The Alphabet Challenge | Z

Z is for Ziggy

I was in refusal for this challenge to end without doing someone from LazyTown. I considered Sportacus and Robbie Rotten prior to their replacements and third time lucky decided no Z character was more deserving than Ziggy Zweets.

Ziggy was a difficult character to find references for actually, and I had to turn to the cartoon illustration of him as a result. Though when drawing his head I aimed closer to the puppet than the illustration. As you can see, to finish up this challenge I chose to draw Ziggy in the Drawson style, though he is the only one so far to have such tiny eyes!

Ziggy was fun to create, it brought back memories to draw him (I only ever did it once before most probably on a T Shirt about eleven years ago). Given that information, I may consider this the first time I had drawn Ziggy. It took me about a couple of days to have him ready for ink and so his line art would be done the next.

Sadly winter is here and so once it gets dark (which I savour mid afternoon), it is incredibly unwise to ink your illustrations with a colour like yellow or a skin tone. Anything brighter than orange or equal to a pastel colour and it's not worth the risk I reckon. The next day I used my daylight to ink Ziggy, using my brush markers (felt tips for the blues and skin tone) and Ziggy was at last completed.

And that's it, the Alphabet Challenge has been completed! My schedule had me complete this challenge through the course of 2017, though only by now have you been able to see entrants Y and Z. I will some time soon make a post dedicated to my hindsight for the Alphabet Challenge for those of you who may be considering this challenge yourselves.

Have you seen the letter Y? If not you can check it out via my page for the 'Alphabet Challenge' as well as previous entries. This is Droey Drawson, thanking you all for sticking around through this challenge. Look out for future content coming every week!

The Original Droey and Co. Profiles

As I promised last week, I was going to put the original profiles (traditionally drawn) on a post so that they would not be lost to the sands of time. By now, the digital versions will have replaced them so their home is now here. I'll also talk a little about making these, which was almost or excactly a year ago by now!

Firstly here is the profile image for Droey Drawson.

The creation of this profile was to join the trend of #MeetTheArtist, hence why Droey's profile contained more than the other two. I created a few little pictures of Droey to go around the profile. Highlighters were used to create the text boxes since at the time I had no pastel inks.

As you can see a lot has changed about Droey, from his ears to his feet. Looking back, the proportions for his face are quite different, even off in this particular piece. The little photographs did a better job than the actual profile illustration!

Next up is the image for Tenvad.

Tenvad bar one minor change is the only character to had lacked an evolution. Her colour scheme, and proportions have always remained the same. One thing I always used to have to do with Tenvad was to colour in her screen with a Crayola pencil; this is because no pen could match to the shade of her screen and even though the original illustration of her was in pen, was not satisfied with any of my green pens doing the job. Now I have a pastel green which is close enough to do the job for her.

And finally the image for Anne Natalie

Anne has been an unusual case. She was created to be alongside the other two as the trio that would form 'Droey and Co.' and is intended to feature in their debut adventure (whenever I get around to that!), yet I have done little to really establish or develop her beyond being a fashion designer. Perhaps some illustrations in the future I will have a more developed Anne Natalie to talk about.

As for the artwork, the only changes she has seen are with the change of the style, matching up to how the bodies are now drawn. There was a point when I thought of drawing her toes as little stubs on the end of the generic foot shape but now her toes are drawn the same way as they are here, just applied to the new style for feet.

Overall there is little that has changed for these three over the past year. But I can remember being proud of this double page spread when I created it, so now to look back and be tempted to ridicule some parts of it, makes things alright. Like how people change, art should change with them and the artist should be improving every day. If I was still as proud of this piece as I was a year ago, and considering it as good as my current works, then I would have most probably wasted a whole year's worth of art.

Don't feel ashamed to criticise your old work, it means you're getting better. But just as importantly, don't show disrespect for your old work, for it's part of the journey that led to where you are now and could have been essential to your development. It would be a mistake to be rid of your old work, I should know for I willingly abandoned an entire year's worth of work a few years ago.

On a lighter note, allow me to remind you all that the new and improved character profiles for these three characters are now on the 'Droey and Co.' page on this blog as well as a poster featuring all three of them. That's all for now, so get creating and I'll see you next time!

Iron Jaiden and The Oddfather

I created this a couple of months ago, in fact I might even have been one of the first to make some fan art of DrawWithJazza's second YouTube heroes collection. I had watched some of TheOddOnesOut's videos before and was already a fan of JaidenAnimations so that particular video was a real treat for me.

With these two animators receiving avatars in this collection, I couldn't resist making a comic book cover style illustration.

Coming up with a pose for Jaiden was fairly difficult. I knew that what I had in mind was for Jaiden to be coming down on her villain, ready to attack. Ideally the arms were going to be stretched out so w could see both of her finger guns as well as having Ari swooping down from above. However I was struck with inspiration when I saw a cosplayer for the game series 'Tomb Raider', a picture of Lara Croft jumping. She was holding guns as well so it felt like the perfect match for Iron Jaiden.

As for The Oddfather, this required little reference as I had such a vivid image of his pose that I was able to create the majority of it from my memory. Given his pantomime villain-esque look, I had he idea of him crouching over, armed with a weapon and ready to strike back at Iron Jaiden. I gave James a Kusurigami (I hope I am spelling that right) shaped like the microphone on his 'ASMR for villains' book. Because Jazza's design had no clothing besides the cape, I gave James some briefs, though in hindsight I should've given him shorts.

Super Ari was an easy task, one I had the references for him after looking through a few Ari videos. It fun to draw a bird flying but with the use of a cape; perhaps he's gliding, or falling with style. I only wish I had done a better job on the motion lines behind him, to me they look rather messy.

Honestly I had so much fun with this piece and have since been very satisfied with the result. I can't wait to see who Jazza adds to the YouTuber Cinematic Universe next and maybe even make some art from that. Maybe there are more artist YouTubers he is considering?

Jazza is keen to see any fan art of this collection so if you have any, be sure to send it to him, heck maybe even link him to this one. If you have yet to see the YouTuber Cinematic Universe series, I highly recommend that you give them a watch.

New Art For Droey and Co.

As you can tell on the sidebar of the blog, the Droey image has been changed to suit his current image (his design actually changed earlier on in my time on this blog). What nobody else knew was that additionally I had made digital artwork for Tenvad and Anne Natalie as well!

The three of them now have their own profile images, replacing the original images on the page 'Droey and Co.', I will be posting the original images on the next week. Here however you have the honour of seeing the original version of the poster that will now appear on the top of the character page, which is intended to feature all characters of the Droey Drawson collection in digital format. This won't be something that changes so frequently, as my access to Photoshop is rather limited.

So here is the poster of Droey, Tenvad and Anne Natalie here. However like I said, the other three images can be viewed on the page 'Droey and Co.' not this post. Have a good day all!

The Alphabet Challenge | Y

Y is fo Yoko Littner

From the very start of this challenge, I have had in mind who I wanted to depict for Y. Yoko is one of the lead characters from the anime Gurren Laggan, the token female armed with a rifle and a rather light amount of clothing (characters in this anime started out living underground). Without a doubt Gurren Lagann is my favourite anime, for it's art style and the premise of the show itself.

Now onto the creation of Yoko as you see her here. I was decide on giving her the digital job, since the only other entrant to be illustrated digitally would be Eve, my second ever attempt at Photoshop art. While my style on this software has not changed much, I have learnt enough to make the job quicker and work more confidently. Perhaps take a look back at Eve and see if you can spot any differences in how I work with Photoshop?

I wanted to depict Yoko as close to her style as possible, rather than draw her in my Drawson style. in the end I seemed to settle for my more realistic style, with the anime face. I took a few studies of Yoko since this would be the first time I drew her and oh my, she was not an easy character to draw. My biggest struggle lied within her head, getting the face to look like Yoko's face and matching her hair style which I inevitably simplified.

I did try for a more dynamic pose but given how challenging Yoko was proving the be, I decided to play safe and draw her standing (with a little more liveliness) and have Yoko point a finger gun. After a bit of struggle and experimentation I was settled on what I was going to do and what style to use; you may notice I even considered using the art style from 'Panty and Stocking'!

Like with Eve, I drew her traditionally and then scanned her onto a computer to do the Photoshop magic, which took half the time that I spent on Eve. This time I was going to do cell shading, although in hindsight I would have liked to try the gradient style shading I had learnt from 'DrawingWiffWaffles'. Regardless, I think the colour work is superb on this one and I even changed the outline colour to a very dark red to ease up on the contrast.

I honestly wish this was how the Alphabet Challenge was ending, since I am so proud of how Yoko turned out. While comparing her to Ace Lightning would be a bit like apples and oranges, I get the feeling there may be a show of progress somewhere. Ace was the first piece on the blog I think and since I have grown confidence with drawing in a more realistic style, even though the cartoon style is where I belong.

Lastly I want to thank everyone for being patient with this one, both Yoko and Z were intended to be released in December and I still produced both in time for those originals deadlines, but I didn't want them being outshined by the Santa and Elle series being published at the time. Z will be released before the month is out, and then that's it for the Alphabet Challenge.

