Sketchy Von Sketcherson

I've been putting off updating the past few weeks because I didn't feel I had enough to warrant a post. Eventually, yesterday, I thought I should probably just gather what I could so it didn't look like I'd gone to Bermuda and been lost in the Triangle. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a huge amount of stuff to post. Well, alright, not huge, but far more than I've happily posted alone in the past.

A further surprise was discovering that very little of it was all out bad - this is funny because while drawing it I thought most of it was dreadful, and bemoaned losing my mojo to sickness. Perhaps I just lost my perspective... Or perhaps I've lost it now because I'm sick, again (I know, this winter's been crazy for teh sikcies). Either way, there's no good or bad this time, just "Not so bad" and "Not so good".  I'll start with some portrait sketches.

Not so Bad
Some of these look nothing like the folks they're based on, but look like quite nice pictures in their own right (That's supposed to be Robert Duval int he hat for example). Others, like Jezza Clarkson in the middle there, look quite like themselves. Still more, such as the girl in the top right and centre left, aren't based on anyone, but I still quite like them.

Not so Good
See? None of these are truly dreadful, and those that come close to dreadfulville are detoured away by having an odd charm to them. I have an especial fondness for the thumbs up chap with a mustache for some reason. Only one of these is based on reference. I think it's obvious enough that I'll let you work out which for yourselves.

Now it's time to move on to some figure and gesture sketching

Not so Bad
Nothing terribly exciting here - most, though not all, are based off reference such as the random pose viewer or anatomy books, but while not being terribly exciting they are fairly good. I've even used perspective on a couple of them...

Not so Good
Now I'm looking at them again I think there are some that should have been in the Not So bad image and some of those that should be here. Lots of these are borderline "okay" (despite that poor woman in the top right's hideous visage). I quite like the little fight scene, and Mopey Joe in the top left looks oddly like someone I know.

Next up, prepare yourselves, it's time for something horrible!

Feet
Feet are gross aren't they? Except for you, with your foot fetish; step back please and try and hide the grin. So, kinda icky, but also considered rather hard to draw. You'll not that I've rarely drawn them over the last year. This wasn't a conscious choice, I just didn't have need to, but it did mean I needed to practice. Expect quite a few feet and the occasional hand from now on because practice makes perfect no matter how boring it is for the observer.

Regardless, some of these look fairly good, some of them are a little freakish. Only two are based on real feet (and I mean real, not photos, no photo reference for once). One is mine, and one is my wife's. Don't ogle the wrong one mister fetishist please.

And Finally
Just some random sketches that I thought were fun. I now realise I missed one, so that can go in next months round. Why a dinosaur pirate with a robot parrot (Though at least one person thinks it's an alligator - I can live with that)? My son's birthday is rapidly approaching and he wants a pirate dinosaur robot party. He's turning 4, what can you do? I like him (Dino Pirate, Son is a given), though I wished I'd used some reference for his hat as it looks a little wonky to me.

Top right is a demon/fairy/bat-girl thing. I don't recal why I drew that one, but I sort of like her - maybe I'll do a more finished piece. Finally there's Guffaw the Mighty... I mean Thor the Mighty, from the upcoming motion picture experience. I'm quite looking forward to it, even though I evidently can't draw him.

Social Profiling № 4: Annette

Up until last week I knew bugger all about She-ra. Actually, that's not entirely true; I knew that she existed (in a not existing because she's fictional kind of way), I knew roughly what she looked like, and I knew she was the Princess of Power (and Eternia) and sister of He-Man. How I knew even this is a mystery to me as I've never seen an episode of the cartoon, or seen one of the action figures (as far as I can recall). I have to wonder if she made guest appearances on He-Man and I know her from those, in much the same way as Dora the (bloody) Explorer and Go Diego Go (hell of a name that) turn up on each others shows and yell at each other for half an hour at a time while solving simple issues in the most complicated way imaginable*.

Anyway, I knew very little about her, but this is no longer the case thanks to Annette, as you will see...

Click it for ENORMITUDE!

Yes, She-Ra is blonde, so clearly this is not really She-Ra. It is Annette in the last of the set of four profile pictures I decided to do for friends on Facebook (if you missed them you can find the others here, and here, and also here).

