Sketchy

[tealin]

Life Drawing is the Magic Pill.



I seem to be incredibly rambly today. Please bear with me.

My brain is still stuck in Small Gods, and I might even read it again (so soon!) after Christmas (or during...?) to keep the images fresh.

I keep trying to draw this scene ... my life drawing pad has at least three versions of it. This one's my favourite so far, but it's still not there. This is when Brutha finds himself momentarily in the desert of black sand and turns to look back at Death – there should be hordes of people out there but I'm not going to invest that much energy in the background until I get the foreground right.


Finally a Vorbis design that is kind of getting there ... I was surprised, reading through Small Gods again, how often he's referred to as 'young.' Granted, this is mostly by elderly clergymen, but I tried to stay away from the skull-with-wrinkles look nonetheless. I also didn't want him to look as evil as he is – I wanted to keep some of the eagleness but also make him look like he could be nice, or look nice enough to disarm people anyway. He does put on that Comforting Guardian act, and if people took one look at him then ran away because he looked evil to the core he wouldn't get away with it. I know that in the book he's supposed to have eyes that are nearly entirely black so that you can't quite tell where he's looking, but while this works well in print it doesn't in animation. I had to sacrifice a little of that bit of canon. Anyway, this isn't quite there yet but it's the first one worthy of posting.


A couple stabs at Sgt Simony (I like the first one best). The guy at the desk next to my sister's was drawing someone with this general idea for facial structure (but much more willowy) and I went AHA! That would work for Simony! I'd done something kind of approaching this with the nose but the bottom jaw thing was a revelation. Anyway, he's still got a way to go, but he's on his way.


Must do ... more research ... on tortoises! Om is posessive.* This book has forever put another layer on a particular hymn at church ... heh. Anyway. Yeah.


I really liked the way Brutha looked in that quick little doodle I'd done a while back, and I thought maybe it was the button eyes that did it. I tried that as a starting place with this one ... turned out okay, but I go the hair wrong. Brutha and Neville look very similar in my mind, but I'd rather change Neville.


*Actually Om's is posessive ... ha aha ha hahaa.

Comments

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

You know, I don't comment often, but I love that you're illustrating Small Gods -- it was the first Pterry I read and it's still one of my absolute favourites. You really capture the way I thought of Brutha, and it just makes me happy to start seeing these textual figures come to visual life.

*basks in all the glorious Small Gods art*

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Oh, there will be more... there will be more. It's just kind of hard to do scenes when the designs are so ... fetal.

It is a great book. : )

[bananabasket.livejournal.com]

You rockify.


I wish I could draw right now. Or, you know, at all.

[mgafm.livejournal.com]

Vorbis looks like Ben Kingsley

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Funny, that's who I've always pictured playing Dios.

[trishna87.livejournal.com]

dude ben kinglsey would be perfect!!! :D wow .. it looks just like him *stares*

[wicked-warrior.livejournal.com]

Killer tortoises! :)
I agree, life drawing is the magic pill, it's a long time since I took it , though :P

Squee!

[eveforward.livejournal.com]

I -really- like your versions of Brutha. The slight-baffled facial expressions are just perfect.

Re: Squee!

[ianfinerty.livejournal.com]

These drawins are exceptional as always, you're manging to capture the innocence of Brutha magnificiently. It's odd, i like your Vorbis but i almost think he looks too nice. Its a matter of interpretation of course but i always imagined him like he is drawn in the Paul Kirby front cover to the book, looking really evil- i imagined Brutha merely ignoring this because he is so innocent and unwilling to believe that anyone so religous could be cruel. Everyone else seems to see it though. Even saying that, your Vorbis is soo much closer to catching him than i have ever got to. :)

Squee Indeed!

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

THERE'S A PAUL KIDBY FRONT COVER?? Where does one find this thing of glory?

Re: Squee Indeed!