Have you seen the letter X? If not, you can check it out on my page for the 'Alphabet Challenge' as well as previous entries. Look out for Z, the final entry, coming soon!

Sarah Jane Smith meets Mr. Bump

Now that Christmas is over, I suppose many people are looking forward to the summer, so here's a scene on the beach. Some of you may recognise this if you have read the original Mr. Men books.

For those of you who once in your life read Mr. Bump, you may recall a time when he went on holiday and got his foot stuck in a bucket, then himself in a giant hole! Sarah Jane is also on holiday and has discovered the trapped Mr. Bump while looking for the perfect spot on the beach.

With this illustration, I would like you inform you that I am considering (please bear the word 'considering' in mind) providing you some more story based content in the form of a spin-off based on the Dr. Men books by Adam Hargreaves. I have got six to seven stories in the works, one of them already written and once I've decided how to go about producing it as presentable content, I may actually release the stories for you all to enjoy.

The reason I am doing this is based on the Santa and Elle series that I did back in December, which was very successful but also very enjoyable for me to create. While this time around the characters would not be my own, I would still be writing my own stories and focusing on characters I am passionate about.

For those of you who might not be interested in either franchises the spin-off is based on, you needn't fear. This series would not completely take over the blog, and if I did create these stories, they would not consume my schedule. I intend to br ask each of the stories into chapters and release them weekly or daily, alongside other content for the blog.

Like I said, none of this is set in stone and there'd still be a lot to do if I were to make this a possibility. For now it remains an idea; though I'd like to think it would become a reality, be it in storybook format, as a web comic or even (and the most unlikely) an animated web series. Only time will tell; but for now, enjoy the upcoming content and stick around in case of further news.

24 Facial Expressions - Droey Drawson [1 Year Anniversary]

As of today, Droey's Draws has been going for one year! They always say the first years are the hardest when you express your content, well I've made it through the first of them. So here I release what actually inspired me to last month's facial expressions challenge, the original attempt at the challenge.

I could only fit twenty four of them on this sheet, but I have prepared the twenty fifth face and will release it next week. I must thank DrawingWiffWaffles for inspiring me to do this challenge because I have learnt more from it than any other challenge I've tried.

Now I've been drawing characters and faces for the longest time, knowing what sort of expressions to use and such. But I have never sat down and drawn one character in such a wide variety of expressions. Of course when drawing yourself, something like this should be easy since you just have to remember a moment you felt whichever feeling you're drawing.

I must point out it was quite a struggle for some faces, for some you might not even recall having made, yet you probably have. For those you don't remember, you have to put yourselves in a situation where you think you'd act in such a way (not literally) and it's quite an excessive for the brain. This was the case for my flirty face, I can honestly not recall a moment when I have used that face.

Emotional understanding is something I have struggled with, it's thanks to the work of art that I have come to understand he human face and while I've still plenty to learn, I fell I have learnt quite a bit. The same is the case for having learnt during my time on Droey's Draws, if I struggle with anything, it's getting the ball rolling when I have a project to do. I am proud to have kept on drawing all this time and intend to keep on drawing for a long time to come. A few years ago I was almost thrown off creating art and now I am doing it weekly for the world to see. Thank you everyone who has stuck around, I hop  you are happy to continue to stick around and enjoy art of Droey Drawson.

2018 Mix'n'Match Shipping - Poll Now Open!

Last year I let you decide which two fictional characters I would draw together, finding out if they had any chemistry; this led to Danny Zuko and Princess Leia embracing each other's company. Now comes the time when we get to do that again!

There are two polls available in the sidebar of this blog so that you can chose both members of the couple, and here is this year's line up:

Belle and Beast [Beaty and The Beast]

Superman and Wonder Woman [Justice League]

Lego Batman and Lego Joker [Lego Batman Movie]

Kiosk Keith and Kiosk Kath [I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here]

Flynn Rider and Rapunzel [Tangled]

Raven and Raven Of Old [Raven CBBC]

Doctor Who and Doctor Who [Tom Baker and Jodie Whittaker]

Jack Dawson and Rose Dawson [Titanic]

Olaf and Miguel [Olaf's Frozen Adventure / Coco]

Tarzan and Jane [The Legend Of Tarzan (film)]

Now bear in mind the intention is to ship a character with someone outside of their franchise. This is normally deemed as a horrible internet trend, so I save such the idea of this time of year to amuse people. We don't have to take this seriously and you can have as much fun as you like with choosing the couple. The top two will be put together, but will they work it out together or will it be a failed date? The results are in your hands!