Nativity (D)

I don't believe I've ever posted this, so here you go.  This was a Christmas gift for my mom almost a decade ago.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

29/43 Years (D)

It was my parents' anniversary yesterday!  I did this some years ago but I still like it.

I should probably draw in pencil more.

MerMay Kick-... erm... Flip-Off? (D & J)

That just doesn't sound right.  And I guess mermaids do kick...  But oh well.  Apparently #MerMay is a thing (and also #MermaidMonday?), so J and I did a few mermaid Sunday Sketches last week to celebrate.  It was fun!  Here are mine:

And now, back from a little hiatus, I'm happy to welcome back J, who had this to say: "er mer gersh merberbers".

And look at that, they're (respectively) in pen and pencil!

Draw It Again!

For my June pencil drawing, I decided to revisit some familiar territory.  Back in 2002, I spent most of Black Friday drawing this portrait of Boromir on giant paper.  Look at this slightly blurry, partial photo of it:

Obviously this was back in the day when I 1) drew on giant paper and 2) could do a whole giant drawing in one day.  Now I am slower and smaller and...better?  Well, I thought another Boromir portrait would turn out AMAZING by comparison and in the end he just turned out okay:

When I finished, I realized that he looked like cartoon Boromir.  His face is off, and I think I COULD fix it, but with pencil there's always the risk of ruining it, especially since my paper doesn't erase very well.  So...this is where my Boromir drawing skills will stand, for possibly another twelve years (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). 

I do like how his clothing turned out and it's always fun doing LOTR characters.  Maybe some more will pop up before the end of the year.  Maybe even some...Thorin...?  MAYBE.

Sunday Sketches: Recent Reads

A while ago, I read some books that I liked--The Scorpio Races and A Company of Swans.  So I drew the main characters from each. I also drew some water horses, in the only way I can draw horses...

Puck Connolly and Sean Kendrick from The Scorpio Races on the left.  I could picture Puck pretty clearly, but Sean was a little more nondescript for me.  On the right is Harriet and Rom from A Company of Swans.  Again, I could picture her clearly, but I couldn't really remember what Rom looked like after the fact--you know, aside from good looking.  Is it wrong that I like the horses best?

...

Hello, D here.  I've been reading through the source material for the Disney animated films chronologically, which of course led to doing sketches of my own designs of the well-known characters (cleverly termed "Disney Un-Disneyed').  Though I haven't found the chance to post some of these sketches until now, I thought this would be a good time to share a couple recent ones based on some classic literature, drawn around the same time as J's book-based sketches above.

The Wart (rhymes with Art, short for Arthur), from T. H. White's The Sword In the Stone, The Once and Future King

Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, The Second Jungle Book

I'm liking how this series is turning out, I'll have to post more.  The fairy tale ones especially have been fun to try to re-envision.

Turtle Power!

As I mentioned last time, my monthly pencil project for May was a sizable undertaking.  But let's back up to my thought process:

There's a new Ninja Turtles movie coming out.  I'm sure I will see it (because how could I not), but based on, well, pretty much everything about it, I'm not too optimistic about how good it will be.  *single tear*  So I thought to myself, that new movie comes out in May and in retaliation, I will bust out a big TMNT drawing, like the days of ye olde 2007.  

But guess what!  The new movie doesn't come out until August.  Oops.  So...this is my preemptive strike?

I totally underestimated how long this would take.  In the end it was upwards of 20 hours, four different drawings and a lot of Photoshop pasting together.  A bit of a time investment, but it was a fun project.  Michelangelo and Leonardo turned out the best, I think.  And poor Raphael.  For being my favorite he doesn't ever seem to turn out as good as I hope for.

(Seriously though...the new movie looks bad.  Am I right or am I right?)

Monthly Pencils

At the start of the year I made a goal to draw a pencil portrait each month.  Nothing fancy, just something quick to practice my skillz.  I'm glad I've followed through because besides this project I have had the BIGGEST art block in the world and these are basically all I've drawn all year.  Lame. O.o 

Anyway, here is where I'm at so far:

January was Katniss.  I have to make an effort to draw the ladies.  I like how this one turned out, especially since it's a more quirky angle of her face.

In February I returned to Harry Potter fanarts with Sirius.  I still don't think the resemblance is quite there, but I like how this one turned out.  I wasn't so sure in the middle of it, but yeah.  High fives, Sirius.

In March it was Obi Wan's turn.  I think my brother asked me to draw this picture about ten years ago.  Better late than never?

Starbuck popped up in April (or maybe the start of May...).  For how much I love Battlestar, I draw it very little.  I also kind of phoned in her uniform.  All those lines!  Wahhh.

