A Katou Christmas

To wrap up this festive collection is a rather novel piece featuring the Katou Twins!

Inspired by a drawing base, this two paneled strip tells tale of the time that Jirou got a rather shocking surprise for his brother. The more reserved Ichirou was least of all to expect that the giant box in their room would contain a dancer! Alannah Sugar would dance private around Christmas time for the extra money towards Christmas shopping. But Ichirou was having none of it and immediately censored her, trapping her arm in the process!

With all of the Christmassy art out of the way, I need to inform you of a few changes that are coming to Droey's Draws in the new year. The schedule is changing and now I will be releasing content weekly. In addition to this, I will be launching the official Droey's Draws Instagram where the latest content will be uploaded. The content you see on this blog is not likely to be uploaded to Instagram and the YouTube channel may be taking a break in order to make way for my college work. I hope to keep the channel up and not to abandon it completely so in the same case as with Instagram, I'll be uploading when I can.

Look forward to another year of Droey's Draws content, however you chose to follow the journey. Hope you have been enjoying Christmas and that a happy new year awaits you!

Christmas Dinner

What luck that one of the scheduled days for posting would coincide with Christmas day itself? Though worthy of being the grand finale to this collection, here's an illustration that I couldn't not post today.

Click image to get a larger view

It's time for the Christmas dinner and there's quite a gathering this year. Friends in Droey's circle, both old and new are here having a lovely time.

Tenvad and Paddy aren't eating, since some Technobians can't eat food, yet are sat a a corner of the table to soak in the good company and chat together. It's a wonder that Chrissie Mason is attending as a guest rather than a host! Nevertheless she is welcome and delighted to bring a plus one, she's recently started seeing someone who calls himself Gabriel Snow. He's new to the area, although there's something awfully familiar about him, but no one can work out what.

The biggest surprise this Christmas is that Gary and Lexi are not focused on arguing with each other!  There have been a couple of noticeable blips however, they're most likely just being merry for show- only to follow it up with a riot when they get back to their flat! Everyone else has already pulled their Christmas crackers and Lottie is holding the last one as she reaches across the table to pull her's with Evangeline. Evangeline may have had a little too much to drink though as for a laugh she tries to pull the cracker with her trunk!

John has been trying to charm Ida with his humour, and so to his aid come the Christmas cracker jokes that everyone has gotten over. John reads the jokes as he observes how much he can make Ida laugh. Ida laughs to be polite but has to admit that John has successfully made her laugh with the jokes on a few occasions, maybe it's just the way he reads them? Mac and Quaid weren't expecting to be invited, but Droey decided to invite them over! They remember having taught Droey and John so enjoyed catching up with Mac's former drama students. No doubt Mac and Quaid will be up and dancing later!

Lastly there's Anne Natalie and Droey. Of course Anne Natalie was going to attend her best friend's Christmas dinner. She's even dressed up in a few design for the occasion, sporting a green dress with a yellow jacket sporting her trademark start emblem. Anne tried Droey's Christmas themed hat on and it happened to suit her very well, Droey even whistled- with the use of a Christmas cracker prize! Anne placed Droey's hat back on his head as he handed over the whistle to let Anne have a closer look.

How are you spending Christmas this year? Be it with family or friends, I bid you a merry Christmas, don't forget we've got one more Christmas inspired post to go so be sure to come back in a few days!

Tree Or Dalek?

Anne Natalie was feeling festive so she created a Christmassy looking dress with the help of another fashion designer!

Anne Natalie met Auriella through her neighbour, Droey. Both have experience in designing and making clothes, only Anne's taste is a little more quirky whereas Auriella is doing an apprenticeship for Savile Droe. The two of them collaborated together to design a dress that coincided with the festivities of Christmas.

The dress' design was inspired by a Christmas tree and featuring a spotted bauble pattern, tinsel sleeves, ribbon lining and reflective dots along the lining that resembled snowflakes. It was a beautiful, quirky dress that was clearly commemorative of Christmas, but Auriella saw something else in the dress' appearance. The spotted pattern on the dress reminded her of a famous alien race. Anne Natalie tried on the dress, which Auriella pointed at and quoted 'Exterminate!'. Anne Natalie laughed as Auriella started moving her around the room pretending she was pushing a Dalek about!

Do you or your friends have any quirky Christmassy clothes to wear this year? If you don't, why don't you draw one of your characters wearing something quirky and Christmassy?

Snow

Last December I did a once colour challenge involving the snow. Well here's another one with a bit more going on!

I started off with a piece of Droey building a snowman. I was going to have him making a more fabulous looking snow sculpture but Droey's dislike of the snow would probably drive his patience and hold him back! So we have a fairly simple snowman with a nicely sculpted face which I think would be more believable of Droey's capabilities.

