And now for the third batch of Alphabook characters. I've decided to split up the 3rd and 4th batches (for brevity's sake.) In case you don't know what Alphabooks is, it is a blog in which all artists are welcome to draw a book character corresponding to the letter of the week. For instance, A for Aslan, B for Bilbo Baggins, etc. Feel free to check it out and participate! :)J is for JulieJulie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
I'll admit, I'm not very happy how Julie turned out (which is a shame, because I really like the book.) I honestly didn't have a lot of time to finish her (the night before the deadline), plus during the time I was drawing her, I was coming down with a 101 degree fever. All-around UGH. :/ I suppose I learned two things: A.) Understanding how Inuit faces are shaped differently from face from European-descent, and B.) Drawing when you're feverish and have the chills isn't fun. Lesson learned...next character! (.5 hour)K is for KaeldraDragon's Milk by Susan Fletcher
I'm a fan of Susan Fletcher's Dragon Chronicles, and decided that Kaeldra from Dragon's Milk needed some spotlight time. The story in a nutshell is about this girl who's younger sister catches vermillion fever, and the only way to cure it is with dragon's milk. When she does find a mother dragon, she agrees to watch the mother's dracling's while she hunts (in return for dragon's milk). However, when the mother dragon is killed by townsmen, the draclings are in danger, and therefore Kaeldra must journey to find a safe haven for the draclings (dun, dun, duuun!) Anyways, it was a nice change to use only flats (no shading) to color this piece. Sometimes flats just give a cleaner appearance while still possessing a more finished appearance than simply lines. Again, it was good practice to draw different shapes of faces; Kaeldra’s is a lot longer than my normal default face, and I always need experience drawing braids (and blonde hair for that matter). Plus, dragons are always fun to draw. :) (2.5 hours)L is for LauraLittle House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Have any of you ever read the “Little House” series? If so, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been enchanted with the pioneer life. I absolutely love how Laura Ingalls Wilder describes in detail daily life as a pioneer and all the adventures she grew up having. So, for the letter L, I was thrilled to do Miss Laura when she was still quite young. And since I had been doing everything digital up to this point, I decided that it’d be a nice change to pull out my pencils and draw in a more organic style (plus, my tablet wasn’t working at the moment. :P) Unfortunately, my scanner butchered the image (as usual), so I resorted to a *shudder* point-and-shoot camera (yes, the point-and-shoot actually looked better than the scanned image. -__-) *sigh* Guess it’s time to buy a real scanner. But regardless, Laura prevailed, and waves her hat defiantly in the face of technology—take that, you fiendish tablet/scanner! :D (2ish hours?)