Suddenly struck me that
the two (coloured) drawings of cartoon characters I really liked from
my childhood (Tygra from Thundercats and Maid Marian from the
animated Robin Hood) were both gingers. Maybe I’m a closet
gingophile.
Anyway, I have done
some drawings. It was really surprising how quickly I did my attempts
at Tygra/Maid Marian (each pencil sketch was begun and done in one
session, often it takes me a lot longer). Colouring naturally took
longer, and I brightened the Marian colours (the scene from which the
screenshot I used was at night so everything was subdued).
Fairly pleased with
both of them although there’s still many things to improve. One
that might not be obvious with the Tygra drawing is that I started it
too high up on the page, so the forehead/hair aren’t quite as high
as they should be, which has the knock-on effect of pushing the
stripes closer together.
For Marian, the
headgear is too high. I also found her eyes very tricky (pleased with
his the fur turned out, though, especially as I haven’t done much
of that).
Both drawings, as
indicated, were just me copying screenshots.
The dragon, currently
uncoloured/unshaded, is a different kettle of monkeys. It’s part of
a lesson included in Steve Beaumont’s How To Draw Fantasy Worlds,
which is perhaps a little above my head. The scan I’ve posted is
not the end of the lesson but I wanted to get it scanned at this
stage, before any shading occurs (I haven’t done much shading and
I’d be loath to bugger up a drawing that, at this stage, looks
mostly ok).
I haven’t drawn many
monsters/animals, so this was an interesting challenge. I didn’t stick completely to Beaumont’s guidance (I’ve made the wings
folded, added a small number of spiky bits, and not included the
skull at the foot of the page). Whilst mostly happy with it at this
stage, it’s clear my eye/hand is a bit lacking when it comes to
fine detail, and I find the male figure a bit tricky. The dragon’s
head looks reasonable although I got the proportions a bit wrong
(it’s meant to be a little longer/more crocodilian).
Unlike the ginger
cartoon characters, it took me a long time to get to the current
stage of the dragon drawing. Have to see how the shading turns out.
Thaddeus
