40 Years of Cousins - Cousin #1

I had a mind boggling day at work today, so I came home and drew for several hours to decompress. This is the first inked cousin portrait, but it's not a picture of the first cousin chronologically or by any other measure. It's a picture of the cousin I felt like drawing at the moment.

It's odd, listening to Arcade Fire's Funeral really loud while drawing someone that you've known since he was a child over and over again. It induces overwhelming waves of... something... I'm not sure what. Nostalgia maybe?

This cousin used to have great, out of control hair. Way bigger than in this drawing. A brown man's afro, really. He looked awesome. But he cut it recently, and now, unbelievably, he looks even better. Like a ridiculously handsome Tamil GQ model, if such a thing exists.

I'm not sure what I think of this first cousin drawing. I may redraw it sometime in the future, but at the moment it makes me happy.

In case you were wondering, I inked it with a number 2 Series 7 Windsor & Newton sable brush that cost me a fortune. And as I inked it I kept saying to myself "loosen up! loosen up!"

Here are some of my other attempts before I settled on the drawing above. It's hard to draw an afro.