Sunday Sketches -- Halloween Edish (D)

If I love anything where reading is concerned, it's a good theme/marathon/series, so when it came time to choose some seasonal reading this Halloween I decided to re-read/read some of the classic monster literature. It was interesting to read the source material for so very many famous stories and characters and movie adaptations to know the true literary origins (and to note just how far dramatized/cinematic versions can sometimes stray from the originals, while sometimes staying surprisingly faithful in some ways).

So now, I present character sketches from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (review here):

... Bram Stoker's Dracula (review here):

... and Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris (review here):

I had read both Frankenstein and Dracula in my teenage years, and enjoyed them (probably a little more than I did this time around), but I had never even heard of this Werewolf of Paris thing.  I read it mostly because it reportedly does for werewolves what Dracula does for vampires, and it was the closest I could discover was the "literary origin" of the werewolf character.  It was pretty interesting, but at times surprisingly unsettling, though that probably shouldn't have been that surprising.

As a side note, these were also suitable reading for our recent Mediterranean cruise.  They just seemed so European, and covered so many countries and even continents.

Happy Halloween*, everyone!



* And remember, it's pronounced "Hallow-een", not "Hollow-een".  Just one of my favorite seasonal pet peeves.

Sunday Sketches -- Thomas the Third (D)

As I continue my epic Year of Hardy, I have another round of characters from the next three books (previous posts here and here have art from the first six novels).  Here are a few drawings that were done on Sundays from August to October.  These kind of run the gamut as far as my reactions go, from one I liked pretty well to one I thought was so-so to one I loved.

The Trumpet-Major (1880)

Those Loveday Boys, or, Beware Fess Derriman and That Sassy Matilda!

 A Laodicean: A Story of Today (1881)

Paula the Powerful, or, What's a Laodicean Anyway?*

 Two On a Tower (1882)

Tabitha Too, Just Because, or, Yes, the Tower Is a Character Too

* By now I know what a Laodicean is, of course, but before I read it, the reference was forgotten and therefore lost on me.

Sunday Sketches -- Neverending Characters (D)

Although I have seen The NeverEnding Story movie many times (who hasn't?), I had never until very recently read the book on which it was based.  I had mixed feelings on it overall (see my review here), but there were some great characters.  Yesterday I did some drawings of a handful of them:

Poor Artax.

Starting at the top left, clockwise: Bastian and Bastian (I know it's confusing, it kind of is in the book too), Falkor, Gmork, Artax (Artaaaax!  *sniff*), Atreyu, the Childlike Empress, Xayide.  I'm not terribly satisfied with Falkor or Xayide, and I don't like how Atreyu looks kind of like a girl, but I like the others all right.

If you haven't read it, you should!  You could probably just stop at the halfway point and be just fine, but still, it's a nice little fantasy story.  (And, contrary to reputation and title, it does eventually end.)

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: