Pencil Lines

Hello! I have a few more sketches to post. I’m also wondering what’s better; uploading one or two sketches every week or so, or a larger sketch dump about once a month or so? I seem to have more energy to do them all at once, but uploading the little sketches as I finish them would also help to make this blog a little more active…

Anyway, if you have any opinions, feel free to drop them on me. =)

Today I have a lot of silly little sketches for you.

I drew these two about a month ago when visiting at a friend’s place. I didn’t have any of my usual drawing stuff with me, so I just sketched in a small notebook I had on me with a blue ballpoint pen. You’ll actually see a lot of ballpoint pen in this post; I seem to have reached a bit of a renaissance with it. =)

Anyway, I decided to sketch a really scary looking stereotypical 80’s/90’s girl, complete with the sideways pigtail, crazy bead necklaces/earrings/bracelets, too-big lavender (always lavender!) kitten with yarn t-shirt (preferably with sparkles on it), and baggy sweatsocks. Oh, and some weird missing teeth. I thought she was great. As you can see, I also drew her invisible friend Ashley next to her; every little girl had an invisible friend in the 80’s/90’s! (And don’t you dare call them “imaginary” friends!!!)

The boy was an afterthought after I finished drawing the girl, but I still think he turned out cute. =) I’m not so hip with little boy 80’s/90’s fashion, having no brothers or male friends when I was a little kid…

Right, next!

Dennis said I should draw a “man with a turban”. So I did! And I had tonnes of fun drawing him! I started with the big pointy nose and everything went from there. Blue pencil with micron pen over top. I still think I should have drawn him smiling and showing some big crooked teeth… man, stereotypes are so much fun!

Another one!

Sorry for the dirty looking scan. It’s so hard to scan that blue pencil stuff and have it still be legible. Anyway, this is a WWI doughboy, that is, soldier. Also suggested by Dennis. I used references for this one, though not really any directly. I really am interested in this era in history, so I wanted to show his enthusiasm for being a soldier; the whole “Look ma, I’m goin’ t’war!!” mindset which turned out to be a horrid mistake. Oh, WWI… you taught us so much, and yet we didn’t seem to learn.

Aaaaaaand, for our next number…

I’m actually really not that fond of this one… I still wanted to include it though, for continuity’s sake, and to contrast it with the next picture. Anyway, another image of Polly, my soon-to-be Diaspora roleplaying character if all goes well. I just wanted to point out that this is often the fate of a lot of drawings I try to do, especially of humans of this variety. I sit down with a pencil and try to draw without anything really clear in mind, without a huge drive for much, and it turns out boring, tame, and really… ugh, boring. And bad. It doesn’t even look like her, even though I did have the ability to erase and could make her look like anything I wanted. I was just lazy.

And here’s what happens when I have an idea that’s driving my drawing, and I’m using a ballpoint pen that means I can’t erase and go over things, honing and re-honing until it’s boring as hell:

Yes the anatomy is weirder, but on the whole the pose is much more interesting, it’s filled with energy, and it’s just so much more interesting. I draw with ballpoint pen a lot when I don’t have my drawing stuff around me (hence the kid pictures at the beginning of this post) but I’ve never deliberately used it in one of my sketchbooks when I had my actual supplies. This time I tried it, for just this reason; to force myself to clearly visualize what I’m drawing and get it down quickly, without restraint. I think I’m on a ballpoint pen kick now.

KLINGON!

K, now that the obligatory Star Trek fan art is done…

More Polly! And Dennis’ Diaspora character Miles Tessevel, a galactic merchant. Dennis sat down with me and described his character and I sketched it out for him, asking him at odd intervals “Okay, so what do you want his nose to be like? Large, straight, hooked…?”, “What shape is his jaw? Round? Square?”, “Does he have noticeable cheekbones?” and others like that. It was a lot of fun, and Dennis was rather satisfied with the result. I hope to do at least one sketch like this for everyone’s character in the game. =)

Right! I think that’s all I have to show you for now. Not much, since the last few weeks I’ve been inundated by school assignments and final exams. But now that’s done! I’m free! So here’s hoping I’ll use some of that free time to draw, and not simply watch Star Trek and be boring as hell.

