BoS Drawing Challenge - #38 Abandoned

Struggled to get an idea for this theme word to begin - then I looked at a list of abandoned fictional characters. These two seemed like a natural pick :

Not super great. I quickly sketched out a bit of a background so Hansel wasn't just hanging in dead white space. I think I like Gretel a bit better here. The cage was a little tricky to do. I had the grand idea to make it look like it was tied together out of bones - then I dropped that idea like a hot spud when I realized how much longer that was going to take me !

Helping Hand - 'Chez Awesome' logo

My good friend Jenni asked me this morning if I would be able to draw something for her - a logo for her flatmate film collective 'Chez Awesome'. As Eek the cat says - it never hurts to help !

The brief - like the MGM logo, but with a kaiju monster instead of a lion.

I did this tonight after the kids were in bed, while I was listening to the audio commentry on the 'Aliens' blu-ray :

Not bad for a first attempt. The scrolling only existing on the right hand side in the original. On photoshop it's an EASY matter to copy, paste and flip horizontal. Copying it by hand in reverse would be a damn sight harder ! A simple text added via Photoshop with some stroke outline, a little bevel and a drop shadow.

The Latin text is supposed to translate to 'Big Monsters Rule'. I think Jenni would approve.

If she likes it, I'll proceed to tidying it up and colouring it.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #37 Eyes

Gotta get ready for work - but I wanted to post this before I went :

The Pale Man - from 'Pan's Labyrinth', the best film I never want to see again ever.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #36 Precious Treasure

I was going to post this early this morning - but then the eldest got up while I was still in the shower, and the youngest shortly after and I didn't get a chance ! But - better late than never, eh ? :

Really - what else was I going to do ? :-)

Well - I did have this idea too, which I present as a silly extra / small bonus :

Just a VERY quick sketch - but I think it's fun.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #35 Hold My Hand

Ico and Yorda from the PS2 game 'Ico' - an under appreciated classic.

The Indoor Kids - Merch contest #2 - Final

Super busy day with the kids - I've had about an hour to sit down with the art and get it finished. Not terribly great, but here it is :

I DO like the 'BFFFB' thing ( Best Friends Forever Fist Bump ). The halftone effect wasn't quite as groovy as I thought it would be. Ah well - this was pretty much an exercise, I'm totally not expecting to place ! If it gives the guys on the podcast a laugh, I'll consider it a success.

The Indoor Kids - Merch contest #2

I was listening to one of my favourite gaming podcasts the other day - The Indoor Kids - and they announced they were having another merch design contest. I did an 'Angry Birds' themed one last time, and a Bioshock one too - but neither was a winner.

I have BUGGER ALL time to get something in for this one, so I set to tonight. It's going to be real simple this time. Seeing the hosts are a married couple, I wanted to get something which linked to video games ( obviously ) and also had some kind of male / female connection. I thought a 'fist-bump' between the Street Fighter II characters of Blanka :

and Chun-Li :

might be a fun thing. They were always my favourite characters, and the ones I did best with back in the arcades. The fist-bump thing would also be a nice little joke, playing on the brutal violence of the Street Fighter II game.

First thing first - sketch of a fist-bump :

which was actually two seperate sketches I melded together in Photoshop. Then - a slightly more defined sketch over those using the tablet :

Once that was done, it was time to get the lines down using the path tool :

The brush width was set a little bigger than I thought it was - but I kinda liked the thick lines, so I kept going. Not bad so far - the next step will be get some colour down, maybe some gentle layer effects ( I like the idea of a half-tone effect - but I'm damned if I know how to do colour versions of that ... ) and a title with 'The Indoor Kids' featured semi-prominently.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #34 Stars - final

Here's the final composite. A bit rushed, and I would have liked to add some colour - but it's done. Ish :

BoS Drawing Challenge - #34 Stars - prelim work

Well - school is back in session, and about to get SUPER freaking busy as we wind up to the seniors leaving. Things have been busy looking after Lorenzo - so I'm feeling bad I'm slipping a little with the BoS drawings. In an effort to remove some of the guilt - here is what I've done so far on number 34 :

That is Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S agents from Raccoon City, as they appear in the first 'Resident Evil' video game. Jill is mostly done, while Chris is mostly a sketch at the moment. Still - it shows I'm still going ! 

BoS Drawing Challenge - #33 Expectations - finished

Done now :

Expecting to fly.

Took a little longer than I thought it would. Not a bad effort in the end. The body shape / proportions aren't great, and neither is the face - but I like the wings.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #33 Expectations - development

Something a bit different for today. I decided to try doing number 33 exclusively with digital media - which is a fancy way of saying I was going to so it ALL on the computer, rather than do the 'sketch and scan' thing I usually do.

I started out by doing a rough drawing in blue :

This is so I could do a slightly more refined outline sketch in black over it on another layer :

Then I could remove the early blue outlines and add in a gray background :

Then - I went over the lines with the vector tool :

Not bad so far. I need to refine some of the lines a bit more, and add a bit of colour. But I'm kinda tired now, so I'll leave that till tomorrow !

BoS Drawing Challenge - #32 Night

It's been a busy week. I think I'm mostly recovered from the virus I had, though most nights over the last week I've been REALLY tired, and I've tried to get early nights.

Anyway - I've just finished a rough colour job on number 32, so here it is :

It took a little bit to think of something to link to the theme word of 'night' - and I did think of doing Batman ( the dark knight ) again. Here we have a Night Elf - from the 'World of Warcraft' game. I've never played it - mainly because I know how addicted I'd become to it, and I also abhor the idea of a monthly fee to play a game. I like to think I;ve given this archer slightly more sensible armor than the Night Elves usually seem to have ( it mostly seems like they wear the armored bikini's you see a lot on fantasy art ). I made some errors in the original line work that I was able to fix up easily enough in Photoshop - though I'm not happy with the face. It's well wrong. Other than that it's not too bad.

BoS Drawing Challenge - #31 Flowers

I had some trouble thinking of an appropriate thing ( for me ) on the idea of 'flowers'. Eventually this idea hit me :

This is supposed to be Lord Soth, Knight of the Black Rose - a Death Knight from the 'Dragonlance' novels. He was a character I really liked. Well, as much as you can like a villain, anyway.

A bit of a stretch perhaps - but I like the finished image !