Traditional

Concept illustration of what Took would look like dressed in the traditional garb of his home country instead of the sorcerer/inventor duds he usually sports.  This is for an RP with Evie.

Texture used:
Texture 302 by Sirius-s

After finishing the sketch and having a TERRIBLE time drawing his hands, I did a hand study for him based on a more cartoon-y, American style.  I need to break away from the SailorMoon-look his hands usually end up having.  The trick, I've found, is keeping his wrist tiny but drawing his palm and fingers wide and squared-off.  The result is hands that are spindly but still masculine, rather than delicate.

You're the Reason

Trying to get some life in to Took. As I've mentioned before, he's fun to write--not so fun to draw. :/ I need to fix that. Anyway, this is dedicated to Evie because she's the reason Took is still hanging around. (Is the Chicago song stuck in your head now, is it, is it, is it? :D )

Some notes:

Took's mother received Maridian blood transfusions while she was pregnant with Took, and as a result, he inherited some pretty sweet telekinetic powers that more than make up for his frail physique. He can control two "tendrils" at a time and exert enough force to lift, shove or pull about 150 lbs of weight. If he has to fight, he fights dirty. With some serious concentration he can focus the tendrils into extremely fine filaments. Uses for this technique include manipulating tiny mechanisms (ex. springing a lock or removing a screw without tools) and jabbing people (ex. Vahaadi) because he's a jerk.

Unfashionably Late

My Christmas gift for Evie was unfashionably late (she just received it in the mail yesterday!) so with her present I included a pic of my characters wearing their most hideous yuletide yarns and celebrating the holidays with an ugly sweater party.  Inspiration for these sweaters was gleaned from here.

Characters featured are (from left to right):
Took, undoubtedly rocking out to Justin Bieber's Christmas album -- sweater based on this even uglier one
Iryl -- sweater based on my faltering memory of the Grinch's sweater from the Jim Carrey movie
Kala -- sweater inspired by the one mentioned in the first Harry Potter book that Aunt Petunia tried to force Harry to wear
Lanthriel -- sweater based on any number of tacky over-the-shoulder animal sweaters I have both seen and owned in my lifetime
Balthazar -- the snake's "sweater" (open-ended stocking? leg warmer? detached sleeve?) has the texture of a shag carpet. She is very displeased.
Leimira -- sweater based on this

Vahaadi was supposed to be present, but he um...didn't fit on the paper, haha.  If he'd made an appearance, I'd probably have drawn him wearing something like this if I wanted him to look remotely fashionable, or else I might have just forced him to wear some horrific cat-lady sweater like this. Perhaps he should be very glad he didn't make it to the party.

Kindred Spirit

My friend Brit has her birthday the day before mine, and since I have designated her as a kindred spirit due to our almost immediate bond over similar interests, I drew some of our characters sharing their hobbies with one another.  I still kind of want to clean these up and color them, but I'll post them as they are for now and if I ever decide to make the time to get back to them, I shall! As it, I'm already really late posting these. Our birthdays were in August, haha.

Left, my Thystle, and right, Brit's Bree. They share a love of nature and a common link to Centaurs, as Thystle was originally one, and Bree is half-Centaur. They also have similar hairstyles, as they both have braids tucked behind their ears. n_n They are star-gazing, which doesn't come across well in the absence of any background features whatsoever. I'm actually almost done coloring this one, but the CG colors are not meshing well with the ink lines (which scanned in really pixelated) so I'm going to need to digitally ink it.

Left, Brit's Kess, and right, my Yaraif.  They share cutesy immaturity, purplish hair, and an unapologetic avarice for shiny trinkets. Oh man, this is the first time I've drawn Yaraif in years.  She's an adoptable Roleplay pet/character I won on GaiaOnline, and she was designed by Peipur.  Yaraif used to be my favorite RP character, but somewhere along the way I lost touch and stopped writing her. Hmm. Anyway, for this pic I had to draw Yaraif separately and then shrink her down to fit in Kess' palm.  Here's a full-size view:

She's wearing a big gaudy ring on her head as a crown.

