In the 1st series, the 1880’s one was awful. The perspective was way off for one thing.
Since I live in the southwest, I figured I’d be a sell-out and do one people around here might
buy. Although I got some ideas for the background from the ‘net, I got most of my ideas from the
décor at a local mexican restaurant. I also got a few ideas from westerns.
Parenthetically, I never really liked westerns, mainly because they’re so formulaic and predictable
but mostly in the way they portray native americans as violent savages (especially the older
westerns). I think it would be wonderful to see more movies from the Indians’ point of view
(“Dances With Wolves” does a great job at this).
I drew 6 celebrities from classic western movies. (If I had included tv shows, there would have
been too many). I always try to be historically accurate when it comes to the costumes I draw,
but the sources I worked from might not be precise for the time period.
In the first series, I included a couple of celebrities in some of the early barpics. When
I struggled for hours to get a good likeness and failed, I quit including them. In this series,
I gave it another shot and they came out much better.
That’s John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn from “Rooster Cogburn” next to me and the saloon girl on
the bar. On the other side of us is Lee Marvin from “Paint Your Wagon” (about the only 2 westerns
I really like). Behind the saloon girl is Lee Van Cleef. I got a very good likeness of him, but
he has such a distinctive face that it was easy. The guy behind him is E.B. Farnum from HBO's "Deadwood". The one I’m the least satisfied with is on the
right side, in the front, third one over. That’s supposed to be Clint Eastwood. He’s very
difficult to draw.