[ianfinerty.livejournal.com]

Forgive my spelling i meant Kirby (cowers in fright from forthcoming righteous anger)

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Oh. Nevermind then. You did spell it right. Just the wrong first name. The 'Paul' made me think the surname was 'Kidby' ... aheh. Confound these oh-too-similar names.

[ianfinerty.livejournal.com]

Judging by your reaction you enjoy Mr. Kidby's work? Have you got the Art of Discworld compilation- it's made up completely of his work categorised by area and character with comments from both the artist and Mr Pratchett himself.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Yeeeesss... it is my book of joy. : )

[tannhaeuser.livejournal.com]

[magicnme.livejournal.com]

Neville and Brutha looking similar totally works for me. Heh. No wonder they're both on my fav characters list. difference being, of course, that Neville doesn't exactly have a visual memory to speak of...

Yeah, another Small Gods nut here. 'Twas my second PTerry read. And I'm so glad you're illustrating this one. Yay wonderfullness!

[azvolrien.livejournal.com]

Your art got me into Pratchett. Just so's you know.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

Mwahahahah, the powah! The POWAH!

[sparrowofjack.livejournal.com]

Same here. I figured, hey, if you spend so much time drawing Pratchett characters it has to be at least somewhat decent, right?

That last thought was the king, queen, hell, the whole ROYAL FAMILY of understatements. The very idea that Pratchett is only decent. (scoffs)

I think that you must be some sort of secret marketing scheme. No matter what characters you draw, from whatever book, we viewers are suddenly filled with the desire to read that book and those characters.

I'm on to you.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

I solemnly swear I have no under-the-table deals with any publishers or authors. My roommate who works in publishing only very rarely distributes any books I actually like... One of the few of hers I've ever drawn from is Fly By Night which, hey look at that, is out in stores now. [evil chuckle]

But seriously. If I could get a living wage from publishers for just randomly doodling from books... I would so do that. As long as they were good books.

[sophia007.livejournal.com]

Oooh...I love that Om..Vorbis looks a bit like a vulture, (must be that nose) but It's better than having the image that he looks like Dios but with a bigger nose, which is how I see him..oh, and without the kohl. But it sucks that Brutha and Neville almost have the same kind of bumbling personality, which makes me too think of them as brothers or something...Brains are evil... [sighs and hangs head]

Great Drawings

[(Anonymous)]

I love the way you capture characters. It is just the way I imagine them--especially your Harry Potter ones. Don't see much good HP art around. I'd like to see more book six art, though... my favorites are Harry, Sirius, and Lupin.

Sorry if this is off topic, but I was waiting for an HP one, but I was afraid I would forget sooner or later.

Re: Great Drawings

[carnivalgirl.livejournal.com]

Yes! I mean, the Discworld stuff is cool, but some more HP would be LOVELY! Especially if you drew, say, Harry and Ginny together or Tonks and Lupin together. That would be...so cool.

[twirlynoodle.livejournal.com]

GAH ICKY KISSY BLEH! How do I not make clear my aversion to romance? Is it all the mushy lovey-dovey pictures I draw? Can you point them out to me? I think I may have missed them!

Sorry, nothing personal, I just get asked this all the time, and I'm wondering where people get the idea I find this sort of thing fun to draw. Aren't there a million HP fanartists out there who specialise in couplings?

As for new HP art, weeeelll ... the bug hasn't bitten me lately. I've drawn all I want to from the first three books, the fourth and fifth don't excite me, I don't feel like picking up the sixth again right away ... you may have to wait a bit.

[hyel.livejournal.com]

Omg I love your Om! :D The expression!

[niteflite.livejournal.com]

Heh. It's so odd, that just last night, after coming home from work, I had this strange urge to read Brutha.

I had to re-steal Small Gods from my sister (who has never truly appreciated PTerry until I found the BBC cartoons of Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music at my library) so that I could read it.

She still hasn't hooked onto Small Gods, but I still haven't gotten back my library copy of Soul Music, the book.

Anyways... yeah. That was a tangent. But it was fun. Brutha is love!