Then I thought about the inclusion of Agrius Moth and that's when things got interesting! I was thinking of having Agrius pose for a sculpture but once I finished drawing him I realized there isn't anyone who would be convinced to do such a thing for him, after all Agrius doesn't have any minions!

Agrius does however have a friend who you will only have seen in the Area 51 themed YouTube video who seems to be one to get involved in crazy shenanigans. So I chose to bring back Collin Cloud with a giant snowball that he would be preparing to throw. It seems he and Agrius are either in a snowball fight or are about to ambush someone.

The illustration was done using a sky Uni-ball pen to outline and then some Tombow pens for the colouring. I only added shading to the snow rather than the characters as well, so I could distinguish between the snow and characters more clearly. I would have added colour to the characters to make them standout from the plain border surrounding this artwork but didn't know what to do without potentially throwing off the compoisition's existing qualities.

Not exactly a Christmas themed piece but with only three to go I'm sure the remaining artworks will be very Christmassy. Hope you're beginning to feel ready for Christmas Day!

Elf Service

I said I wanted to do some more story based stuff again, well here is a three panel comic strip. But who's that making an appearance at the end!

It was only fair to give Elle a cameo since her series wasn't running this Christmas. It was also a funny concept to have actual elves teaching people how to work as elves you see in shopping malls. In Jansterwick this year, Elle has been chosen to give people training and she's got the help of Chrissie Mason and a less than enthusiastic Gary. Lexi put him up to it most likely, they've got to get some work!

I did this comic strip in black and white, using just a couple of grey tones to make the visuals more interesting. I like how this has turned out and think it looks better than the pure black and white tones used in the Santa and Elle series! Speaking of which, I was concerned about the speech bubbles not standing out well enough so I drew them in red much like the Santa and Elle series' trait of making Santa red.

This comic strip was brilliantly executed and I only wish it had been longer, this story could have gone somewhere or had a brilliant set up. Another time perhaps. We're half way through this month's Christmassy content, with only four more posts to go. I hope you're enjoying this month's content!

Winter Stroll

This piece introduces you to a Christmassy character that I have created, because we all know that one person who's forever obsessed with Christmas! This is Chrissie Mason.

Evangeline and Chrissie are taking a stroll out in the Jansterwick countryside. The two girls are having a chat. Their spirits are not dampened by the cold weather or the risk of skidding on ice as their conversation renders them lost in a world of their own.

I used Spectrum Noir markers here, particularly because the background was going to be made up of blocks of colour and there happened to be a perfectly wintery looking selection of colours for a background. It stops the background from looking empty but doesn't allow it to steal from the characters whose colours are much bolder.

Normally I don't think a piece like this would qualify for a Christmassy artwork but I think the introduction of Chrissie Marie makes up for that, you certainly get a festive vibe from her! Come back in a few days to see her alongside more characters in another Christmassy artwork.

Mistletoe Kiss

If you're a reoccurring visitor to this blog, you're most probably aware of John's interest in Ida. So who do I chose to draw when I think about a mistletoe kiss? John Esposito  and a confused but amused Ida Noe.

John has planted some mistletoe in a room and waited for Ida to come in and step underneath. As soon as he noticed that she stood beneath his cheeky trap John rushed over and gave Ida a surprise hug, followed by a kiss which landed on her cheek. Ida was indeed taken by surprise and amused by his actions, even tickled slightly.

I did this piece in a comic panel style because I hadn't done anything like that in a while and thought it would make a nice change. The colouring was done in watercolour pencil as this is a medium I hadn't used for a while and the colours are mostly bright in my collection. Despite the lack of skin-toned pencils in this collection I think I did very well to match the skin tone of John Esposito. For Ida's skin it was easier as I had a terracotta which did the job.

Coming up with story ideas is not as easy as illustration ideas which is why I've been struggling to anything in comic format lately, but I want to get back into it. Hopefully this will be the start of that coming back, time will tell!

Michow Being 'Moory'

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, so here's the first of this month's Christmassy artworks! One thing we associate with Christmas in the modern day is Michael Buble, so it's only fitting to start with an illustration of Michow Mooble!

I've given him a change of clothes for the winter season. Normally he's be wearing a lot of blue but for Christmas he's brought out his green and reds! Michow Mooble loves Christmas as his favourite time of year and definitley enjoys going around to sing carols.

I did this illustration in Tombow markers with some coloured pencil. This combination helped to make a vibrant illustration. It's a simple piece but beautifully done and given that's its not obviously Christmassy, it makes for a nice first piece. But the rest of this collection is intended to be much more merry than usual!