8-04 Sketch

For something a little different, this week, I came up with a sketch prompt for myself. Today's been packed, so I've only finished Part 1, so far. I'll finish the rest of it over the weekend, though.

For anyone following this blog, feel free to follow along and do this prompt yourself (and share your sketches, too, if you do) or suggest prompts for the future.

1. Pick the animal that you find most difficult to draw, and sketch it.
2. Now, pick the animal that is easiest for you to draw. Sketch this one the same as you did for the first animal.
3. Pick a random animal that you find interesting. Sketch it, as you did with the others.
4. ???
5. Profit! Combine all three animals into a chimera-type creature. Try to blend the features of all three into something that looks like it could exist in nature.

Step 1 - Horse

• I'd recommend drawing from life, where possible. Of course, there aren't any horses near where I live, so I used this photo as reference. Try to keep your drawing fairly realistic. Heavily stylized looks exaggerate or cut out visual information, and thus won't help you improve on drawing the real thing.
• Don't re-use existing sketches. Make a new drawing for each step.
• For a little extra challenge, don't erase (or if working digitally, undo) any of your lines. Just put 'em down, and try to live with it.

7-28 Sketch

I've started doing something unusual, lately: namely, playing an MMORTS. Games I enjoy rarely fall into the category of "MMO" or "RTS," much less both at the same time. Last week, though, Hellcat invited me to play League of Legends with him. I was skeptical at first (and also not very good at it), but the game has won me over. I like the art style quite a bit, and the gameplay turned out to be pretty fun once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing.

One of my favorite champions, in terms of design is Anivia. She just looks awesome. She's one of Hellcat's preferred champions, too, so I thought she might be a good subject for a paint-sketch, today. [Insert obligatory Articuno joke here.]

I promise I'll post some non-bird art, soon.

7-21 Sketch

I'm working on commissions again, so a lot of what I've been drawing won't be posted for awhile. I do have something new, today, though. Here's a quick 30-min sketch, 30-min color of Seket that I did as a warm-up.

New Species: Hktrikcht

The Hktrikcht are one of the sapient races in my SF project. They are an amphibious and (superficially) arthropod-like species. Some physiological traits, like a complex central nervous system (which has several "brains"), a chambered pulmonary organ in addition to gills, and closed blood vessels, set them apart from insects and crustaceans on earth. An average adult stands at just .7 meters, and generally weighs no more than 25 kg.

An albinistic individual. (Illustration from senior thesis.)

Because they are so different, the Hktrikcht are an opportunity to play around with how culture and biology might intersect. For example, the character Two-Colors is a gynandromorph.

Gynandromorphy is not especially common among the Hktrikcht, but it is also not so rare that individuals like Two-Colors are seen as unusual. Their culture accepts more sexes than "just male" and "just female," and most of their languages either have many gender-specific pronouns or don't indicate gender at all. How English-speakers make due with only "he" and "she" baffles them.

I did this quick color sketch last night to try and develop the Hktrikcht and the character Two-Colors a little more. Since almost any kind of clothing would be impractical underwater, the Hktrikcht paint or etch their carapaces. (That's something I didn't have the chance to include in the first illustration, due to time constraints.) Every symbol and pattern has its own meaning, like the spiral, which symbolizes balance. If you can read the symbols, it's easy to tell quite a bit about an individual, such as where they come from, how old they are, and what their occupation is.


For anyone curious about gynandromorphy in real creatures, there's some info on Wikipedia. London's Natural History Museum currently has a gynandromorph butterfly, which you can read about here.

Birthday Birds

Two of my friends and classmates had birthdays this week, so I did some gift art for them. The first is for Cara. It's a sort-of fanart for her series "Pesedjet," featuring Thoth, god of writing and other scholarly pursuits. The second image is for Christine, and depicts her personal charge, the cockatoo with a bit of an in-joke.

I feel that these turned out pretty well, and both were very enjoyable to draw. Funnily enough, I used to hate drawing birds, because I never felt I was very good at them. After doing this commission, though, that's changed and I actually like birds quite a bit more.