For May I've been working on something BIG!  Literally big because it's on three separate pages right now and there will be a fourth before I'm done.  More on that to come!

A Hobbit (J)

Back in ye olde days of the past, I spent many many many hours drawing all the different characters from Lord of the Rings.  Wait, I still do that.  Anyway, I used to do it a LOT, and so with the arrival of The Hobbit, it seemed only fair to give it a little bit of the same treatment.

This was a faster drawing, done with just a mechanical pencil in my sketchbook, but he still seemed to take quite a while.  Somehow I started this without realizing his shirt is completely covered in stripes.  Let's just say it was a happy moment when I finished those stripes!  But it seems like every drawing has something in it that makes you insane--like curly hair, embroidery, sequins, what have you.  (If it features Mrs. Lovett, then it has all three of those things and then some.)

Anyway, I can't promise to follow this up with a bunch of dwarf portraits but we'll see.  I'll probably get more inspired with Legolas turns up again...

Sunday Sketches (J)

It's been a long time since I did some Sunday Sketches.  Lately I have been feeling low on the inspiration scale, and recently this was what I could come up with--exercising little Pencil People (there was no pen at hand...I tried to resist using an eraser).  Hurrah for fitness and for arts!

The archer man is one of my favorites, as is that ribbon dancer, whose pose is probably totally impossible in real life.  Side note: many of these were inspired by the thought of "What other games are there on Wii Sports...?"

You're Standing on my Sunday Sketches (J)

It's been a while since I've contributed to Sunday Sketches. These are actually the accumulation of a few Sundays, but who's counting right? We've been watching Daria lately and I've seen a few other artists put their own spin on the characters. That sounded like fun to me (and a nice contrast to when I put a Daria spin on myself) so I gave it a try. I think they turned out pretty well!

(From t-b, l-r: Daria, Quinn, Jane, Trent, Brittany and Kevin)

Oh, and here, have a WIP. I have declared 2012 to be the year I finally conquer lineless painting. I will not be afraid! Okay, maybe just a little afraid.
What the hey, I'm afraid. Eep!

You know his name...it's Legolas

You know, in case you forgot about this guy. Since we got our new scanner I figured I should finally do a real scan instead of photos. I haven't added anything to him since I posted last. I've had some ideas but nothing really came of them, but I think I'm going mess around with a few ideas in Photoshop. Maybe at last something will come to me!

Anyway, here he is.
Today I discovered the exclusion filter and messed around with it on Legolas. I know it's just a filter but...I kind of can't stop looking at the result. I am, how do you say, fascinated.
So. That's Legolas today. One of my top goals for the year was to finish him and by golly, I'm going to! In some fashion or another! Mlarf.

Sunday Sketches -- Baudelaires and Friends

It's been a while, but it's time again for more Sunday Sketches! My contribution this time around is based on a favorite book series that The Wife and I just finished re-reading together, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events.  I just love these Baudelaires so much!  They are such charming and resourceful and reasonably attractive children, each one unique and full of personality, and they really care about each other.  Confidentially, this is also a tease for a possible future post featuring a lot more artistic documentation of the Baudelaire variety...

And The Wife had another foray into the world of Pen and did another batch of delightful pen people.  Some of them were inspired by recent movies and/or TV shows we've been watching (can you spot them?), and others are original characters.  I love her pages of little peeps!  They're so tiny but they have a lot of personality.

Half Shell Hero

I took a nature appreciation class in college, where I learned so many fascinating things about the animal world, past and present. In that class there was one of Those People who is always asking ridiculous questions. One day the topic was turtles and she raised her hand and asked, "So do they have, like, a little body in there? Can they crawl out of their shell and walk around?" No, young lass, real life is not Looney Tunes and turtles live in their shells. DUH.

The point of that story is that, well, turtles can't crawl out of their shells. But while we're talking about turtles, let's talk Ninja Turtles. They're my original favorite fandom, and I'm still a big fan. Now and then I like to draw the characters as they look in the latest movie (which I love). I use screen shots because, to be honest, I have always been confounded by drawing turtles freehand. Here is my latest TMNT effort:
I did this with my trusty mechanical pencil in my sketchbook...it's fun to do something with pencil that isn't as involved or time consuming as M. Legolas. Maybe a little Raphael next...?

PS: It's Leonardo, for you people not in the know.

Legolas. And some options.

Legolas is pretty much done. And yet he is not complete. Take a look.
No matter how much I try to plan this from the beginning, my drawings rarely wind up centered on the page. Thus, I have a history of making things look centered, or at least intentionally off center. In the past I've done lines (here and here) and maps (here). And now along comes Legolas. Lines won't work for him because he's got that line from the bow string happening. I originally planned on a map but will that look good? Here are the options, as I see them:

• Figure out some kind of line system.
  
