Comic-Con Capers!

Comic-Con is a wonderful event is it not? People dress up, meet famous people, buy awesome merchandise, get pictures taken, it's madness in the best way! Let's see what Droey and Co. are up to at the Jansterwick Comic-Con!

John and Ida have been prepared for this event for some time, so prepared that they bought tickets! You wouldn't have thought that Ida would have been able to decide what to dress up us but after dabbling with some ideas she decided the Harley Quinn costume would be easiest to assemble. When John found out about this, he immediately jumped at the chance to cosplay as Poison Ivy. The idea actually came to him when Droey jokes about it for the fact of John being a redhead. Their costumes look better than Lexi's costume of Rosie Quill, she was keen to get in quickly to save queuing to meet someone famous!

Agrius Moth decided to go to Comic-Con as himself, since The Convolvulous Hawk is only the greatest villain of all time! However most people who attended didn't even recognize him, much to Agrius' disdain! Boone even believed that Agrius was cosplaying as Loki from the superhero films! Agrius was offended by this remark but secretly impressed given the reputation of this villainous character.

Droey had come for one particular reason, to meet a celebrity! Droey is a fan of the game series Rosie Quill, and her voice actress was going to be present at the Comic-Con event taking photographs and signatures! Droey hade an artwork of Rosie Quill especially for this occasion and was able to get a signed copy of it, while giving the original to Honey Portraie. She loved it and made sure the artwork was safely placed with her luggage before taking a selfie with Droey.

Gary was around and looking through the stalls for some decent merchandise. He had been saving up for this event for ages, Comic-Con can be expensive! As Gary browsed the stalls, he came across it, something that he desired enormously! There was a mint condition figurine of Amber, from the battle royale game Underseek. She was only one of Gary's favourite characters, his favourite shirt's design was inspired by the wings on Amber's costume. It may have been a costly seventy pounds, but Gary felt it was worth the expense to collect this special figurine.

Have you ever been to a Comic-Con, I hope you enjoyed it! If you haven't, you can always send your characters to a Comic-Con to see what they get up to?

Just Monika

Earlier this year you saw Monika from the game Doki Doki Literature Club being coupled up with Marceline the Vampire Queen. Here is the painting of Monika that was featured in that artwork.

I didn't talk much about this painting when it was first seen so this is an opportunity I'm taking to make a fuss of it.

I knew I wanted to recreate the screen-capture of Monika when she takes over the game, since this would be something that could adapt to any of the other characters legible for votes. This is the first time I have recreated something in a long time and I enjoyed it.

I drew Monika in my realism style rather than the anime, so that it wouldn't be a complete recreation, but some elements still remain anime in style, which I had forgotten to change. This is most noticeable in the neck which is incredibly think for a human and perhaps in the proportions of the face despite being more realistic than Monika's anime art.

Watercolour Pencils were used for this illustration, in an attempt to fill the page without a pencil texture. While there is still some pencil texture, there are no white specs in the illustration that most pencil coloured illustrations have. Some the gradients also work quite nicely despite not having the smooth, digital appeal from the original. I'm also surprised at how close most of the colours came to be.

Friends who has seen this being worked on claimed to prefer it to the official artwork, would you agree with them or is the original piece still superior? Have a go at recreating something, it's not cheating, it's learning!

Take A Seat, Droey Drawson

Droey's in a spot of bother, the chairs have gained sentience and they're sick of Droey sitting on them!

This was a funny idea I had going in my head for months, as an inside joke has developed that chairs are out to get me. So at last they're coming to get Droey! This was an interesting challenge as without any organic features, getting chairs to express feelings or emotion is quite difficult. Quinman provides a similar challenge but he has a human body, the chairs are a completely different story! The  expressions had to be left to the legs, how each chair stood. So for the green chair confronting Droey it made sense for it to be leaning forward and facing upwards to demonstrate authority. The grey chair behind Droey was an easier task as all I had to do was pose it to be ready for someone to park their rear.

I was going to stick with Magicfly markers for this illustration but the background felt too bland so I decided to use coloured pencils. The pencils were also used to add shading to Droey's skin and white accessories. I've been using Magicfly markers for a year now and I think the quality of their performance may have dropped since. The ink is streaker and I've had a couple of cases when the paint is liquidy enough to bleed or darken the tone greatly, which luckily did not happen in this piece!

This illustration was recorded for YouTube, here's the video!

*youtube video

Will Droey escape the wrath of the chairs? Well if you don't see him again you know that they've gotten him, but I'm sure Droey will be back again soon, hopefully you will be too!

The Greatest Showmoth!

Ladies and gents, this is the moment's he's waited for. Well, it's at least a moment for Agrius Moth to be in the spotlight again as the first ever illustration I have done on toned paper!

This was an illustration idea I had been wanting to do for a while, I also wanted to find a toned paper sketchbook because I think it will benefit my ability to experiment and to shade. When I saw the chance to bring this piece to life I could tell from the moment I put pencil to paper that doing so on this toned paper would be perfect.

As you can see I went a little overboard with the white. White is something that can't be used so well on white paper, for obvious reasons. This makes toned paper a white pencil's best friend, and I went wild with it! There's several areas I used a white pencil to shade with, it also looked a lot brighter before I introduce the white pen to this illustration. I used the white pen strictly for the shiny highlights and the outermost edge of Argius, then the decorative elements in the background.

Agrius was coloured in with pencils while the background used two cool coloured crayola pens. I chose a dark blue and a lime green for the spotlight, referring to phrase 'stealing the limelight'. The pencil work on Agrius stayed on the warmer end of the colour spectrum, using colours from his original palette such as red and gold.

Have you done any illustrations or sketches with toned paper? If you get the chance, even if the paper's just coloured, give it a shot because you might broaden your horizons. I'll certainly have the chance to do that in this new sketchbook!

