapper Morton in Blade Runner 2049. This is another attempt at the brush economy style, this time using a much more opinionated brush than I typically try to use. This one is called “Larapuna” in Procreate. It is not just textured in both shape and grain, it has jitter in shape, path, and color. It is messy! Can I still achieve likeness with such an imprecise tool?

I think it looks pretty good! I had to do a fair bit of push/pull and layering to get things to settle. But I like the impact all the underlying color layers have on the piece — anything that looks yellow in here is from my base layer. Daubing with the brush had good effect: note the impression of gray hairs. Color was a challenge to get right. The original is rich with grays and spans across the color wheel between red and blue. My eyes didn’t really want to accept that, and my tendency to over-saturate colors makes it harder to sell.

Looking back over my portrait choices here, I realize I’m broadcasting my love for sci-fi stories. There’s a lot of Star Trek, Star Wars, Blade Runner. What can I say? I’m a big nerd.