[Illustration Friday] Round 1: Wilderness

MAN oh man I have terrible luck with Google accounts, but that is a rant fit for livejournal and not this delicate art blog of mine.

Anywho, as a part of this portfolio class, we are completing challenges for Illustration Friday (though not submitting them... yet), and last week's challenge was wilderness.



There is a graphic novel series I used to read (and will continue to read when I have the money to buy the volumes I'm missing).

Bizenghast, I believe, and to poorly summarize it, a girl accidentally signs a contract with the guardians/caretakers of a mausoleum to put the restless spirits it was holding to rest. One chapter dealt with the spirit of a boy who was a wild child, abandoned in the forest at an early age. He had an interesting design, and had a closer connection with the wilderness than with humans. I won't spoil it, even though this was like in the first or second volume, but essentially, when I saw the prompt, I kind of thought of him.

... okay, at first, I was thinking how to tie it in with dinosaurs since I kind of want to theme this blog around that eventually, and had a neat shot thought up involving my little explorer stegosaurus wandering around and/or getting stalked by raptors, but that was kind of hard given that I have never really painted anything from scratch digitally (as you can probably tell). Then I was thinking of drawing someone looking out of a window at some forest, since that's pretty much what I did all throughout school, but theeen I was drawing eyes - I kind of do that idly when I try to think of things to do - and drew one that kind of looked like this wild boy's eye.

So... Yeah. I don't think I drew him accurately, since it's been awhile, but I kind of hope I didn't copy exactly, either. I meant this to be more based on him than straight-up fanart anyway, but I guess I won't know until I find that volume again.

And here is the non-saturated version - I think the first one looks better, but eeeehn, I kind of want to know what the TONS OF PEOPLE TOTALLY READING MY BLOG think?



... I actually am... I suppose I am content with how they look, but I know I can do better - I really rushed the shading and background since I totally started this last night - ran out of time or something. I could really stand to sink some more time into that, which I will totally do... one day.

Also wildboy there would look better if he were smaller in a larger composition with the forest, maybe. Like, he doesn't have to be staring out of the shadows in a huge canvas or anything, but... more space would be better. We will see!

Best Class Ever

First post!
And that is the first and last time I will do that on the internet, let me tell you (unless I forget about this in a few hours, which, y'know...)

So, yes, this is me:



And I draw stuff. Right now, my favourite post-worthy bit of art is this little guy:



The assignment was to create a mascot for a new brand of cereal. After my group struggled with a theme and a title, we started playing with cereal types, landed on 'O's, and then got Phar-O's, which was neat, and we almost went with that because Ancient Egypt is cool, until I stopped and said "Dinos? Din-O's? Hey, kids still like Dinosaurs, right?"

So, we hit upon the perfect theme. Din-O's is sort of narrow, in that it limits our mascots to dinosaurs, but varied because there are tons of different species to choose from.

I wanted to do something popular and recognizable, but not the T.Rex. Much as I love that guy, he's a little overdone. Also, since this was intended for young children, I, er, wanted something that was cool but not like, carnivorous-scary. So I went with a stegosaurus - he's a herbivore, so he's nice, but he's still cool because he has spikes on his tail and he fights things with it.

I started picturing what kind of wacky ads he could be involved in, and most of them involved exploring jungles in search of cereal and stuff. So, off the top of my head, I thought of what 'explorer' outfits usually constituted in my younger days, and avoided copying Indiana Jones somehow. I also clothed him so there would be more variation and interesting stuff in his design. Also why I gave him that helmet, specifically, since without it his head was bald and bare, and even if I did differ from how real Stegosaurs looked and gave him head-spikes, that would make him look a little too punkish, y'know? So I gave him a pith helmet. Tadah!

I had to angle him a little so you could see his tail as well, since without it he could have just as easily been a turtle or tortoise. I made him green because that's the first colour that comes to mind when I think 'reptile' and to a lesser degree, 'jungle'. Also I watched Land Before Time when I was little. A lot.


... I kind of think he's cute. I might draw more like him.