[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!