David, Busted

Here's the final version of the "in process" picture I posted a few days ago .  I love drawing from the classics, but I always feel the need to do something a little different with them.  So there are lots of little jokes going on here, starting with the title:  it's basically a bust of Michelangelo's David, but he's also been busted (for what, we can only guess).  Le Stinche was a famous prison operating in Florence at the time Michelangelo finished this mighty work (and of course Firenze is the Italian name for the city we call Florence, where this statue originally "lived").  Note the height chart.  It's metric, and shows David being a bit over 5 meters tall, which is the actual height of the statue.  And the date?  Michelangelo started the work on September 9, 1501 and finished sometime in 1504.  So September 9, 1505 would have been the statue's 4th birthday (and the first one since he was completed), so my theory is that he went out and drank too much wine, started picking fights, and ended up being arrested.  Still lookin' good, though; one of the advantages of having stone hair.

This was done on heavy toned printing paper, using black, brown and white inks.  The lines are primarily done with a Hunts 101 nib, with some added brush work to fill out the thicker lines.  I used a thin white wash for the skin and added highlights with a more opaque white ink, and then shadows with a brown wash.  The white lettering was done with a gel pen.