Birthday NPC

A friend of mine (who is also my DM) recently had his birthday, and when I told him to name me a character and I'd sketch it for him (quite selfish on my part: I still have a looooong way to go on this 365 Project) he did me one better and told me to roll up an NPC and illustrate that, and then he'd put it in our Game somewhere.  I then accused him of being a Hobbit, and giving out gifts on his own birthday.

Well apparently the Universe liked the whole "Hobbit" idea, because here's what came out:

Yes, a bald halfling.  The dice deities, they have senses of humor.

Here are the traits I rolled for her, as well as the commentary I went back and added to each trait as she became a Whole (Half?) Person in my brain:

Distinctive Physical Feature: Bald (she got tired of her hair catching fire)

High Ability: Wisdom (notices details, even if she then trips over them)

Low Ability: Dex (hence hair catching fire and perforated eardrum and lots of little knife and burn scars)

Talent: Expert Cook (chef, really, because CREATIVITY)

Mannerism: Speaks Loudly (perforated eardrum from childhood)

Interaction Trait: Curious (about people in general but with a special interest in food they've encountered)

Chaotic Ideal: Creativity (specifically with food)

Bond: Protection of Valuable Possession (workbook)

Flaw: Arrogance (about her cooking but also it's merited?)

So that was an extremely fun exercise that satisfied my Project on the 19th-21st.  In case you're wondering, her outfit is dragon-hide, because when you're that clumsy of a cook you need some seriously fire-proof clothing.  And steel-toed boots, for that matter.  Those pink speckles you see all over her hands and face are burn and knife scars.  She's a mess!  But her food is awesome, so there you go.

Bold Persephone

I've spent the last three days on this lovely lady:

Still trying to master skin-tones darker than "vaguely Mediterranean".  ::sigh::  Practice, practice, practice.

This piece is inspired by Russian Iconography (hence the goooooolllllld), a particularly lovely Instagram update by Black Girl in a Big Dress (the eponymous web series is one of my Very Favorite Things), and Halloween 2000 (I personally was a Maenad that year, but one of my friends dressed as Persephone, and wore a very similar flower crown).  (I should try to find photos from that year- I was appropriately scary with all my blood smears, and made a lot of drunken frat guys feel more than a little freaked out.)

I'm thinking I may actually go into that gold background with some ink and do some intricate patterning (perhaps pomegranates seeds?), but I wanted to get it preserved for posterity in all it's pristine-ness, before I screw it all up.

Plus, you know, the novelty of updating more than one time in a week...

But on to not-art-related things!  I bought myself a new suit the other week (since the old suit- purchased about 15 years ago- was cut for the old body, which TLG has rendered permanently curvier) and today I took it to a tailor like a real-live grownup!  Because, you see, when you have a shoulder(-and-bust)-girth like mine, you have to buy jackets that are way too large for any of the rest of you.  Which is why I've never been much of a blazer person in the past.  Sleeveless/stretchy fabric all the way, baby.  But anyway, the tailor poked and prodded and pinned and finally informed me that next time I should be shopping in the petite section for my tops, so that she wouldn't have to shorten the sleeves so much.  The more you know!

I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out; I expect to look far more professional than I did in the dressing room, where the sleeves were hitting my knuckles and I didn't appear to have much of a waist (but at least I could move my arms without splitting the seams!  Something I have literally done to jackets in the past!  So yes I am always extremely paranoid every time I try on a "fitted" jacket!)  I'll post photos so you can be excited, too.  You're welcome!

Shiny!

You guys, I'm so excited about what I finished up today that I'm not even going to bury this lead:

BLING BLING BABY!

That's the angle that lets you see the shiny gold embellishment, but here's what the whole thing looks like:

Inara Serra, ladies and gentlemen.

(Fun Fact: I sent a shot of this to my brother earlier today, and he demanded I put a banana in the photo so he'd have a size comparison.  I did, but since bananas come in all sizes, I'll just tell you the page is like 9"x12" or so)

I've actually been working on this piece since the last time I updated (before, even) in addition to my daily stuff, so I'm pretty glad to be done with it.  And like I said: so pleased with how it came out.  It was my first Big Experimentation with using masking fluid, and doing iridescent accents.  I learned a lot from it (namely that if I'm going to do larger pieces, I need to suck it up and get REAL watercolor paper from The Internet and stop pretending like Strathmore will ever fulfill my needs), which I will surely put to use in future pieces.  Woo!

Now let's look back at Other Stuff, including me adding color to the Ladies of Firefly (which I can now tell you started off as a thumbnail for the above piece):

I spent probably four nights adding color.  They could use more noodling, but (having reminded myself of the SKETCHBOOK NATURE OF A SKETCHBOOK) I've decided to move on.

Oh speaking of sketches, here's one I didn't finish because I lost interest!

Characters from ElfQuest.

And the reason I lost interest in finishing is because I got this super sweet metallic paint to play with!

Plaaaaaaay!

But I made up for it by spending a few days working on fan art for other fandoms, ie for Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness!

Yes, yes, I know the freckles are too stark.  OH WELL.

This was mostly about seeing what it took to get a nice, even appearance from the gold.  Minimum two coats, is the answer.

So, yes.  Feeling good about Art at the moment.  Also feeling good about having passed the Series 66, and my upcoming Insurance Licensing Exam.  Also feeling good about my awesome family.  Yes, goodness all around.

To the Nines

First of all, Happy Anniversary to Me!  And Nathan too, I guess... nine years, and still kicking.  Woo, go team!  That being said, let us jump into the many days of doodling since last we met.

First off, I got into a serious Salt Experimentation Phase from March 23rd-26th.  Behold:

What's going on here, white balance?  Who knows...

Thaaaaat's better.

Black and White!  Black and White!

It was fun, just to play around again, let whatever wanted to happen, happen, rather than being concerned with representation.  And you can see up there in upper right-had corner where I took the playing back to sketching, which in turn brought us the offering for March 27th:

But who is this mysterious lady?  The world may never know...

A conversation with my mom, combined with missing a certain friend, and my hair being ridiculous, led to this little sketch of Anne Shirley on the 28th:

The wind must be up- look at those chapped cheeks!

And then missing my brother and his boys took tangible form in my sketchbook on the 29th.

The trouble with trying to draw the people you love is that it never, ever looks right, because you know their faces too well...

We're going to skip ahead a few days to April 1st, and Easter, where I had another bit of "fun experiment times", but this time with wax resistance:

Super Fun Bright Colors Time!

And now we back up (but also go forward) to a bunch of line drawings of the Ladies of Firefly.  None of them are colored yet, because I need to run a copy of them so that my nephew has a chance to color them the way he wants to.  So you can fully expect to see them again someday in the not-too-distant future, only with color.

I know, I know... River's face is too narrow... oh well...

Speaking of color!  TLG has been super obsessed with letters and numbers lately, so I thought I'd make him a little treat in my sketchbook:

Phoning it in?  Maybe.  But it's my sketch book, and I'll phone if I want to...

He liked it so much that he wanted to keep it, which of course he could not do, so I promised him I'd make him one of his very own, which I managed to get put together before he came home today:

Plus a few words of Especial Interest to him right now.

So that's where I stand with all of that.

As for my studies, they're also going well!  I managed to bump up my timeline again, so I'll be taking the Series 66 on Monday (yes, this coming Monday- eep!) which I'm pretty excited about.  After that I should be halfway through the process!  Woo!  As much as I've enjoyed this time of learning (and getting to be around Nathan for most of the day) I'm read to get out in the field and start doing, you know?  You know.  Yeah you do.