Warrior and Princess (D)

Happy Sunday!  No Sunday Sketches to post (yet!), but I do have something that seemed appropriate for this particular day of the week.  When I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I naturally spent a lot of my time reading The Book of Mormon, which in turn inspired a sketch of a sort of ancient times warrior.  In recent days I've been going through a bunch of my old art and trying different things and practicing painting them in Photohsop, and this is how the Warrior turned out:

I like the textures and highlights, I think they make him kind of stand out.

And now, for something completely different, though I guess similar in a way, here's an old Giselle that I likewise recently refreshed:

For reference, here are the original sketches.  It's interesting to me the difference color makes, though a sketch can also be dynamic in different ways.

Even More Favorable Odds (J)

Sometime early last year I decided to draw some side characters from the Hunger Games.  I drew a few, meant to color them and then forgot.  Well, last week I finally got to two of them, so here's a little PS to my last HG-themed post: Finnick and his lady love Annie.

Here's a secret: I don't actually care for most of the Hunger Games characters.  They are little more than names to me as far as emotional attachments go.  But I did like Finnick, and though I don't really care for Annie's character, it seemed nice to do the set.  Here's another secret: her outfit=100% inspired by Survivor.   

Overall, I liked how they turned out.  They were both pretty quickly done, but it's easier to get decent results with less time.  Improvement?  I like to think so.

Sunday Sketches -- Space Edition (D & J)

Lately we've been watching some space type things.  J just finished her latest re-watch of her much beloved Battlestar Galactica, and last night we finally re-watched the newest Star Trek movie.  We're not Trekkies by any means, but we still really like that new movie.  What a great cast and script and story!  So, this is what happened in my sketchbook today:

Boldly Go

I'm quite surprised at how well I like how pretty much everyone turned out.  I think my favorites are McCoy and Chekov, and maybe Spock.  Oh yes, and I added that lame green girl on the bottom because I was finished and was asking J who else to add in case I forgot anyone, and she was the only person who came to mind, so I just dropped her in there.  Also, yay for that weird little alien companion of Scotty's.  *so weird*  I'm pretty sure this is the dorkiest fanart I have ever done, though I will say that I think the new ST is the least dorky incarnation of the franchise yet.

And now I'll turn the reins over to J to introduce hers!

*turns reins over*

Story time: As I watched the final (epic/spectacular/Anders/satisfying/AWESOME) season of BSG I decided that this weekend I would try drawing the different characters.  And even more boldy, I decided to draw them in PEN.  I can't remember what inspired that decision. 

It took many ugly drawings before these Battlestar people started turning out.  I nearly gave up, I maybe nearly cried but with the Husband's encouragement, I tried again.  Here's a trick I discovered today: when drawing characters from a book/movie/show/etc., it can be helpful to first draw the one you like least, thus leading to less frustration if they don't turn out.  Once things started coming together, this morphed into a page of all the lady characters from the series, and I think I got pretty much every single one (those who appeared on more than one episode anyway).  If you're in know, take a whirl at guessing who's who!  Answers follow the image.

I like how most of them turned out, especially Dee, Roslin and Six.  And yes, Cally is first because I dislike her the most, haha.  

Roll call (l-r, t-b): Cally, Tory, Kat / Dee, Boomer-Athena, D'Anna / Ellen, Six, Roslin / Hera, Starbuck, Racetrack, Eshay / Cain, man-haired Seelix, Kendra.  Whew.  Next week I'll go for all the Battlestar dudes.  This is a much more daunting prospect but if they turn out, I will have gotten a lot of practice at drawing cropped hair. 

Favorable Odds (J)

As much as I hate to take the top spot from the last post, it's been WAY too long since I had anything to say on this here blog.  A while ago (ie, several months ago) I reread all the Hunger Games books.  I like them, though I don't love them, but I wanted to draw the three leads again.  

It's always interesting to see what happens along the way from sketch to finished thing and in the case of these, Peeta is the only one I prefer finished.  This year I've been trying to face my fear of going lineless, and I think doing these helped (though I didn't get rid of ALL the lines...baby steps!).  Even though I have some issues with them technically, they did turn out pretty much exactly how I envision the characters and that counts for something.

(Sorry you're so flat, Katniss.) 

 

Here are the sketches for comparison.

Three Years Ago (D)

Today is our third anniversary.  Go us!  I wasn't planning on doing this until this morning or so, and therefore it is a complete surprise to J.  Happy anniversary, Wife!  This piece was rather a challenge, since it's very difficult to capture how radiant you were that day three short years ago, but I did my very best and had to call it done at some point.  I hope you like it!  (You meaning Wife, but also everyone else, ha ha.)  She looked so incredible, my jaw literally dropped when she walked out in her wedding dress.  I experimented with a couple of textures on this one, which I think added a nice effect.

I'm ever so lucky to have you!  You're as beautiful as the day we were wed, if not more so.

Potter P.S. (D)

One more thing...

This is just another little piece I did intermittently while I was working on the last montages I posted.  It started with Luna (I just love her so much in the movies), and then Ginny and Neville naturally followed.  I thought it was a nice companion piece to the previous post.

That Other Trio

I love these kids!