Pencil Lines

Hello, all! I come bearing more sketches! Yes, I know it’s been a while, and there’s really not much to this post… just haven’t been doing very much drawing lately. But I’ll share what I do have, at least that’s something!

Right, first we have a random sketch page (there are a couple of these in this post!):

I’ve been trying to work on my cartoony stuff, especially cartoony representations of myself and my friends. I’ve been reading a lot of webcomics and watching a lot of really awesome cartoony artists and the want to be able to do that kind of cartoony stuff for myself is overwhelming! So here I tried a couple versions of “me” (both none too great), one of another friend of mine, d7,  and then a couple random sketches (bleeechh). Oh, and the stereotypical French Guy (or Zombie Mime, as Dennis likes to call him). I like him a lot.

While waiting for a class to start I pulled out my sketchbook and my brush pen and sketched out a phoenix-looking bird-thing. I think it’s kinda pretty. Wings are all screwed up though, haha; I think I have the feathers on backwards.

Then I went to the Mission Folk Music Festival. We go every year, and every time I bring my sketchbook with me hoping to find interesting people and things to sketch. Past years have been nice and prolific on that front, but this year was a little… dry. Anyway, here’s what I came up with.

#1: Ancient Maple Tree:

Right next to the audience area by the main stage in Heritage Park is a beautiful old Maple Tree. While sitting around during performances, I decided to do some sketching of it. Didn’t do it any kind of justice, but I don’t mind the sketch, either. =) Done with my brush pen; quick, and expressive.

#2: Terrifying Baby Sketches:

I did some sketches of my friends’ son. Trust me, he isn’t this scary in real life. Actually, he’s really goddamn adorable. But anyway… yeah. Kids are hard to draw.

#3: Ziggy!!

On the second day of the festival a huge thunder storm came through and shut the whole thing down. Rather than weather it out in our tent, we went and stayed at the parent’s place of one of my friends. They had an absolutely adorable old wire-haired jack russell terrier named Ziggy. I did a couple sketches of her, but I left my favourite there to give to the parents when they got back, and didn’t take a picture of it. Here’s the second one I did. She was so much fun to sketch; so scruffy. =)

#6: *sigh* More Hitler…

Trust me. Despite how it may seem, I do not have a secret fondness for Hitler. I loathe him just as much as the next well-adjusted (that is: sane) and well-educated person. Yet I seem to be drawing him a lot lately. Why? Because my friends keep suggesting to me humourous situations in which to make fun of him when I ask for drawing prompts. Here’s another one. When I asked for prompts, someone suggested “a horse!” and someone else suggested “a fish!” And then they put those together and said: “A horse and a fish having tea!” And then a third friend came up and said “…with Hitler!” *sigh* So, here you go. I wasn’t going to share this because it sucks ass and it’s not going anywhere, but ah well…

I can’t draw fish. =(

So that was the extent of what I drew the three days I was at the Folk Fest. Here’s what I drew afterwards:

I was thinking more about that want to draw cartoony stuff, and was also thinking a lot about my sweetie, so I sat down and doodled this out. It actually made me feel a little nervous, because I’ve never really drawn anything lovey-dovey before, and wasn’t sure if I was being inappropriate. So I waited until I could show it to Dennis before I scanned it. I forgot I left it open on my bed though, so when Dennis came over he saw it and immediately exclaimed “Oh my god, I love it!” So… yay!

There’s a lot wrong with it; I drew it late at night when I was exhausted but too hot to sleep (freaking heat wave!), so there are lines that go everywhere, stupid mistakes, really sloppy inking… but ah well. It’s cute. And that’s all that matters.

Right, one more thing I wanted to show off. My doodle pages at the back of my Latin American Studies notebook:

All right! So… we’ve got some Wilmer the Anteater, robots, bratty kids, mermaids, copious amounts of ugly people… these have been slowly filling my book for the past three months or so, hehe.

When I showed these to Dennis he turned to me and said: “You know, you’re really good at drawing ugly people.” Looking these over I think he’s right, haha. Ugly people are just so much fun; you can play around with weird shapes and facial features, cover them up with wrinkles, jowls, big noses, knobbly bones, bald heads, big ears… it’s so much fun, and so much more expressive than trying to make everything conform to some crazy standard of beauty where the fewer the lines the more “beautiful” it is. That’s boring to me.

So… yeah. That’s all I’ve got right now. I have plans to go have a shower and then retreat to a cafe round-abouts to surf the webs and sketch, so that should be fun. A better way of spending the day than sitting at home surfing the webs and being boring… hehe. Have a good long weekend, my fellow British Columbians!

While watching a couple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation tonight, I got the urge to do some drawing. Here are the results! And don’t get too excited, there are only two, really…

Both of the following sketches were drawn with a mechanical pencil filled with F lead. I like F lead better than HB because it doesn’t stain the paper as much, it doesn’t smudge as easily, and it makes it much easier to block things out before going in and refining the lines, making things look much neater. At the same time, it’s not as hard a lead as H lead, which I find isn’t dark enough to produce a strong enough line, and I find it also imprints the paper making it hard to draw again over areas you erase. But Anyway, to the sketches.

Picard has the most wonderful face. I found myself staring at it more than actually watching the episode, so I decided to do something about it and sketch it out of my head. I wanted it to look like a cartoon-ish caricature rather than a portrait, so I tried to exaggerate some things, like his cheekbones, and his strong eyebrows intimidating his rather small eyes.

I do like it a lot. There’s something to be said for cartoony portraits, and I think this is one of my best yet. =) Still need to work on being more abstract and less rigid, but that will come…

Next, the counselor herself!

While watching the episode from season 3 entitled “The Price”, I saw Troi turn towards the screen after Ral first met her in her office and thought she looked absolutely gorgeous with her hair all tousled. So I paused it, saved a screenshot, and sketched it out. Of course, I took artistic license and made her look a little bit prettier (if that’s possible!) and a little bit more in my style, but I still think it looks a lot like her, and it’s not quite as cartoony as my sketch of  Picard. Sometimes drawing beautiful people can be fun, but damn is it hard to get their proportions and everything right when you have such smooth skin and faces like that. Her hair was a tonne of fun to draw.

When I was a little girl I always wished I’d grow up to be like her. I’m certainly not, though if I curled my hair and tousled it up I’m convinced I could get myself to look a little similar…

After sketching it I scanned it and put some colour on it in Photoshop CS:

That was also a tonne of fun. I don’t often colour things, but when I do and I’m able to just relax and finish it however I like I really enjoy myself. I’m especially happy with the way her hair turned out, but as Dennis reminded me, I could have spent a little bit more time on the communicator.

Right, that’s it for me. Any fellow trekkies out there say “Engage!”