Last night on my twitter I sent out a tweet asking people to suggest things for me to sketch. I’ve been thinking of doing this for a while, so with the New Year as an excuse and no motivation to do, um, real work, I thought I might as well get my rusty drawings hands a bit of a work out. I got six suggestions, and though it took me until 2 am I got them all done. Here they are, in the order I was asked, and the order I drew them.
@cynduja asked for “a ghost doll” — I suppose I could have cheated and presented a blank page, then said the ghost was invisible, but this came out instead. I’m generally happy with the face and the somewhat awkward pose, but since drapery is my achilles heel I drew none on this doll when I would have quite liked to.
@jun6lee requested “Amitabh from his Mohabbatein avtaar getting his head chipped at by a woodpecker” — um, okay. My unfortunate skew while drawing is most apparent here (look at this beard) which I really need to work on, and the bird is rushed, rushed rushed, but overall I’m happy with it. Celebrity caricatures were never something I was interested in, but this at least looks vaguely like the celebrity in question.
@SudhishKamath wanted “DPs for @Doodherman and @Udderrwoman” — I did not, as initial impulses will dictate, want to make the woman with Attack boobs (or is that Attack udders). I suppose the milk-can on the guy’s head is an homage to every kid who’s repurposed household vessels as helmets.
Drawing wise this too has the dreaded skew, and I really need to learn some anatomy instead of this cut-and-paste pieces of shorthand approach that I currently have. It works, but in very, very limited ways.
@thedilettante wanted “Stylised owls!” Well, here’s One. Of all six sketches this is the one I like the most, even though I went a bit overboard and unthinking with the grey brush pen on the background. It does’t look half as bad the morning after, which is some consolation, but for a moment there I thought I’d ruined the whole damn thing. The owl itself has some personality — albeit generic — which is good.
@electrocowbellrequested “a DJ badger.” Of all of these this was the quickest sketch, and it shows. Not exactly happy with it, but it gets the job done, I guess.
@Kazarelth‘s request was the most complex: “Five polar bears playing a card game underwater wearing frilly panties and enjoying a nice glass full of oxygen.”
So I did that. I think the composition could be much tighter, and the drawing too, but I’m happy with the stylisation on the bears, and may re-do this as a proper illustration one day.
Well, that’s it. I would like to do this again, and maybe even make it a regular thing. It certainly helps to get those illustration brain cells and muscles working.