Pencil Lines

I have a few drawings to share with you today.

The other day Dennis and I went back for another Hackmaster Basic session with d7. It was very eventful! Most importantly, Alan Wrench, the character I illustrated with Turdrick Wankersmith in that picture I drew in the last session, kicked the bucket. The first character fatality I’ve ever experienced in a roleplaying game!

Well, that left poor Turdrick all on his own, and us realizing that running a Hackmaster game with a two-person party was a bit of a suicide mission. So, Dennis and I rolled up new characters, two for him and one for me, to up the party count to four. Taking advantage of all the extended family/background info we rolled for Turdrick during character creation, I decided to make a second fighter using one of Turdrick’s sisters. I figured she was a good fighter and taught Turdrick all he knows, but was still very girly. I drew a quick drawing of her.

Yes, her name is “Chloe-Midya Wankersmith”. I was trying to come up with something suitably snarky and adolescent to match “Turdrick” and thought her name was close enough to “chlamydia” to pass. Hurr hurr. The drawing isn’t all that great, since I drew it really quickly and while I was distracted by the actual game (stupid game, can’t you see I was there to draw? =P) , so the quality is reeeeaaaally bad. Still, I have little enough to show you guys in the first place, I might as well show you the bad stuff too to make up for it.

Last night Dennis and I were hanging out and having some art-ing time. I sketched through quite a few things before I actually settled on something and came up with a drawing that wasn’t a bunch of random circles or smiley faces.

Aaaah, one of those silly self-portraits with a silly made up animal. Hehe! Yes, it is a silly drawing of me and Creature, I imagine on top of a hill-top somewhere looking out over… something. Haven’t gotten that far, haha.

It has a lot of issues, but I like it anyway. It’s been a long time since I last seriously tried to draw Creature, I feel as though I’ve been neglecting him. Poor puppy. I actually sat down for the first time in… four years?… and tried to come up with a better idea for how his horns look. I usually just half-ass them and draw whatever and hope it looks passable, which is funny because his horns are basically what make him special. But after hemming and hawwing over which horn looked right for him (trying many different kinds from oryx horns to eland horns, the latter of which looks really cool but just looks silly when drawn) I think I’ve finally settled on bushbuck horns. They’re just about the right length I want his horns to be, they have just the right amount of texture, and they curve in a way I’d love his horns to curve. Now I just have to learn how to draw them, oi.

Right. Next!

Found a link to Michael Sporn’s Animation “Splog” via John K., and I think I’m in love. The sheer amount of information and resources in his blog completely overwhelms me. I found his post featuring images on “How to Draw Donald Duck” and I just HAD to try it.

Donald Duck has been one of my absolute favourite cartoon characters ever since I was a little kid. My parents used to tape hours’ worth of Disney shorts from the Family/Disney channel when I was a kid, and I used to devour them regularly, playing them until the tapes were all ragged. I found them exceedingly entertaining, and Donald was always my absolute favourite (If you like, go take a moment to watch “Donald’s Tire Trouble (1943)”, or “A Good Time for a Dime (1941)”!). I’ve made attempts to draw him over the years, but never with such helpful references.

Many of my sketches were done following the steps and copying the poses it gives you, but I did elaborate and try my own poses, especially on the full-body ones. I think I need to work on those a little. Even so, I think these are some of the most on-model cartoon character sketches I’ve ever done. Go me!!

I love how Donald’s eyes bulge when he’s angry or sad. =D

Well, that’s all I’ve got right now. The more I explore Michael Sporn’s blog the more inspired I get. Man, I love Disney… let’s hope I’ll have more to show you soon!

Recently got back from a trip/vacation to Victoria, BC over the weekend. =) It was soooo much fun, and I did get a chance to sketch a couple things, so I’m here to share them.

First I’ll show you a page of sketches I did just before we left.

I got my episodes of Star Trek: TNG back, so I was on another kick. I think I drew these after finishing off season 3. I’ve been trying to get into the habit of inking my sketches once I’m done drawing them, to get better at inking and also to stop being so afraid of ruining things. My favourite on this page is that sketch of the random balding commander and his crazy side. =D Soooo much fun to draw crazy cartoony people!

While in Victoria we went to a bunch of bookstores and in one of them I found a book I didn’t know I’ve been looking for for years: An Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists. I remember when I was first getting serious into drawing horses and dogs and I’d search Google for reference images and come up with these anatomical plates and drawings that were so beautiful and detailed, but at the time were so small in resolution and hard to find. I remember I printed these out whenever I found them and used them constantly as reference material until they were so badly crumpled and ripped as to be unrecognizable. I had no idea these were enclosed in an actual book that I could actually buy!

But then I found this book, and they were all there, and so many different positions and views as well. It as so perfect, I had to pick it up. I spent the rest of the night pouring over it, admiring the technical mastery of the images, and amusing myself with the differences in anatomy between dogs and horses and humans and all manner of different things.

