Friday, June 3, 2011

For Friends

I finished these two sketches last week when I did the troll pic, but I wanted to wait until their recipients got them in the mail before I posted them.  They arrived safe and sound, so here they are!

First, for my sister LC:

This is her character Demiko, the de facto leader of the commoner rebellion in her story project Echelons. His derpy expression was an accident, but it suits his personality. It makes me think of this face: LOL!

And second, this pic for my kindred spirit, Brit:

This is Sybil, an original character she uses on a roleplaying board called Shadowside.

I don't usually shade my sketches like this, but I was inspired by the work of Jessica Barnes, otherwise known as bluessence.  I bought her 2011 sketch book collection, and in it she included a picture of Vahaadi for me!  He looks so pretty in her style. o_o Vahaadi by bluessence. 

I like her style, and it was fun to experiment with, but I want to be careful to not become stuck on it.  It's super pretty and detailed but I think the style lacks motion and life. Everyone looks like they're posing for a picture. XD I already have a bad habit of drawing that way, I need to ensure I keep motion in my work!

Here are some other drawings I have sent to Britney and LC.  These are from last year.


This is Brit's character Kestrel.  Britney gave me pointers and I came up with her design.  Her motifs are shiny trinkets, culture-clash, ribbons, feathers and bubbles. I photoshopped this one a bit, because the gray tones were driving me batty.  I like this pic, so I'd like to do something better with it sometime, but for now this is as much effort as I want to put into it.

Here's the first attempt I made at drawing Kess...

Please ignore her lame right arm, I couldn't figure out the posing for it so I resorted to the shameful "hide it behind her back" technique. x_X

This is a concept sketch for Kestrel's dragon transformation:


This is slightly smaller than actual-size.  Kess is a widdle tiny dwagon.

Enough Kess-spam; here are the pics I sent LC!

This is Rue, the waifish lone survivor of a terrible and mysterious plague that wiped out an entire generation of her colony.  She is from Ruin of Elderith, another story project of LC's that she's letting me contribute to!

And last...


 This is Fairy, also from Ruin of Elderith.  I love her nails. *w*

I have tons more sketches like these that I've sent to Evie, about 13 pages worth or so.  Maybe I'll post those sometime, but not right nowwwww. <3 Enjoy!

2 comments:

ArynChris said...

Ooooo, Rue is /nicely/ drawn, she looks alive! The complex one of Kestrel is also very good, even if it drove you batty.

One thing with drawing characters in motion (and I agree, it looks a lot better than posing) is watch where you get your references-- action is never balanced, it's a moment that the character (or objects) /cannot/ freeze in. Never use a reference for action unless it's something like a photo from a sports game or a freeze-frame from a video, because even the stuff that sort of looks like action is really someone posing... and therefore, /balanced/ so they won't fall, and that's artificial.

Of course, for all I know you're totally not using photo or other refs like that, so what do I know. :P But I try.

Inkdust said...

Thank you! It's funny that you say Rue looks alive because I think she has the same sort of dead-eyed limp quality as Saffron.

That's really good advice! I'll keep that in mind. n_n My art would probably look a lot better if I used references more often. I want to get away from stagnant and closer to life!