Agh, sorry it’s been a bit of a while since my last post. I suppose school/work has taken up more time than I thought it would!

I’ve been doing a few fun things here and there throughout the last couple of weeks. Been doing school stuff, which is fun, been doing some silly web-building/designing projects at home wherin I make a complete fool of myself and multiple others for the glory of another (you’ll hear about that shortly!), been helping a friend move, and watching numerous silly Disney shorts (mostly Donald Duck because he’s mah faaavee) on Youtube around also trying to keep up with my blogroll on Google Reader and devART to boot.

But really, it’s mostly school and working on the weekends that’s been taking up all of my time. I get, if I’m lucky, one day a week to myself that doesn’t involve either of the two, and usually I try to spend it socializing, which leaves little room for anything else!

But, I have been getting a couple little art-y things done, so I thought I’d share them. First, the ones that are a part of that website project I was hinting at…

So I was chatting a couple weeks ago with Losmios, aka. Mia and one silly comment lead to another until I was in the midst of coding up an ultra silly fan page for her (Beware!! That link is poison for the eyes!). I ended up working on it for about three or four days straight over my weekend until I was literally being kept awake at night due to crazy coding dreams. I decided to take a bit of a break from it, which I am still in just because I haven’t found the chance to get back to it. I hope everyone that wanted to contribute hasn’t grown bored of it too in my absence…

Anyway, other than doing the website and all the coding and everything I also wanted to contribute some Mia fan art, so I sketched up a couple of things. Here’s the first:

This intellectual piece of work was sketched directly in Photoshop CS and coloured in about an hour and a half. Because I’m all slow and out of practice with Photoshop stuff, hehe! Also, I was having issues with the pressure sensitivity on my tablet, which I still have to go and fix…

Anyway, yes, that was one of my oh-so awesome tributes to Mia. Here’s the second, which is in decidedly worse taste:

Oh joy. The quality is overwhelming me.

This one was done with markers and watercolour. Yes. and I deliberately tried to make it look bad, though I’m sure I could have done a worse job if I tried. I did too good a job of staying in the lines. It’s a hard habit to break!!

Yes. So those were done last week. Since then I haven’t done much by way of drawing, usually just the odd scribble here and there that I don’t like and don’t really want to share. =) But today the awe-inspiring Michael Sporn uploaded some original Bambi storyboards and model sheets and I just about died from happiness. I have previously attempted to draw Bambi on a few occasions in the past, but never have I had such beautiful references. So tonight I sat down and tried my hand at drawing baby Bambi.

These sketches are a mixture of direct reference to get the form figured out, and attempting my own poses. I’m sure you can tell which are which.

I could use more practice, and even now I’m feeling an urge to get back to it. I just wish I had more creativity in terms of poses to draw from! I’m seeing even now that the urge to make his legs shorter/more proportional in real world terms is great, I really have to fight that and stick to the proportions on the model sheet. Also, I tend to make him too stiff; I need to loosen up, though that’s been the trend in my artwork for a while. Always too stiff! Hehe!

Sketching Bambi is a delight, though. Not only is he outrageously cute, but he also has those beautiful, long, thin legs that I absolutely adore. The rhythm, angles and negative spaces made by thin and spindly legs has always been like crack to me, which I love to explore. Hmm, maybe I should get back to sketching. One page is hardly enough!

They were drawn with blue pencil, by the way, but I tinted them in Photoshop in order to make them more visible. I’ll have to experiment with drawing him in other media. Maybe a darker, softer lead might be fun to try… or even brush pen when I get a little more confidant!

Anyway, go explore Michael Sporn’s splog; he has tags for his stuff, here’s the one for his model sheets. They make me squee with joy! Oh, if only I could draw like the Disney animators of old…

Right, I’m off to sketch. =) Turrah!

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.