This initial image here is the rough sketch I did. I like the energy of the lines here.

This is the charcoal drawing I did on the toned canvas. I lost some of the energy of him body language from the original sketch with this drawing, and I am pretty sure I’ll try and work that back into the painting as I get the rest of it figured out. He’s right up front and I really want him to be moving that tank in a way that shows how much he believes in its invincibility. There was a time as a kid that no one could’ve told me that a person with a bazooka could be bested by someone with anything less. It’s sort of a magical time; the biggest dad can beat up all the other dads, you know? Which is, of course, totally nuts. But a “tank” was more than the machine to me as a kid in the same way that an A-10 was more than just the plane. These were basically on par with greek gods. And I think that at least in this painting I am recalling this and also showing it more than I’ve shown it in any of the other ones so far. But nothing is finalized. So we’ll see how it goes.

So far I haven’t done anything with oil paints for this. The shapes are coming through well enough, and I do think this will be the way the lighting works, but since the background is going to be an “explodey” war zone, I’ll have to change the lighting a bit, maybe. I guess I’ll know it when I see it. But I think on the ground plane in front of him it will be “real” and the lights from the explosions behind him in his imagination can illuminate the back of his helmet and so on.

I’m starting to get a lot more of the shapes the way I wanted them. I have not done anything with oil yet, but I’ll start using oil probably on the next pass.

The more I work on this, the less energy it seems to have. It feels a lot more stiff than it did when it was just charcoal, and one of the problems I often have is that the deeper into a project I go the more I wish it was in a different medium. Any medium presents its own challenges and my ability to draw will limit what I can do no matter what medium I work in. So what I am saying is that I’m going to press on with this once it has dried and just get this finished.

I want to make sure the smoke, fire, and explosions in the background are vibrant and imposing in the comic way that the boy’s features are oversized. At this point I do need to step back and work on some other stuff so that when I return to this I can do it with fresh eyes, and so that I can do studies of a toy tank and the helmet and so on.

After this pass I am starting to miss the comic face from the earlier version, but I’m feeling pretty committed to this now. I’m not totally sure if I’m going to add rank to the helmet back or not. I think it makes sense the kid would imagine himself as an officer, though, so I’ll probably switch to captain’s bars or maybe put a star on there depending on how important I want the kid to believe he is.

I added in some silhouettes in various spots in the background. That space back there is his imagination, so I wanted it to seem like chaos. I redid the size of the helmet to make the kid feel smaller, and I need to hit it with the highlights from the imaginary war behind him when this dries.

I don’t want him to look surprised or scared so I’ll get back into the eyes at some point and make him look like he’s about to drop his tank and unleash hell on the enemy because that is what I intend for the kid to be doing here.

I think it needs more explode-ness. So I guess I’ll try to work that in too.