Hadestown
I had the soundtrack to Hadestown stuck in my head while enjoying my breakfast at a local coffee shop. I decided to run with it and make it the basis as the topic of my morning sketching. I continued it to use it as watercolor exercises.
I’m happy with how it turned out. My watercolor skills weren’t as rusty as I feared.
In the process, I came up with a new character design technique. First, you draw from memory. In this case I was remembering the actor who played Hades. (Patrick Page) While I’d seen some clips of Mr. Page’s performance on Youtube, I mostly remembered his voice and costume. The important thing in this exercise is not to check your references to confirm your memories. You want the idea not a portrait. Getting it wrong is a feature not a bug. So I was remembering a craggy overseer with a crewcut and a very deep voice.
I built on these details. The end result was a figure who was the idea of Hades from Hadestown without actually being him.
