Albiona's Profile Picture

I wanted to do a realism piece and I chose to draw Albiona Whitaker. It turns out to be one of my finest works!

This was just a small traditionally drawn illustration done in my sketchbook which I then transferred onto computer. What I did with the colours was initially take Albiona's official swatch but then used the eyedropper took to take shades of skin and white from various images to create the most realistic possible translation of Albiona's colour scheme. The shading was done by cell shading and then using the smudge tool to made gradients out of these cells. Then I added a gradient effect over the sections of colour to create a more authentic shading effect.

The background for this piece was done in the same way, however there was an extra layer within the background elements that contained textures to add to the authenticity. After all of the colours were sorted I added a gradient over the whole piece and then played with the colour balance to create a warmer tint over the illustration.

You may notice there are a couple of colourful elements on Albiona, such as the rainbow highlight in her hair and the badge. This was the reason I wanted to draw Albiona, so I could add a colourful element to her design which would really stand out. This isn't a design change, just something for this particular illustration.

Have you made any profile pictures for your characters? How would they wish to express themselves to the world? All you need to do is draw a square/circle and then have a blast!

Sabine Martini

Here's a side view profile of Sabine, it's been too long since I've given her any attention.

She looks strange from the side view but it works, and although Droey's Draws is generally family friendly, I would be breaking Sabine's character if I didn't have doing something shocking. As you can see I have censored the illustration.

I used Ohuhu markers for this piece and gave Sabine some cell shading. This worked especially well on the skin which has given it more life. Even when I'm working with flat colours I tend to shade the white so that it doesn't look like it was left out of the illustration.

The background was an idea that came on the spot, an abstract idea that I loved and enjoyed creating the 'shock effect' look that compliments Sabine, who is based on the trope of 'shocking artist'. A lot of the stuff in this piece I came up with on the spot as it was actually sketched within a half hour while I was at college!

What sketches do you come up with in your free time? I'd love to see them!

Pete Lee - Into the Peterverse

Fuelled by 'Into The Spiderverse' I wanted to make a Pete Lee piece... I think this might be one of my low points!

As you can see, I resorted to leaving the characters in white and only colouring the background, I was losing motivation for this piece rapidly! The idea was to create six versions of Pete Lee in parody of the six versions of Spiderman we got.

The following versions of Pete Lee from left to right are as goes:

Pete Leepia
Mini Lee
Pete Lee (spider)
Pete Lee
Penny Leah
Baby Pete Lee and his mech

My problem this Pete Lee pieces seems to be the amount of limbs he has, which though a creative choice, does leave me with a lot of think about whenever I am drawing him. It's a shame because he usually looks great and it good for Spiderman parodies but as a design I think he is flawed. I've considered whether or not it's time to give him a new look, but I'm not sure yet.

Do you think Pete Lee could do with a redesign? Let me know in the comments!

Me And The Girls

The summer break is almost upon us for British students and Xiomara is enjoying her last days of the school year with fellow students Ariana, Tanyia and Pudding.

I drew this illustration so it could be viewed from three different angles. Supposedly you can look at it from a fourth angle as well but the noses would look out of perspective. If this had been a realism piece then perhaps it would have been possible to view this piece from any four edges without it looking surreal.

I used Tombow pens and Crayola pencils to colour this illustration, which has given it a beautiful effect. I love to colour in this method as the colours are bold but not flat either, it's the closest to a digital result I get! It is also the first time that I have coloured Xiomara's irises which I chose to be green (which would match with her casual outfit).

I've grown fond of drawing these pieces where rather than telling the story, it's just the characters being purely casual. That's not to say I'll stop the story based pieces, I still love to make those! Do you ever draw your characters just for the sake of drawing them? Give it a go, I'd love to see them!

Gorf The Fourth

"You've been ordered to kill someone you've fallen in love with. How did you get into this situation and what will you do next?"

Gorf the Frog has appeared annually with his story slowly being expanded. We've known him to lose and re-grow an arm, fall in love with a beautiful lady and become bloodstained and lonesome. Does this piece start to tie together the lose ends?

I can confirm that as of creating this piece, I have enough information to have put together enough of a story to make sense (but that's the future pieces to tell)!

So without giving too much away, I'll explain what's happening in this piece.

Gorf has had connections with some less than reputable characters, one of which is Alistair the Alligator. Something has gone horribly wrong for Alistair's gang and Gorf may be to blame for it. As a test of his loyalty, Alistair has come to Gorf's home with the intent to making him make amends. Gorf has two choices; either he kills Candy or Alistair will do it himself. To make his point clear, Alistair shoots the framed photo of Candy hanging on the wall; Gorf watches in horror.

I shan't yet tell you what happens next, but you're welcome to guess!