Left, my Took, and right, Brit's Tara. They are both physically frail, selfish, ruthless genius gingers with telekinetic powers.  Oh, and they both have T names! I think that these two actually have TOO much in common, so they'd probably hate each other, and much back-stabbing drama would ensue. Sadly, even though he's ten years older, I don't think Took would win. XD Tara has the power to project hologram-like screens to help her organize her ideas--in this case, some nefarious plot with Took.  I didn't ink all the diagrams and symbols on the hologram screens because I'd like to do so on Photoshop (the screens glow, so it's going to be a great lighting practice!) but if you squint really hard and turn your head sideways and know in advance what I was intending, you could see that the screen to the right of Tara bears a really simplified version of the map of Magic Kingdom. Maybe these two schemers are just planning a trip to Walt DisneyWorld.

"Fantasyland must be our first conquest--my research indicates that the wait time for Peter Pan becomes intolerably long after 10 am."
"Yes, but if we pick up a Fastpass, we can go to Jungle Cruise first. No one thinks to do that first thing in the morning, so we'll have no wait and the benefit of the cooler morning temperatures."
"We need to ensure we have sunscreen in our arsenal."
"Sunscreen, shmunscreen. Let's just kidnap a weather Mage and make them conjure an overcast day."
"I like it. Can I do the honors?"

Left, Vahaadi and right, Brit's Lyra. As a mortal, Vahaadi occasionally made an honest living for himself as a tailor/dress-maker and Lyra is a fashion-designing thread Mage.  Drawing this pic was bizarrely relaxing, so even though I'm not thrilled with how it turned out, I like it just for the process it required to make it.

Study for Took

An expression/angle/design study for Took. I'm not sure where I'm going with his look yet but I think the middle is the closest to what I'm trying to achieve. For as easy as he is to write, Took is actually really annoying to draw...

Whoops.

Working on lots of art that isn't ready to post yet but in the meantime, here's a very silly sketch I did.  In one of my roleplaying posts with Evie I meant to write "Took averted his eyes and crossed his arms," to illustrate his moodiness, but it turned out as "Took averted his arms and crossed his eyes."

 

I decided to sketch it out mostly for Evie, who's been having a rough time lately.  Poking fun at Took seems to make her feel better, so I hope this helps :D

I Just Need Somebody

Evie and I have come to find that Took has Bieber-fever and it cracks us up.  As one of her recent posts on her own art-blog she included (at my encouragement/tempting/pleading/goading) a picture of Took singing "Somebody to Love" and I get giggle fits every time I look at it. Evie also said "I’d love/dread to know what he thinks of this," so I doodled up his response!

There aren't computers in Took's world...but there's no Justin Bieber in his world either, so this is just for the lulz. Of course, if Took had a computer he'd be too good for a PC.

Yeah...he doesn't really know what to think.  I would guess amongst the jumble of indignant/embarrassed thoughts are "I'm going to kill CallyAnn for spilling my secrets" and "please tell me Vahaadi hasn't seen this." Truth be told, I think Took just likes the sound of Justin Bieber's music (maybe because his voice is in his range, hahaha! ) because the lyrics are way too sentimental for him. Took's too in love with himself to need anybody, or so he'd like to think!

Silliness aside, I have one more picture I drew last night that I've decided to post a disclaimer for, since it depicts an ideologically sensitive issue that I don't expect all viewers of my blog to want to see, but it fits the theme of the post and it's a topic that both frustrates and intrigues me.  Don't click if you're sensitive to male/male mushy stuff.

Heart of a Vagabond  

This is minor/back-story stuff for Vahaadi, the character on the left.  The other man is Tryvnah, a member of the gypsy circus troupe that took in young Vahaadi after he ran away from home. Tryvnah doesn't play any role in the over-arching plot and most likely won't make an appearance, but the bond of rivalry, friendship, and passion that ignited between the two of them means everything to Vahaadi.  To him, Tryvnah is the home he could never run away from, the one he won't let go.

Fan Service

I haven't posted for a couple weeks because I've been working on a large set of art that I want to post all at once.  I'm almost done with it, but in the meantime, I thought I'd post this...