I've known Annette since forever. That's not actually true,but I've known her long enough that I have no recollection of meeting her for a first time. I know it was long before she turned 18 because she turned 18 on the same trip to Florida that Owain did, and I'd known her for some years prior to that. So we go back a ways.

Despite this I know probably as much about her as I did about She-Ra. Isn't that terrible? Oh, I know a lot about who she was, but much less about who she is now. Since we last really hung out (no, not like that, just platonic) lots has happened - it's been a looooong time. Far too long now I come to think of it. Anyway, the upshot of this is that I was left with a conundrum when it came to painting her picture. What to paint it of (You know the answer to this because you've seen it, but bare with me 'k)?

I could take the easy way out and just paint a picture directly from a nice profile pic (as I did with Owain, something I've already mentioned regretting), but that wasn't appealing.  At one point I was going to do her stepping out of the TARDIS (stop it will you? Platonic remember?), but while that was a reasonable idea it wasn't a great one, so I moved on. Eventually, after fretting over it for a while, I looked through the available pictures again and saw this one:

Now this time around I was tired, and the thumbnail made it look as though the fillies right ear was a Unicorn horn.  This seemed promising.  Then I found another profile pic of She-Ra (I can only assume it was from when everyone put up a favourite comic/cartoon character as a profile pic just before Christmas).  Even more promising!  Did She-Ra ride a white horse?  I had vague notions that she may have even ridden a Unicorn.  I looked it up.

She did have a white unicorn... With Rainbow wings.  Called Swift Wind.

I'll wait while that sinks in. Yes, She-Ra's horse was named after a quick chuff. You can't make this stuff up - although clearly someone did.

Anyway, other than having the universe's most flamboyant steed She-ra turns out to be a bit of a badass, and she sports a nice dress to boot. My course was set; Tonight Mathew, Annette will be She-Ra (That's a British reference by the way - Trust me non-Brits, they're rolling in the isles... oh never mind).

Firstly though I had to do something about the horse. It's a beautiful horse, but it's not particularly lively. Some reference hunting was needed. While I was at it I got a different picture of Annette, and references for the wings and dress and so on. Here are the most relevant.

Once I had that lot I started sketching.  The initial sketch was OK, but I didn't have photo of Annette open at the time, so I threw in a head from memory.  Once I'd bothered to dig out her mugshot I went back and fixed it.  Turns out Annette has a really difficult face to draw.  You can see she's very attractive from the photos, but she's got one of those faces that is hard to capture.  One pencil line's width off and your left with a picture that looks nothing like her.  I struggled with it for quite some time.  Eventually I said "Hell with this, I'll just trace her face!", brought in the photo to trace, scaled it and lined it up only to discover that the one I'd drawn already was pretty much exactly the same, just her hair line was wrong.  So I didn't trace it after all since her hairline would be hidden anyway. Hurm.

Here's the final sketch I worked from if you're interested:

So from there the rest was just painting. Rather than post a lot of images I'll just do that thing with the Animated gif so you can see the progression. Like so:

And there you have it.

I'm not totally happy with the results to be honest. Her anatomy is a little off, It doesn't look quite as much like her as I would have liked, the gold is a little unimpressive and her belt and leg are wonky, but I learned a lot and Annette seems to like it, which are the important things.

I did cheat a little with the colour correction (Where the dress and horse pop from grey to white in the image there). It was that or do a lot of repainting, and I was feeling lazy. Also, feathers are sods to paint, just so you know.

So the experiment is at an end. I may do it again some day, and I may paint some of those who weren't chosen as one of the four just for fun, although in those cases it'll be just a speed paint of a photo rather than a custom job. These really took somewhat longer than I'd intended - but I hope you'll agree that the extra time was worth it.

Incidentally I clearly lied when I said I'd have something to post between the final two social profiling posts. I have no defense (Other than illness and a weakness for video games), I've been slacking. I vowed to myself that I would do something creative every day, and I have done just that - unfortunately not all of it is "artistic" in the manner that would end up on the blog here. That said, I have some other things to post, I just haven't done it yet...

* If you hadn't realised already, I dislike Dora and Diego with a passion, but I'll sit through it with my Son. I do tend to spoil it for him a bit by pointing out the stupidity of digging under a wall when you could just go over it - or even around it as it's only 10 feet long... or was that Mickey? I should stop now shouldn't I?