If you do any animal drawing (particularly horses or dogs), and you see this book, pick it up. I guarantee, you will not be disappointed, and it will become a staple of your artistic resources.

Anyway, so I drew a couple sketches (only a couple, because I suck like that. ):

Just some blue pencil sketches of deer, a horse, a horse skull, and a tired/bored looking creature at the top. The main thing I wanted to show off was that deer, though. Here it is closer:

I also changed the hue and darkened it up a bit so you could see the details. After staring at the skeletons and anatomical drawings of the deer in that book for so long, I had to draw one. It was so much fun! I love skinny animals where you an see the bones sticking out and stuff, agh! Also, I’m sure this is the best drawing of a deer I’ve ever done. Compare it to my old favourite and you can see how much I’ve improved in their anatomy, just by staring at the drawings in that book. =)

I still need to work on deer heads (it’s difficult as hell to draw a deer head and not have it look like a dog), but I’m really glad with my progress, and I love this little sketch. Just tooting my own horn here, move along…

The next one was a quick horse sketch, in which at least I notice that the anatomy has gotten better looking at that book than my other drawings, but others might not notice:

Again, it’s still very noticeably in my style, but the anatomy is much better compared to my old attempts at this position. Now I just need to get off my butt and draw things that actually mean something, and draw them often, and actually finish them, and then I’ll be golden!

While walking around the markets in Victoria I saw a lot of artists. I got my portrait/caricature done by this awesome guy, John D. Beveridge (and it was absolutely excellent!); there were dozens of other portrait artists holding booths at various markets and squares; there were numerous local craftsman ranging anywhere between jewelry, native art, glass blowing, metal working, toy making, and painting; and there was even this girl who looked like my age or younger, who had a table set up at the local Artist’s Market. She was just sitting there drawing marker pictures of centaurs and unicorns, and then ripping up each page as she finished it and placing them in a basket in front of her for sale. I kept thinking “What the hell? Why can’t I do this?”

It’s something to think about, anyway. I just need to get off my butt and do something about it.

Right, back to doing “back from vacation” chores. Turrah!

My good friend d7 of The Seven-Sided Die ran a game of HackMaster Basic last night with me and Dennis presiding. None of us had read the rules all the way through, so it was a lot of fun sitting down and fumbling our way through it. We created two hapless characters, Turdrick Wankersmith the fighter, and Alan Wrench the cleric (mine and Dennis’ respectively), who had elaborate families (Turdrick had eight brothers and sisters, three of which had died, two of murder and one of suicide), and interesting quirks and flaws (Alan was, apparently, a greedy mo-fo, and Turdrick was both racist and had a mold allergy; not too great for dungeon delving!). The amount of randomness and depth created by the random character background stuff was so much fun, I could probably spend whole sessions just sitting down and creating characters, just to see what would come up!

Anyway, when we started playing, I hyped up Turdrick’s racism to an absolutely ridiculous level. Not only did he refuse to drink ale (it made you stink like a dwarf), and figured that all elves were homosexuals and had “relationships” with trees (“It’s unnatural!”), but he also exclaimed loudly, and was absolutely adamant, that all halflings were crackheads; that their tendency to be employed in the theif and rogue classes were so they could make quick cash to feed their drug habits, and that their short stature was due to stunted growth on account of malnutrition associated with their addictions. Oh yes, Turdrick Wankersmith was living up to his name.

So while we were playing and trying to figure out the mechanics of the game I sat down and sketched out our characters. Here’s what I came up with.

Here Turdrick is undoubtably whispering something else bigoted and outrageously inappropriate to Alan, possibly about the parental heritage of the barkeeper or something. It was a lot of fun to draw, I enjoyed making them look silly, and drawing the expressions on their faces. =)

Drawn with 0.7 blue lead (clicker pencil-wise) and both a .5 and a .01 micron pen to ink.

I can’t wait to play more HackMaster, it seemed to be just the right mix of silly and beating things up to make it almost the perfect “just for fun” game for me. I’d like to draw more funny and ridiculous characters like this, they’re so relaxing, because you don’t have to be perfect by all means. =) Roleplaying has always been such a big inspiration for my art; I first got into art on the internet looking up fantasy/roleplaying stuff with my sister when she used to play a lot of D&D. Maybe I’ll turn to this kind of thing more often when I’m finding it difficult to find inspiration.

Right, enough of the roleplaying gush. Now I’m going to go… do some laundry. Yes. Then… um… watch Star Trek? Oh, no, I’m not a nerd, honestly! I just pretend to be one very well.

I’m hoping this entry doesn’t make me sound like a pompous witch who is full of herself, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Please take any arrogant sounding remarks with a grain of salt; I don’t mean it, I’m just trying to communicate some rather abstract thoughts.

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Posting this really quick… my attempt at a picture to use as an avatar on The Totem Lands.

Took only a few minutes to sketch, to ink, and a few more to colour. I don’t know though, I think he’s cute. =)