Character design

Following on from the Inktober marathon, time to get back to personal drawing projects, sketchbook sketches, etc.!

The "crooked man"/Professor character I did for my Day 8 Inktober image is sort of a design I had in mind anyway for one of the main characters in my book idea.

This is the pencilled character design image for my Professor character. Notice that I've gone with a more friendly, curly hairstyle rather than the manic hairstyle depicted in the Inktober images.



The next step is colouring and rendering the design. I'm doing this in Krita using my Intuos Pro tablet.

Inkober 2017 - Day #1 - Swift

The amazingly talented artist Jake Parker started a little exercise called "Inktober" some years back. Basically, it involves trying to produce an inked drawing each day through the month of October. The idea Jake had behind this was to help improve his inking skills whilst also keeping to a schedule.

I thought I would take part this year. I know I'm not fast enough to produce a drawing each day - however, I shall attempt to get at least four images produced!

There is a running theme to my Inktober ideas - linked to a story idea I have brewing in my imagination pool.

I am using the official Inktober 2017 prompt list. So, in advance of the first day of October....here is the first image! Day 1 prompt: "Swift".

Enjoy.



Oh....and here's the pencilled version that I inked over:



(Click on images to see bigger versions on Flickr.)

Coloured character designs

I have now completed the colouring for the character sketches. I have tried to maintain a traditional inked look, with a simpler colouring scheme (mostly flat colours with edge highlighting and light shadowing.

This is the first time I've done some major colouring in GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), a free image editing tool that is pretty close to Photoshop. It's a great tool for what it does, and (hey!) it's free, so can't complain!

A new beginning....

After a long hiatus, the drawing board once more calls. I have had a story idea roaming around my head for quite a while now, and it's time to "set it free" (fly, my pretty, fly)!!

These first few sketches are character designs for what I shall call (for now) the "mystery" character. Think of him/it as possibly a storyteller....

The Lion in the Cinema

One of the groups I am a member of on Flickr is called "Vixen UK", set up by a fellow artist from the days of the "Freddie and the Fairy" as part of her own freelance business. She posted up someone's poem as an idea for a picture book: "The Lion in the Cinema". Even though I haven't got the time to fully illustrate it, I did have a go at a few sketch ideas.

Click on the images to view them full size on Flickr: