Eddsworld Fan Art

Back in my early teens, I discovered a series of videos created by someone who would become a bit of an inspiration to me, While many of you may recognise Tom Ridgewell, known as Tomska, there is also someone he was close to, the late Edd Gould. Edd is responsible for the web series known as Eddsworld and even though Edd is no longer around, his show stuck around for a bit longer to continue his legacy. So here is a bit of fan art for the four most famous members of the Eddsworld cast.

Left to right we have Tom in the signature blue hoodie. Next is Edd himself, the cola obsessed leader of the group. The third member is Matt, whose design has changed more than other characters, though most commonly known for his green overcoat on a purple hoodie. Lastly there is the fourth and former member of the team, Tord. Tord was probably depicted the most differently from his real life counterpart.

I tried drawing them in a style similar to the official Eddsworld style, while adding my own spin to it.  I kept only the hoodies coloured, while the rest is in black and white. Additionally I made a background that used much paler colours of everyone's hoodies to help the white fragments of each character stand out better.

When I Needed You [Trying out something different]

Okay, this isn't something I'll do often but I wanted to give it a shot. I was inspired to write some poetry and even create an art piece to go with it, so you're kind of in for a double feature today!

This piece was a two colour challenge, the chosen colours being blue and pink. I obviously wanted something that fitted well with the poem and so focuses on the concept of trust. But I didn't to show someone being supported by the other, I wanted to show them both supporting each other. I think the best way to show this is with the trust excersise shown in a marvellous Disney film, The Emperor's New Groove! Without further ado, I'll present the art and the poem now, you'll be able to find sketches for this piece after the poem. I hope you enjoy the read!

I sit alone, days of old are done
I must move on like everyone
To the departing dare I saw goodbye
The world will change and so will I
A bleak abyss of paint awaits
For the innocent to be sealed to their fates
Yes all sounds grim when there's no victory
But not when there's someone with me

I've travelled several times before
For a place where I make myself more
I walk in fear across new land
Is there anyone to lend a hand
I have to hope, I have to reach
And pray that not a soul will breach
Although for Now I have my fear
It's not so strong with someone here

It starts with a chance to be taken
For my smile to once again awaken
Even if my spirit falls too far down
I cannot let another frown
So still I keep my promise to me
Providing support for my company
It's not so bad as I thought
With this new ally I've always sought

By the other I am greeted
And by the friendly warmth I'm heated
Now with their aid my spirit's lifted
As time will pass my fears are shifted
You gave me help I won't forget
And with that I have grown and yet
When comes the future I walk on
Glad even now you are not gone

I give my trust and thus we rise
For them I'm grateful and likewise
Our aid to us gave us our strength
Distance regardless we're at arm's length
With your support I climb up bound
Until my obstacles are drowned
And even when the war is through
We stick together strong as glue
For you were there when I needed you

If you read the full poem then thank you! It's not something I intend to take as a profession but I thought I'd give it a shot, provide some more depth to the artwork posted here today. Have a good day all!

Mac and Quaid Dancing

I couldn't let February pass without doing a piece starring Mac and Quaid, the now married couple who were introduced over a year ago on the blog. So here they are having a dance!

My reason for doing this came from a video I watched that was teaching how to draw dance, it tempted me to draw a dancing character and since out of the cast Quaid is the dancer, it made sense to draw him dancing. After looking around at some dancing poses, I found a wonderful picture of two people dancing and knew I had to recreate this, giving Mac the second role.

I have never drawn any dance in the Drawson style so it was entirely a matter of trying out the new when it came to sketching the dance. I think despite the right foot, I had an easier time sketching for Mac, Quaid's pose was like nothing I had ever seen before! After a couple of sketches for Quaid, I decided I was ready to go in for the real thing.

There's little to be said about the sketching and inking, except from how I struggled to fit them both in the space provided. I started by sketching Quaid only to realise there'd be no room for Mac, and then in the second sketch vice versa happened. Third time lucky, I shrunk down their size and found that I had only just made them the right size! Now they could both to positioned together just as was intended.

I was going to give this piece ink colouring, but I changed to pencil instead and I am so glad that I did! I started with the circular background of the spotlight shining directly between the couple and afte applying five different colours, it is one of the most beautiful backgrounds I have created! After the background I coloured the highlights, which there are three of. There's the pink one coming from the spotlight illustrated, then there are also green and orange spotlights which although not illustrated, have made their mark on Mac and Quaid, sorrounding them in the colourful abyss that they dance in.

The colouring for Mac and Quaid themselves was done pretty much the same way I would normally do it, though it has never been done with so many light sources to work around. Therefore the only challenge was applying shaded areas without contrasting with the light sources, otherwise I risked spoiling the beauty that this piece has turned out to be.

This elven actor and buff dancer have appeared from time to time in my content but nothing could ever beat the delight that was their debut in the prompt based illustration done last winter. However now I think that piece has competition for this one just screams that same beauty from the original, with the twist of the Drawson style.

If you want to know more about Mac and Quaid, you'll be able to find them throughout the blog's archive and if you want to see more of them, you're in luck because they'll be coming back again in the future, along with Droey and Co. and the rest of the blog's original characters!

Monopo-Lottie | Introducing Lottie Line

Before I get talking about today's art piece, it's time to introduce you to our new addition to the group. In the middle is Lottie Line, as you can tell she is pretty good with Monopoly. You'll be seeing more of Lottie in the future as well as the rest of Droey and Co.

So Droey, Anne and Lottie have been playing monopoly and as confident as they all are at the game, nobody has quite matched Lottie's ever growing empire. While Droey and Anne are scraping the bottom of their monopoly wallets, Lottie has managed to put hotels around the go square and is raking in all of the money! Only just now has Droey landed on the most expensive property on the board, Lottie could not feel more triumphant!

Okay, I know, there's only two hotels when by the rules there should be hotels on every property on the set (alternatively four houses) so let's just say they ran out of hotels and Lottie kept them one per set!

This was a delight to create! I put work into my perspective, actually using rulers for the proportions on the set! I can do perspective but I'm a little naughty and like to just do free hand perspective because it is tidier to work with.

I made use of my pastel markers to create a base cost for the characters and props. On top of that I used my pencils to shade and form the intended colours. I love how this has made the colours so much bolder. When colouring with pencils, you do little spots where the paper will stay white but by applying the ink first the white is completely absent. You keep the texture and lose to blank space, you can't lose!

The background, like Droey's skin, was coloured solely with pencils and was intended to match the colour of the monopoly board. However I decided while shading it to make a gradient from green to gold, since this piece reflects a glorious moment for Lottie.

Last thing I wanted to mention, as you know Droey sometimes has a t-shirt for specific events or moments, so here's his monopoly shirt!

Droey's Titans

I really should do more of these cosplaying pieces in future. Since I started the blog, I think this is the second time I've done this! I first did this back in my early days with Droey and Tenvad cosplaying for the action cartoon Ace Lightning, now a full group of friends have come together to cosplay at the Teen Titans!

Droey and Co. have gathered together to form the five man band that is Cartoon Network's Teen Titans. This was fun to create, especially reinterpreting the characters to look almost like the superheroes they pretend to be. Thanks to the textiles expertise of Anne Natalie, these costumes were made possible.

Droey got to be Robin, armed with a cardboard staff! Droey loves his pockets and storage so it was quite clear he'd get to wear the utility belt of the boy wonder. And Tenvad is all dressed up as Cyborg, her arm piece provided by Anne, Tenvad designed the facial makeup herself!

John Esposito got to Beast Boy, it somewhat suits his personality. He only had to find his own outfit in black and Anne supplied him with the customised belt and gloves. Goodness knows how he'll get rid of all of that green face paint and hair dye!

Now you probably thought Anne Natalie was going to be star fire didn't you? Well here she is as Raven instead! She's painted her entire body near enough in grey and put together her own costume. Idea helped her with the hair, it wasn't easy to get those two strands to stay put above her forehead.

Ida Noe was left with Starfire, she didn't chose to be her but she couldn't make her mind up so to her it didn't really matter who she was. John thinks Ida rocks the Starfire look really well, to the point where he kind of wishes he was Robin instead!

I intended for this piece to have only five colours, but picking key colours from each Titan to decorate the group in was not quite so easy as I thought it would be. I did try for it but the robin red is only on the shirt, which would leave Droey very bare. I gave the entire piece a bold yellow outline since nobody really made use of yellow besides Droey.

