Kevin Costner as Robin Hood
(Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves [1991])

I’ve never been very good at line-only drawings. So I decided to give it a shot with a pic of Kevin Costner from the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves score (by the late Michael Kamen.) Simple mechanical pencil on printer paper. In retrospect, I probably should have went ahead and inked it. Something for later, I guess.

I don’t really like line-only drawings, and my current style—its strengths and weaknesses—makes that obvious. However, I do want to learn and better understand line drawings sans shading for diversity sake. Even though I’m not a fan of this style, I acknowledge that it will increasing my understanding of art in general—helping me reduce an image down to basic shapes and line types. It’ll make my line work more visually interesting, it’ll give me a wider range, it’ll give me more control over the medium, and it’ll make my style a conscious decision.

Besides, the late and great animation director, Chuck Jones, said “An artist has to respect to the smallest unit of his medium. For an artist, that unit is the individual line.” I think it’s time I got rid of that damned mechanical pencil.