• Cut the paper (this feels like cheating).
• Do some kind of map.
• Stop spazzing about it and just let him be done.
  

He's been at this stage since the start of April and I have yet to make a decision. Of course the last, most horrible option of all is to keep drawing and give him more body until I get to the bottom of the page. I call this horrible because let me tell you, this whole Legolas project was so much harder to finish than I expected. I whined, I got angry and I won't deny that I cried about it more than once. I used to have so much more time to devote to these kinds of projects so now that I don't it just went on FOREVER and for so long it seemed like I didn't make any progress at all. So...I just don't want to add to him. At least not now. So I guess I could add one more option.

• Leave him at this stage indefinitely until I feel like adding more to his person.
  

So, Internet, what do you think? Give me guidance! To make it extra easy I'm going to add a poll. Help!

(PS: Sorry that picture is so crummy.)

Legolas: 2/3

Um....I didn't get more sandpaper. *fail*

Legolas 1/27

Another week, another bout of Legolas work. I spent several hours on it this week so I made good progress, technically.
I say technically because what I did doesn't look as good as I would like it to. His hand is only half done, mainly because I haven't decided on including the bow or not, which changes what I do with his fingers. So that looks unfinished and weird. And when I was working on his shirt I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of fabric and where all the folds had to go and intercept and squish and squash. The last few peeps I've drawn, I realize now, didn't really involve a lot of detailed clothing (like this). So I think I'm just out of practice. Anyway, I also decided I need a new bit of sandpaper because, for the life of me, I could not get a nice long point on my lead, which also made things frustrating. Urgh.

Anyway. This weekend I am going to get some new sandpaper, and I always have the option of going back and changing and fixing things. So it's not over yet. I press forward!

**Okay, after looking at my things I realize that hello, I have done a lot of messy fabric recently. Like this and this and this. What the heck, Legolas? Why can't you be more like Sweeney?

Legolas 1/20

Okay, this was not my finest week, Legolas-production-wise. In fact, all that I did I did this very night, in about 45 minutes. Yikes, too fast. I wasn't really feeling it so I didn't try to draw any longer than the minimum I had set for myself. But still, progress is progress and he's coming along faster than he has in the last six months. Here he is:
And just to make things interesting, here is my set up at the moment.
I just sit on the floor. Maybe one day I'll have an easel. Anyway, the lighting is not great, but since I'm not home during the day for the natural light, I make do with the lamp.

And here are the tools of my trade.
I have a really hard time throwing away bits of pencil leads that are really too short to work with. In fact, I have never thrown any away. Hah! Take that!

Here's to another week! Hopefully this is the week Legolas gets a hand and some more torso.

Legolas 1/13

Accountability works! It's been kind of a busy week, due to apartment hunting, but I still fit in about 3-4 hours. He's coming along! This week's picture also features a lovely orange-ish glow. One thing I really miss about being a college student is the access to a nice scanner. One day, Epson, one day.

So, this week I did the last patch on the top, and started the belt (okay, it's not a belt but it is like belt). Tonight I did his arm band (okay, they aren't arm bands, but they are like arm bands), and finally worked out his hand. I haven't really decided how far down to draw him. My original plan was to stop at the line of the the bow string, but I'm not sure now. I'll probably just continue with what I have and then decide when it comes to it. I don't really want his body to just run off the page though so...we'll see. Here's to progress!

Resolution! aka Legolas

Cast your mind back to the end of 2001. Do you remember a big, glorious movie that came out then? No, not that one--I mean Lord of the Rings. Long story short, I loved it (LOVED IT). Shortly thereafter I got myself a lovely calendar and started drawing everyone in it. I started here:
Despite the fact that that drawing was perfection, I drew that same picture again, about 3 years later. By that point I'd spent a year in the illustration program and basically relearned how to draw. Fast forward another few years to my first year of graduate school and I drew it again--or at least I started it.

Last January I started drawing it again. Why? No, not because I needed a reason to study Orlando Bloom's face for 30 hours. Basically I was hit hard with some first-year-of-college nostalgia, when I used to play the Fellowship soundtrack and draw. So I started again, and I made some great progress. Then I got a job and have only spent a handful of hours on it since.

But! I have a list of art goals for this year, and at the top is to finish poor dear Legolas. It's been so long since I started it I'm a little tempted to start it all over again, but since I'll probably draw it again in, oh, three or four years I'm not going to worry about that.

Here is Legolas today.
I'll take a picture* of him every week and post his progress, even if there's been none (accountability!). When he's done, I'll post all four of them so you can see how he's changed over the years. Then maybe I can finally take another whack at Aragorn.

*When it's all done I'll do a proper scan, but for just updates this is a lot easier.