That's pretty much all there is to this piece, it was a fun bit of cosplay art and a chance to draw Droey and Co. again. Maybe if you're in a group of five this is an idea you can consider if you have any cons or events to go to!

2018 Mix'n'Match Shipping Results

Happy Valentines Day everyone! Or if you prefer, Happy Singles Awarness Day everyone! Since the start of the year you have been voting to decide on which two fictional chargers I would pair up together in this year's piece. For those of you who did vote in this year's poll, I give you my thanks and hope you will be satisfied with the results.

Last year our winning couple was Danny Zuko and Princess Leia. They met when Danny was showing off his new flying car, but he wasn't very helpful with their escaping the Death Star and she didn't like his habit of constantly breaking into song. If not for Chewbecca, Danny would probably still be inisting on their relationship! Now with that numerous recap out of the way, let's get down to business. Here are this year's results.

Now this is the part where I would summarise the runners up and how many of you wanted to see them, but this year I won't be doing that. This is because the results were so close, it was like everyone was equally loved this year! I'll tell you something, if our winners were not on the poll, it would probably be the biggest crossover that I ever create! Of course this means that I don't have anything to stall you with, so without further ado, it is time to move on to the winners of this year's 'Mix'n'Match Shipping' challenge.

And this year's winners are:

Kiosk Keith

(I'm A Celebrity; Get Me Out Of Here 2002 - 2017)

Lego Batman

(The Lego Batman Movie)

Olaf

(Frozen + Olaf's Frozen Adventure)

Rapunzel

(Tangled)

Tarzan

(The Legend Of Tarzan 2016)

Kiosk Kieth was confirmed to have left 'I'm A Celebrity' after the 2017 series. But do not worry, he's doing alright in another jungle! He has started a new business which he calls the Outback Love Shack, a good opportunity for those in the jungle to find and celebrate love. He has already successfully provided his services for Rapunzel and Tarzan and is currently seeing to his newest customers, Lego Batman and Olaf. But Keith's blank expression has led to Lego Batman missing his Joker and so he's put a smile on Keith's face! Olaf loves it!

This turned out way better than I expected and while I don't consider it perfect, it could be so much worse! Thank you everyone who voted for this to become a possibility, I'll most likely be doing this again next year so look forward to giving another twenty people the chance to get paired up for an unlikely date! Normal service will resume this weekend, so I'll see you Friday.

Sellouts - Sexy Benjamin Fan Art

Just want to remind everyone that this Wednesday marks the release of the results and artwork for the annual 'Mix'Match Shipping' challenge! Be sure to come back and find out who the winning couple is!

Last year a game came out that caught the attention of lets players and artists, this was the game Passpartout. When one obnoxious but consistent artist tried his hand at the game, he discovered the internet sensation that is Sexy Benjamin. This built up to a live action take on the game Passpartout starring French Jazza and Sexy Benjamin, here is the recreation of my favourite scene.

I got my best equipment for the task, my Micron liners and my Tombow markers and set to work at the recreation. Quite obviously I was going to use my realistic style otherwise it would be a very different result. I used a thicker liner for the characters to help them stand out further, but as you can see I went around the characters with my white pen just to make sure. You may also notice how some of the inks are blending together now, with the use of my blende markers which have finally been put to use! They're not entirely what I expected but they do the job.

I chose to capture the moment when Jazza confesses to having been sold out while offering Sexy Benjamin some of his baguette (not an euthanism!) because this was the moment that struck me as being the most beautiful. Despite this comedic performance, this moment of kindness was played so well and even out of context stands alone as a beautiful moment that expresses understanding, sympathy, generosity and apology.

I don't often draw scenery but when I do, it means I'm probably going to do it with passion (again not an euthanism!). I didn't want to recreate the upper right corner because most of it was caught in the light of the sun and it was a good place to write the quotation that I use for this piece. It took me a good half hour looking back and forth from my piece to the screen capture, making sure I got enough details and that I got them right. I did have to get creative with the people on the river since you can't tell what they actually look like with the angle of the sunlight.

I am over the moon with how this turned out, it is one of the most beautiful pieces that I have created since starting this blog. Everything from Jazza and Benjamin to the lighting effect on the water (seriously, I don't know how I pulled that off but I love it so much!) just looks so good together. I did my best to make this as accurate as possible and even if it isn't completely accurate, the style is at least consistent in it's quality throughout and I couldn't be happier.

If you haven't yet watched any of the Sexy Benjamin content on DrawWithJazza's channel, I highly recommend it! Don't worry, It's not explicit or anything like that, nothing more than a good genuine laugh.

The Alphabet Challenge | Hindsight

Over the course of 2017 and January 2018, one of the reoccurring things on my blog was the Alphabet Challenge. By now all twenty six entries are available for viewing on the blog and links have been provided on my page for the 'Alphabet Challenge', at least this is the case at the time of posting. Now I'm going to go talk about my experience in one of the biggest art challenges I have accomplished, coming second to my Santa and Elle series.

Who was the easiest or most difficult of the entries?

My easiest entries definitely came early on in the challenge. B wasn't time consuming to creat and resulted in a beautiful piece of some triplets. Given the style back then is outdated and they would look very different now, they still had a great turnout. But the easiest one has to be C, which not only was a quick creation but turned out to be so accurate! I had the right inks and everything, there was no price equipment put to the rest for the creation of that particular entry.

Will you ever do this challenge again?

Not likely, at least not so soon. I won't attempt it again in 2018 and I certainly don't intend to recreate all twenty six entries. If I ever do the challenge again, it will be a long way away. You wouldn't want to see nothing but the Alphabet a Challenge on my blog would you?

What did you learn during this challenge?

I can't really say there's anything I learned in this challenge alone, for I have learnt from creating all of my art in general. But over time I've noticed a number of my poses becoming more dynamic and an improvement to my anatomy.

Who is your favourite entry?

Picking a favourite is not easy. Not only are there twenty six entries to chose from but they are my own work and I've got the task of preferring one to the other. I don't have a specific favourite but I do have some highlights throughout the challenge. There were some very accurate looking entries like C and F, I and O. I can chose a group of entries that I would consider my best work and that consists of L, W, X and Y. Given how the majority of these are not only one after another but have a load of sketches prior to their creation, I suppose it speaks volumes that you should sketch before you create.

How were you inspired to do this challenge?

There are numerous people who have started or completed the Alphabet Challenge and that's why I wanted to do this for myself. I had the intent on focusing on characters that received less attention from the other artists. I should mention that one particular artist had me hyped for this challenge and at the time is still going her take on the latter letters, so thank you DrawingWiffWaffles!

Will there be a replacement for the Alphabet Challenge in the blog's schedule?

I gave the Alphabet Challenge it's own spot on In the schedule, otherwise you would receive a quarter less of my content. While doing the challenge never created a problem for me, I have experience burnout since starting the blog and I don't want to add to the schedule in future. It's a fair bit of work to actually have two art works a week to show so with the exception of special occasions I don't want more than two pieces a week to take up the schedule.

There are rarely any sketches behind any entries up until W, why is this the case?

Back when I started this blog, I rarely sketched prior to composing an art piece, this is not an ideal habit. I would only sketch for something if I considered it important or difficult. Once I moved on to my second sketchbook which was around late October, I discovered that it's pages were not to the quality I had hoped. This meant things had a greater chance of bleeding through or pages buckling. As a result I could have artwork on only one side of each page, which left me with half a sketchbook destined to be empty. But I have made the most of that by improving on the habit of sketching before creating. The entry W coincided with this and as of then you'll see more sketchy work behind each art piece.

What were your thoughts prior to starting this challenge?

I was quite eager to attempt this challenge. I was actually thinking of doing this prior to starting the blog, but when I had decided to set up the blog it made sense to use it as a means for presenting the Alphabet Challenge. I started by listing who I would attempt back in December, the majority of them were decided there and then.

Final Thoughts

This challenge was enjoyable to create and it saw me drawing character I have either never drawn before or could improve on being able to draw. And to this point is also a show of how my work has evolved since the beginning of Droey's Draws. I think this was the best way to get the ship sailing, for now I am frequently creating content for the blog and keeping to a schedule, these I have learnt to manage in my time. In fact only one entry missed it's intended deadline and that was G!

I highly recommend that if you are an artist, experienced or beginning that you attempt this challenge. You can do it at whatever pace you want, scheduled or not. The only rules is that you draw characters that fit with the twenty six letters. Thank you everyone who has stayed with me throughout this challenge, I hope you have liked the artworks created over the past year. They have laid the paving stones for future artworks here at Droey's Draws.

The Realism a challenge - Anne Natalie

When I discovered my more realistic art style, which was formed by the time of my Iron Jaiden cover, I was tempted to conquer the realism challenge at long last. Out of the main three of Droey and Co. I decided to give Anne Natalie the spotlight.

First of all, here is Anne Natalie as you know her, in the Drawson Style.

So firstly, the obvious whenever anyone does this challenge, Anne Natalie has an outline in this piece. So many cartoony styles use outlines around their characters and mine is no exception.

As for the character aesthetics, Anne's eyes are unrealistically round and big, additionally her head is nearly a third of her total size; these being intentional style choices. As for colour, I do like to add shading to the characters but to add a contrast between this and the realistic picture, I used flat colour.

Quite a few things about Anne Natalie exceed the laws of physics, such as strands coming out from her bun or her giant eyelashes. As a cartoonist, it's not wrong to break the laws of physics so long as it's done tastefully, it's a case of finding the right balance of realism and imagination.

And now here's the realistic Anne Natalie, I'm sure you'll be surprised.

So the outline is gone. Now my realistic style does still use an outline but for this challenge I removed the outline completely, to actually make this more challenging and the result more realistic. Given how cartoony Anne's design is, she adapted to the realism style quite nicely.

One of the most dramatic differences is shown in her hair, even though the style is the same, her strands are more flowy and she has longer eyebrows. Additionally the eyelashes have shrunk and are in fact some of the best eyelashes I have ever drawn.

Something I struggled with when making this one was maintaining the youthful image of Anne Natalie, who is very close to Droey Drawson in age. When you aim to be realistic, you tend you add in more details but the more you add on the face, the less youthful it can look. I think I was able to find the right balance on this face.

If you are taking up art or are an artist, I would recommend trying this out. It will allow cartoonists to better in the realism style and could even teach you things to add into your cartoony style. As an artist, the more styles you are capable of, the better it could be for you, but don't lose sight of your style or panic about what that style is. At the end of the day, the art is yours to make so do it how you want to.

Character Design Challenge. - As set by DrawWithJazza

Before I start about today's art piece, I would like to remind you all that the poll for the annual 'Mix'Match Shipping' art piece will be closing within this week. If you haven't voted yet then I highly recommend that you do, there's two polls to vote on and you can go as crazy as you like. Let your friends and family know so they can get in on this unconventional match making challenge!

In Jazza's most recent character design session, he set the challenge to design the following character; a Victorian a Romance Asian with Burns and Scars, a Beefy and Muscular body type and with Shy characteristics. Now I like drawing characters so when given this prompt, it was unlikely that I would turn down the challenge!

I got down to business taking sketches of the elements necessary for my character. I was almost immediately satisfied with the character until it came to the burns and scars. I was still getting over the end of the Nickelodeon series 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' at the time, so the first thing that came to mind with the burns and scars was Shredder. I took reference of his burns and then started focusing on other elements of the design. But I came back with a new idea inspired by 'Phantom of the Opera' in which to show his shy personality, he would hide behind a mask. Now I had the task of remoulding the scars so they could be hidden by the mask, and designing a mask that could cover the scars. I found one that would cover the chin and went along with that idea.

Out of all colour schemes I have created, this might be one of the easiest. There is a lot of brown and cream on this character. This largely being down to that fact the Victorian suit that I chose was in these colours and that sepia tones are quite Victorian-esque. The burns and scars would be a fleshy red so that was my next colour, it turned out to look rather good as part of his costume and to signify the romance I had given him a rose, so that would also be coloured red. The stem of the rose would have to be green and I had yet to decide on a colour for the mask, at least until I had finished the stem. I gave the mask the same shade of green as the rose stem and that was it.

A lovely pattern in the background later and I was done. This character design gave me a fair bit of new things to try and however well that was done, I have done it. I can't say wether or not I will return to this character, I rarely do anything historical as period is not my style (yet I watch Doctor Who, no stranger to historical settings!)

I suggest you give this character design a try and if you can, show it to Jazza so he can see what you've attempted. For those of you interested in making your own interpretation of the character, here's the ssential criteria:

Victorian Roamance
Asian
Burns and Scars
Beefy and Muscular
Shy

Expect more romance themed content coming soon, welcome to February everyone!