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

[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!