Those Shoes Are Hard To Draw!

I love those 'Draw This In Your Style' pieces, it's a wonderful trend that I don't want to give up, so here's my shot at one of them!

And now here's the original image that inspired this challenge.

Regarding this girl's features and colours I tried to stay as close as possible but wanted to make a slight tweak to the colour scheme. I felt the blue and purple were too close in shade so I tried using lighter tones. Unfortunately the purple was lighter than I expected and resulted in the hair and crop top still being rather similar in tone. In hindsight I feel I should have swapped the colours of the top and leggings, since the yellow makes the trousers look like the vocal point of the design.

My other personal flaw with this reinterpretation is how everything seems so close together, but that's what I get for not giving myself enough space on the page. I would have moved her right arm further out slightly had this not have been the case.

Despite these two minor issues with the aesthetic of my illustration, I really like how this girl has turned out. It's a finish that looks almost like it has been printed and the bold outlines is something I haven't used in a while and dearly missed. I am always content with the results of 'Draw This In Your Style' artworks and look forward to doing this again, I might even create an illustration for you guy to draw in your style!

Droey and Co. in London

Anne Natalie has taken a few day's work in London so she has brought Droey and Tenvad along with her and they get a chance to enjoy a view of the city.

So this is a first time for me and an experimental piece I enjoyed making. I was out one night with a couple of friends who were looking to take photographs and we got the chance to look over the view, which at night I always find to be a beautiful sight. This is what made me want to do this idea, though the image used in this piece is not our own but a cityscape of London. This is inspired by the works of Victoria Wood's 'Puppy Dog Tales' and the art style of Lauren Child, for which you'll know her most for 'Charlie and Lola'. My idea was to draw the characters as a foreground looking over a photographic background.

There were a few ways I could go about this. One method could be to have made this piece entirely on computer, which would have the cleanest effect. Another way would be to have drawn the character and then scanned them onto a computer, following the first method's idea of putting together the composition digitally. The third method, the hardest and which I tried without thinking of the other methods, would be to print the photo and cut it to fit the drawing of the characters.

I was able to borrow a fellow artists' crafting knives to cut the image over a tracing made of the outlines. This way I could accurately cut the shape I wanted to without risk of cutting the drawing itself. Once this was done I carefully stuck the image on top using a glue stick.

When drawing the characters, I used my method of applying pen ink and then pencil shading so that the characters would be in fill colour, unlike what happens when you colour with just pencil and you're left with little white specs. This would allow the drawing the blend better with the photograph, while creating enough contrast to still give away that it was drawn and not a photograph.

Would you be interested in seeing more pieces like this in the future? I could use more photographic backgrounds or even use pictures to create a collaged effect such as the use of patterns, I'm happy to hear your suggestions or see how you tackle this method yourself!

Drummer Girl's Favourite Bird

This is Drummer Girl, she likes birds. She likes them so much that she's found an undead bird and decided to give it a massive hug!

Drummer Girl is the percussionist of the band Bichon Face and the most down to Earth in her group and has the hobbies of making art and bird watching. Anything that flies has her interest, which is probably why she is dating a butterfly.

Some of you may remember Silverside, well at least that what's his name was assumed to be. Drummer Girl has renamed Silverside and now he's called 'Thrasher'. Thrasher is a zombie parrot from the land of the Sbookies and has never been loved so much to the point where someone wants to keep him! But perhaps Drummer Girl is giving Thrasher too tight a hug? I'm sure over time she'll learn to be more gentle with his semi-decomposed body.

Do any of your OCs have unusual pets? Fictional creatures can come in such a wide variety, that's probably why Pokemon is still going!

Hair I Am Again

A long time ago Droey had a hair cut and the xevered hair made it's own way into the big wide world. Now over two years later, he's returned!

This short comic strip was a chance to Lottie and Lexi a bit of attention, and for Droey to wear one of his many shirts. Those of you who have been around since the beginning may recognize both the shirt and the hair, as both of them have appeared on this blog before. But a lot of happened since then, both in and outside of their fictional universe, so when I had to urge to bring someone back, it felt like the right time for the hair to return.

The only panels I'm not so happy with are the two smaller panels from the top right, I feel that they do not successfully capture Droey's expressions the way I intended them to, thus cramping the illustrations. A minor issue in the last panel is that I think Lexi is too large compared to the other characters, but aside from these features I've pointed out I'm really happy with how this comic strip turned out.

Have you ever had an old friend or relative come back into your life? Maybe you have an OC who hasn't met with someone in a while, it might prompt some art to develop your characters.

Big Foot At A Bus Stop

Do you remember Lou from the Sbookies last year? For those of you who don't, this is Big Foot and he's been spotted out in public!

It's been a tiring day for Lou as he decided to catch some breath at a bus stop. Normally he's very shy and doesn't like to be seen around people, he wishes he was as hard to find as the still yet to be found Princess Sketch. But Lou was so tired today he couldn't care, which meant the weirdo with no name was stood right next to him! She didn't seem to care that Big Foot was sat on the ground next to her, she was more interested in what was happening on her phone screen. Once the first bus arrived, Lou was back to being on his own, though he was fast asleep by this point! Lou would go home, tomorrow.

I really loved the concept for this piece, but hated the execution. The line art, particularly on the weirdo with no name was terrible (hence he switch to denim trousers instead of her usual skirt). To try and make up for this I decided to experiment with the colouring. So while Lou is given his official colour scheme, the rest of the illustration follow the five colour pattern from our weirdo's hair. The missing poster was a last minute touch that helped to make this illustration more interesting. It gives us a piece featuring three characters, all of which he haven't seen in a while.

Will we ever find the missing Princess Sketch? Maybe one day you'll find the answers on this blog!