My best friend Evie Guerra had a birthday on the third.  She and I LOOOOVE to share writing and art, so I sketched and typed up this really silly story for her. The featured character, Took (it rhymes with Luke!), is one of my brain children, and Evie loves him obsessively (which is extremely flattering to me!).  In fact, it was a comic featuring Took that I was working on in class of my sophomore year that sort of drew us together, so Took is special to both of us.  Therefore, I like to feed her Took-cravings. :D This story and the references made probably will only be funny to the two of us, but I'm okay with that.  I'm really only posting it here so I can revisit it later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Took lay flat on his back beneath one of his projects. It was an old one, one that he'd grown frustrated with and decided to take a break from some time ago, but the night before he'd had an epiphany as to what he'd been doing wrong and was back at work on it again. He was up to his elbows in grease, and was therefore in an unusually good mood as he fiddled away. His foot was tapping the beat to the song playing in his head, and when he didn't have his wrench in his mouth, breathy, poorly sung lyrics crept out.

"Baby, baby, oooooohhhh, like baby, baby noooooo~"

"Took?"

Took jerked and abruptly tried to sit up, banging his head against the hard underside of his creation. I heard him swear furiously and hiss through his teeth.

"Are you alright?" I asked, my eyes finally finding his legs poking out from under his machine.

"Ugh! What do you think?" he snarled, trying to shimmy out so that he could fix me with a choice glare.

I duckede down to look at him. "Where you just singing Justin Bieber?" I asked, trying to keep the delight out of my voice, but not quite able to stifle it.

"Don't be ridiculous, you know I don't sing," he snapped, though I could see his face redden behind his freckles. He emerged, holding his sore forehead. "What do you want?"

My face fell as I remembered why I'd come. "Oh, Took! I--I need your help. Evie's birthday is tomorrow, and I don't know what to do for her!"

Took groaned. "THAT'S why you came to bother me?" he demanded, rubbing his bruise.

"I needed someone to bounce ideas off of, and Vahaadi's tied up in an RP..."

"Imagine that."

I ignored him, and began wringing my hands as I launched into my dilemma. "You don't understand--I forget every single year! If it wasn't for Facebook, I would have totally missed it again! But for once I actually have a little time, and I need to do something great for her!"

I began to pace in agitation. "It's too late to mail her anything, and I can't afford to anyway--so I thought about drawing for her, but I don't know what! Vahaadi and Spark would be fine, but I always draw them so it's not very special...and then I though about finishing that portrait of Opal for her, but I can't find it...and if I drew Vitiator or Conrad I'd practically just be drawing for me, so that's hardly a present! Flint is too hard to draw, I can't think of a pose for the Viceroy, and if I tried to draw Mytho for her, well, I'd want to make him look like man, and she likes the way he looks so that would just be in bad taste..."

Took watched me with one eye, the other screwed up in irritation. "UGH, why don't you just do something simple, then? What do people normally do for each other on their birthdays?" He squished up his face, as if straining his mind for memories of such a pedestrian activity. "Why don't you make her a...cake, or...whatever..."

I made an impatient noise. "Took, she lives in Indiana! What good will that do?"

Took stuck out his lip and spoke in a derisively mocking tone, "make her an imaginary cake, then. All you two ever do is bash your imaginations against each others...just tell her you're sending a cake and she'll believe it."

I was about to retort, but I paused, thinking. "That's not a bad idea..." I said, beginning to smile. It was so silly, it just might work! I stooped down and all but dragged Took to his feet. He was so startled he forgot to resist me. "C'mon, come help me!"

"I don't know how to make a cake!" he whined in protest.

"Eh, neither do I--that's what recipes are for!" I replied jubilantly, ushering him into my imaginary!kitchen.

"This sounds like a recipe for disaster, if you ask me. Why do I have to be involved?"

"Oh, because you're her favorite!" I insisted, shooting him a smile as I pulled ingredients out of the cupboards and fridge. "If she knows you helped make it, how could she not love it? Wash up, you can't bake looking like that."

Took scowled, but obediently bent over the sink and began scrubbing at his wasted arms, muttering under his breath. "Alright, what do I do?" he intoned resignedly, shaking his wet hands as he turned to me.

"Here, put this on."

"AN APRON?!"

"Oh, c'mon, Took. You don't want your clothes to get covered in food, do you? It would clash with all the grease you're wearing. Fine, you don't have to wear that one--this one's manlier," I said, offering him a plainer one.

