Christmas Fun

A week ago a friend of mine, Kelley McMorris, posted a really cute redraw of a drawing she'd done as a kid. She posted the original doodle from her 8 year old self, then her redraw of it side by side. It was cute and really neat, so I thought when I went home for the holiday I'd try it if I could find some childhood drawings of mine.

I sat down yesterday and redrew "Ivy the Centaur," a drawing from when I was around 13 years old:

I think this is the first centaur I've drawn since I was 13 years old.

It was really fun to do, so I picked a different drawing from when I was 14 or so and did that one today. I think I remember the character was supposed to be a goddess of whales, in human form? Sadly I didn't really document my character creation process very well back then. ;)

"Urscia," goddess of whales

Overall it was pretty funny redrawing childhood drawings, I might do some more while I'm home for the holidays.

Drawing from Reference

I always have a lot of characters floating around in my head, and as I've mentioned in earlier blog entries I like to unwind drawing people. My passion for concept art is about telling a story - usually I like to do that through an environment, but characters have very personal stories inside of them and that makes them pretty fun to draw. I suppose I enjoy drawing women because I am one, and I identify with female characters more personally. I have nothing against drawing men!

While my pencil drawings are usually pretty standard poses and come out of my own head, sometimes I like to get references and often there will be an image that really jumps out at me. I was browsing around this afternoon and found a couple of cool images that inspired me, so I used them as the basis for some quick drawings of one of my characters:

Image courtesy of Tigg-stock

Look at that awesome cape!

Image courtesy of ec-stock

This particular character of my inventing leads a dual life as a noble woman and a warrior. They are simple line drawings with minimal rendering, but taking a break from environments and doing something different from time to time has a recharging effect on me.

I've seen lots of people struggle, and I think it's important to remember when working with reference not feel married to your reference. It can be easy to feel trapped by a reference photo, but it's just an aid in making a drawing. Costume, facial features, even the pose can be changed... the photo is just there to serve as a reminder of what the natural form looks like.

Doodles

I was throwing out a bunch of computer paper from my desk today and took a few  pictures of some more lady doodles. I don't remember who all of them are but there's a Triss Marigold from Witcher 1 and my old KOTOR 1 Revan with the black ponytail in there.

Trying a new style

I got inspired by some pieces I saw the other day that heavily used photo compositing, so I decided to try it out. I like the results a lot. The following pieces I did in about 3-4 hours this afternoon:

Snow practice:

Castle ruins: