Sunday Sketches -- For Narnia and the North! (D)

Over Christmas and through the start of the New Year I (finally) re-read The Chronicles of Narnia by the inimitable C.S. Lewis.  This naturally inspired lots of more recent character sketches (I did a few about a decade ago, but they were due for an update).  Instead of doing one montage from each book, and in order to avoid redrawing a lot of repeated characters, I decided to do one major splat of all the major characters from the entire series, drawn over the span of several Sundays in January.  Some of the repeated characters blend a little bit into the ones from the next book, but mostly it's a fun, semi-counter-clockwise journey through the chronicles (in their original publication order, which I would say is the preferred order).  I love them so.

If you click for the full view you may get a better idea of who's who and what's what.  I was going to write a chart indicating who everyone is, but that would take forever and be confusing as to how to organize them, and besides, sometimes I like to try to figure out these kinds of things on my own.  Have fun guessing!

A Baby For the Drawing (D & J)

We have this baby, and he is a delight.  As for myself I don't think I draw him nearly as much or as often as he deserves, but the time had finally come to immortalize him at this stage in the way that only a digital portrait can.  So here it is, The Boy, happy as can be, at approximately 8 months:

And now, a word from the mother of this child:

I must confess that I also do not draw this baby as much as I should.  Of course there are lots of things I think I should ("should") be doing, but this is one thing I REALLY think I should do more.  As for cleaning the baseboards, well, I'll let those wait.  Anyway, I recently colored up a little doodle from a while ago.  Sometimes when he is asleep he lays on the boppy pillow like this, with his legs scrunched up and his bum out and his hands by his face.  It's one of my very, very favorite things that he does, and it will be a sad day when he grows out of it.  Baby proportions are still a tricky business, but I like how this one turned out. 

But at least now I've made record of it!  Also, I love these jammies.  Claws on the toes??  Come on.

Snowy Sisters (D)

It's high time I did some more Frozen art!  It's been running around my head for ages, I just never took the time to put them down.  But now I have!  Here are a couple that I've been working on in Photoshop for that last little while.

Anna

Elsa

Sisters do as sisters should.  I love the snow.

Pushing Daisies At Last (D and J)

About half a year ago we were ever so glad to introduce our offspring to the world.  As is often the case with newborns, we had a lot of downtime during which to watch a lot of TV shows and movies.  After a few recommendations, we decided to watch the sadly short-lived Pushing Daisies, which we enjoyed very much.  Then, these naturally happened, though for some reason they have not seen the internet-light of day until now (don't ask me why, it's been sitting on my desktop waiting to be posted for over three months).  So, here are our sketchbook tributes (which may or may not have been sketched on a Sunday) to a show that ended long before its time.

I think I could probably draw these characters a hundred times and never get bored, but for some reason I haven't drawn them since the summer.  I probably should do some more, especially since I think some of them could turn out a little better than they did here (especially Chuck, I didn't make her nearly wide-eyed or charming enough).  I love the aunts though.

And now, I turn the reins over to J to present hers:

Here's mine!

Sunday Sketches -- Frozen and Feathers (D & J)

Time for some BRAND new and totally fresh Sunday Sketches, hot off the presses pens as of yesterday.

Last week we went to see the latest from Disney animation, Frozen.  While I'm sure I'll forever wish it were hand-drawn animation, as it was originally planned to be, when I finally saw it most of my misgivings gave way to enjoying it a lot overall, as basically predicted.  It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.  I have not been able to get the music out of my head for days (though I would still would have loved to hear what Alan Menken would have done with this story...).  Anyway, the next time I picked up pen and sketchbook, this was the inevitable result:

You can probably tell by sizing and placement who I consider to be the star, ha ha.  Also, there are some issues with costuming and off-model elements, but I was operating on having only seen it once.

I'm still not on board with Olaf.  There's something about his design that just bugs me... and also his voice.  So, that explains the various redesign concepts on the bottom right.  (C'mooon, Disney... those took me all of two minutes, and I'm just me.)

And now, for something completely different from J, a dude with a rooster tail:

Just because.

Sunday Sketches: Dolls

One of my friends from the ye olde teenager days recently published her first book, called The Dollhouse Asylum.  Naturally, I got myself a copy and read it in a few days.  And then, whilst doodling a rolling-pin-wielding knight the following Sunday the Mister suggested I draw the book's characters.  Duh!  So I did.  Later I did a quick coloring job for fun and now here they are:

I think I got some character details wrong, as I didn't have the book handy but overall they turned out how I wanted and envisioned.  T-B, L-R: Cheyenne, Marcus, Teo; Ana, Cleo and Bee.  

Congrats, Mary!  I send you an artsy high five from across the internet. 

Team Team Team Team

I even like saying the word team!*  

About two years ago I was sitting at work and I had an idea for the greatest art EVER.  And then, just this month, I finally did it!  And it IS the greatest art ever, if not as timely as it would have been back then:

It was hard to get the details of his suit right, and I certainly simplified, but I'm happy with how it turned out.  It was kind of intimidating to work on, but so satisfying to have finally followed through with my idea.  And isn't Edward Scissorhands just one of the most beautiful movies ever?  I feel kind of stupid calling things "beautiful" but that movie is and so I say it is.    
 
(It would have been so much fun to put this on a shirt and wear it to a Twilight event, but since I haven't BEEN to a Twilight event in the last two(+) years, it wouldn't have worked out anyway.)

*Name it and claim it!