Mermaids (D)

Just now that song from Flight of the Conchords started playing in my head...

Anyway, a couple of months ago I was commissioned by a friend (for whom I have done some work before) to do some mermaids for her daughter's bedroom.  Apparently her little one is currently obsessed with mermaids, but the only artwork that seems to be readily available is either Ariel or... not really appropriate for a child's bedroom.  So I did these!  I tried to make them all unique, so I worked with different colors and moods, while trying to make them still look like a series.  I specifically decided to stay away from red hair for obvious reasons, and I was told the intended recipient very much adored the Barbie mermaid movies, so while I didn't exactly want to go for that style, I tried to add a few flourishes they might have, while of course keeping them distinctive in style and design.  This girl now has three totally original mermaids of her very own!

I like how they turned out.  I am rather proud that their tails don't exactly resemble the Disney version of mermaids, ha ha.  (Though I admit that third one has a lot of Ariel in her face.)  I am told the third one is Lily's favorite. which was no surprise.  She actually described very carefully the details she wanted to appear in at least one, and that was it.  I understand that they also were planning on adding extra sparkles and/or glitter post-printing to make them even more sparkly and/or glittery, as befitting a six-year-old girl's bedroom decor.  I can't wait to have a little girl so we can spoil her with original artwork of her own.  (Now watch, she'll just want the Tangled poster from Walmart instead, ha ha.)

P.S.  Thank goodness for bubble brushes.  I'm sure I could have done some myself, and I had thought through a few techniques, but it would have just been much more time-consuming and less uniform.

(Phew!  Finally I have posted these!  J has been prodding me to for months, and I just didn't for some reason.  And now I have.)

Promotion! (D)

Today J was promoted! It's very exciting. So exciting that I decided to take an old sketch (that I did a long while ago when she was told she was "promotable") and color it up. Here it is:

And just for fun, here's the original sketch:

Way to go, Wife!

Sunday Sketches: Of Egypt and Mutants

A while ago I made a book reading trade with my sister-in-law where she agreed to read one of my favorite books (My Cousin Rachel) and I read one of her's.  She loved MCR EVER so much (...), and I quite liked her pick, Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw.  It's a young adult novel about Mara, a slave girl in Egypt and the political intrigues she gets herself into in her quest for freedom.  It's a fun read, with plenty of Egyptian culture and history in the mix. 

My sister-in-law also requested I do some Sunday sketches of the characters after I read it, and after a few hideous attempts and a BSG delay, they finally happened this week.  I hope they were worth the wait, Sarah!

It's been a while since I read the book so I cannot entirely vouch for their accuracy compared to it but I like how they turned out anyway.  Pay no attention to my faithfulness to Egyptian historical details--or lack thereof!  Left-right/top-bottom they are: Mara, Hatshepsut (in her lady garb); Sheftu, Inanni, Thutmose III; Nahereh and Hatshepsut again (in her pharaoh garb).  I may have exaggerated her love for My Cousin Rachel.  Just a smidge.

And now tis the Husband's turn.   

We rewatched all the X-Men movies last week!  Some of them are awesome and some of them are terrible, and some of them are in between (three "somes" add up to five movies, right?), but in any case, I felt these itching to get out of me shortly after:

And there you have it! Hopefully most of them are pretty self-explanatory (hint: the one with the glasses is Beast. Just kidding).  Probably the one that's least obvious is Storm there on the left, mostly because I think Halle Berry is terrible in the movies, so when I drew her she turned out decidedly UN-Halle Berry-ish.  In the end, really, Wolverine FTW of course, although I do quite love Jean Grey (but not SO much in this drawing).

Art Trade: Kitties in Clothes and Sad Pandas

Today we present an art trade!

One day we were watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and when Mrs. Weasley uttered that immortal line (responding to Ginny's question as to where her jumper was), "Yes, dear, it was on the cat!", we as usual wondered what it could mean...  Was the cat actually wearing Ginny's jumper?  Was the cat lying underneath it?  And since when do the Weasleys have a cat anyway??  Or was her jumper sitting on some other object known to the family as "the cat"?  In any case, I told J she should illustrate what was going on there, and this is what she came up with:

It's so happy and dancing!  And what a fashionable jumper.  The animation was an afterthought, but a stroke of genius.

And then one day J was feeling a little blue, and said she felt like a sad panda, and then she asked me to illustrate that.  And I did!  And it looks like this:

Poor sad panda.

Sometimes it's nice to give each other ideas for interesting and unusual arts.

P.S.  Here's a tiny and pixelish version of the Weasley kitty:

Sunday Sketches: Men of the Fleet (J)

Here is a fact I have learned over the last two weeks: there are a lot of dudes in Battlestar Galactica.  So, it took twice as long and twice as many pages to draw all these than it did the ladies.  I left off most of the minor fellows, but I think I got everyone that's most important (except you, Zak Adama--oops).  I tell you, I have been living in fear of even attempting Bill Adama or Colonel Tigh.  And what do you know, they slid right out of the pen without a problem.  Anyway, the menfolk of BSG:

Some random stats of this little project: Simon took two tries, Helo took three and poor Leoben took five and I still don't think he turned out.  Ah well.  Overall, my favorites are Admiral Adama, Dr. Cottle and Romo's kitty.  Hah!

Roll call (l-r, t-b): Doral, Cavil, Leoben, Billy, Cottle; Simon, Lampkin (& Lance), Hot Dog, Hoshi, Zarek; Jammer, Tarn, Chief; Gaeta, Crashdown, Helo, Tigh; Gaius, Anderssssssss, Apollo, Adama; Bonus Gaius.  

I thought I should probably draw the actual Galactica at the end of all this:

 Hey, guess who can't draw spaceships?

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.