Took huffed, dramatically rolled his eyes, and dawdled as much as humanly possible in the act of taking the apron. I slid around him to help him tie it, but he batted me away, and we had a brief debate that consisted mostly of stifled vocalizations and aggravated expressions. For his sake, however, I backed down, and watched him stubbornly struggle to tie it himself.

"There," he said, pursing his lips and gesturing stiffly and sharply to his new garment. "Happy?"

I grinned, barely suppressing an unexpected upspring of delight. He was, in fact, ridiculously cute in an apron. "Yeah, you look great! Er, OK, let's get this started then...we're going to need butter, eggs, cocoa..."

After a minor fiasco involving a rogue egg and an upturned vial of vanilla, Took was tasked with stirring while I added in the ingredients. We were both a little raw around the nerves, since he insisted on making a fight of everything and I was worried about the way the cake would turn out.

"Five cups of sugar..." I read, tipping the first measuring cup into his bowl.

Took blinked, and craned over to look at my recipe. "Geez, are you sure? That seems like way too much."

I drew his face longer than usual.  I think I like it better this way. Oh, and yes, that dweeb on the right is me.

"What do you know about how much sugar goes into cake?" I sniffed, tipping in the fourth measurement, although secretly I began to doubt.

He frowned at the mixture. "It's like all sugar now," he complained, jutting his jaw to one side as he aggressively churned it with his wooden spoon. "Who wrote that recipe?"

I scanned down the page, expecting to find some home-making queen's name. When I found the credit, however, my eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Iryl," I stated, blinking.

"Huff, good grief..." Took hissed, both at Iryl and at the exertion it was requiring to mix in the sugar. "No wonder the recipe calls for glow-sticks."

"This is going to be horrifically sweet," I said in dismay, examining Took's batter. It was, indeed, mostly sugar. "Hopefully Evie has an appointment with a dentist lined up in the near future...and maybe the Poison Control Center, too, just to be safe. Last I checked, glow-sticks aren't actually safe for human consumption..."

"Well, we haven't added them in yet. It's probably safe for now."

"For now," I emphasized, disappointment in my voice. I looked back at the recipe, my lips scrunched up. I should have known better than to try and make a cake. What did I know about baking? "Maybe we should just--Took, what are you doing?" I asked abruptly. I had looked up just in time to catch him licking the spoon.

He buried the spoon back in the batter hastily. "Nothing!" he said, his voice cracking.

"Oh no, don't put it back in!" I popped it out of the batter with a wide-eyed grimace, examining it as if I could see his germs crawling all over it.

Took bit his lip in a disarmingly guilty expression. "Sorry, I...thought that's how you cook. You have to taste it, right?"

"Yeah, but..." I began. But then I sighed, and summoned a wan smile. "Well, how did it taste?"

"It's actually not too bad," he replied, looking down at it. "It's..." he pulled a funny face in emphasis, "REALLY sweet...but Evie likes sweet, right?"

"If memory serves," I said, squinting at the batter as well. Then I chuckled.

"What's so funny?"

"Well, I'm just thinking, Evie might like it even more now, knowing it has Took-spit in it. Ah! And look at that..." I reached over into the bowl and delicately grasped the pale wisp of a hair. For its color it could have belonged to either of us, but it was long and wavy. "One of my hairs ended up in it. Charming. I knew I should have tied it back..."

"You might as well leave it in--Evie loves red hair, remember?"

"Not to eat!" I burst with a laugh.

Took shrugged, an endearingly affable smile gracing his usually scornful features. "It's an imaginary cake, right? Tell her it will give her red hair."

I cracked up laughing, shaking my head at the silliness of the whole thing. "An imaginary, Took-spit & CallyAnn-hair glowstick cake with an Iryl-dose of sugar...she certainly won't get a birthday cake like this ANYWHERE else!"

"Exactly," Took said, pouring the batter into the cake pan. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh!  And speaking of Took fan service, I dug up another pic I did for Evie, circa 2008.  It's not accurate (he's missing his glove, and his skin is too nice-looking XD ) but it's supposed to be a joke as he's TOTALLY out of character anyway.  He's too anorexic-skinny to be walking around with his shirt open! Also, he still believes in cooties and doesn't know anything about girls. Part of his charm, I guess.