David Lynch passed away on January 16th of 2025, so to honor his legacy, we did a portrait on what would have been his birthday, January 20th. This was a relatively quick project done in a weekend during my usual live streaming time. I had put together a quick sketch to get started but had to adjust the proportions quite a bit to get the look I was after. In order to tell the story of a person you often have to exaggerate certain features, in this case, David’s signature hair.
Color Palette
This color palette, in general works really well for skin tones. This palette specifically leans more into the cooler and lighter tones but you could also warm it up and use darker variations depending on your subject.
Sketch
I went back and forth with the proportions on the face adjusting the sketch as necessary until I felt like the scale and placement worked. I used just enough line work in the sketch to give the impression of the features without getting into details until I had everything established. I’ll often times create a general sketch, then start to render up some values and color, and then go back and sketch overtop again some detail work I’m unsure of, going back and forth between sketch and final until the illustration is complete.
