Week 34

It could be argued that this week is late BUT I didn't start it until Sunday to technically it took me less than a week to finish it... but I digress.

Some Hetalia characters, USA and Hungary, having a fun day shopping.

Week 26

I thought I was finished with this yesterday, but something felt off. As I went to bed last night I realized that I hadn't given him his nice, thick eyebrows. I took about five minutes this morning to do that and fix the bridge of his nose a bit. Much better. I do realize his face is slanted at an odd angle but I'm not going to worry about it.

PS: Here's my loose reference 

Week 26 Squeezes In

I seem to be cutting it closer and closer with actually starting and finishing the artwork every week. Next week I could just end up throwing something together an hour before midnight but hopefully that won't be the case.

It's been a while since I did something all digital, so I took that route this time. Well, more or less. It is digital but I'm using a different method than usual and it's working in my favor. I am using a references but I'll share a link to that once the drawing is done.

Week 24: Skip a Step

I did actually scan the inked version of this but it was nothing to write home about, so I opted to not blog again until I'd finished it. His pose was awkward in the pencil version since his far hand was just... there... so I gave it a purpose. It also completes the look of how I have him in Animal Crossing: New Leaf since he has a black jacket on. Opted out of the shades because I wanted to draw his eyes but maybe it would have looked better with them. Oops.

Week 24: Fashionable

I have a character on Animal Crossing: New Leaf who is made to look like a Hetalia character, using a Wii Mii for his head since the game itself doesn't have the hair I want. Recently there was a kilt in the clothing store, so I jumped on that and now he wears it. I love it so I'm trying to draw him in it for this week. So far there are a lot of awkward points about it, but I'm hopeful.

Week 18 Is A Rebellious Teenager

...or at least pretty close to one. Every time I sat down to draw, my inspiration told me I wasn't its boss, I couldn't tell it what to do and that it was going out with its friends whether I liked it or not. Yesterday I sat it down and it agreed to behave... for now. As long as it was allowed to create something totally self-indulgent. Since that something happened to be a sketch of a pretty man sleeping, I was agreeable.

Week 17 Completion

Looking at this now, I've decided it was well worth it to dedicate a week to the background alone. It looks great! Probably my favorite of my digital backgrounds so far. Maybe landscapes aren't as terrifying and boring as I thought they were.

Week 17 Coming Together

There's something satisfying about seeing the drawing at this stage with the character actually in the setting. ...that's about all I've got. Oops. It's not done yet.

Week 16 Retraces Its Steps

Yesterday I had another look at the digitally inked version of this drawing and I totally hated it. So today I inked it on paper and then went ahead and colored it.

However, it's the last day of Week 16 and the background didn't happen. So instead I'll spend Week 17 trying to make a decent forest-y digital painting to put behind him. Works for me.

Week 16 Shows Some Skin

The turtle-neck type shirt looked awful so forget that thing. Last time I drew him with a bow he was shirtless so we might as well keep that up.

I'll check for anatomy errors tomorrow but for now I'm just excited to have the base sketch done before I add color and stick him in a tree.

Week 16 On the Prowl

I'm doing more fanart this time but also using it for some pose and background practice. I also wanted do something with archery since it's been well over a year since my last attempt. Unfortunately,  I didn't make it very far yet. I only like his head and ended up erasing all but that after I scanned this.

The earring was inspired by a friend of mine who mentioned that through history archers have pierced their ears to improve balance/eyesight. Something to do with acupuncture I think?

Week 10 Finale

One of my current dreams is to go back in time to when someone somewhere decided that Daylight Savings should be a thing and kick them in the face. Not to stop them from doing it because it used to be relevant, but at least let them know that I disapprove. Then I'd come back to the present and take a long nap, which sounds great right now.

Despite time and space and some people who have been dead for a long all depriving me of an hour of sleep, I managed to finish my sketch today. I threw some depressing colors under it in Paint Tool SAI and I think it works.

One brother has failed another so many times in the past, but even after making a turn-around you still remember and regret.

Also the non-color version because I can't decided which I like more

Week 10: Bring on the Angst

More fan art of Hetalia role play characters, this time some brotherly angst.

...I am way too tired to go into detail right now. Oops.

Week 8: "Can't Control the Curse"

I was too restless to draw yesterday, so this morning I bought some groceries and spent most of a gift card at the local used book store to cure my cabin fever. When I came home, I'd finally settled down enough to finish my drawing. Blasting the Frozen soundtrack in the car the entire morning was also helpful.

This character that I often role play and write for Hetalia, and "alternate" version of Canada, reminds me a lot of Elsa from Frozen. He seems cold and unfeeling, but that's because he's afraid. Unlike Elsa, however, his fear is more for himself than someone else. He spent a lot of his life being hurt, and the chances are high of it happening again. Plus there's that whole being Canada thing so I'm sure the cold doesn't bother him.

Since they remind me of each other, I decided on a "what if" scenario of him having the same ice power as Elsa. I imagine it wouldn't go much better for him than it did her.

Week 8 Pulls Itself Together

At last I forced myself to settle down and at least finish the sketching process. I'm not going to ink it because I feel like the sketch lines are better for emotional representation. But I am going to throw some digital color on it and maybe figure out how to draw ice.

See, I've noticed a lot of parallels between how I write this character and Elsa from Disney's latest animated feature "Frozen". So I figured if he had some sort of ice powers, he'd be in much the same boat as her. Poor things.

Week 3 Employs the KISS Method

KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid, or Keep It Super Simple if you want to be polite. It doesn't necessarily refer to the fact that I would totally be okay with kissing this guy. Well, I would if he hadn't just been smoking. Cigarettes are disgusting, yet sometimes I think they add a lot to a drawing. Maybe it's a morbid fascination.

As I worked on this and became more and more involved with the sketching phase, I realized that erasing the sketch lines and trying to color it would just take away from what's there. Part of being an artist is knowing when to stop and not over-work something, so that was my route this time.

Week 3 Is Sketchy

For a while last week my mind was set on one certain thing, and then it changed over to doing fan art again. Indulgent fan art at that because I think I earned it. I also noticed I haven't done any traditional media art lately so it was time to fix that, too. My method of coloring, however, is still up for debate.

Since I haven't drawn him in a while, it's Ivan Braginsky of the anime Axis Powers Hetalia. The idea is that he's in a hotel room (or other bed room) in the middle of changing out of his suit after a long, stressful meeting.

I realize his legs need work, but I've spent the last hour trying to figure out why his face won't cooperate with me.

Week 43 Finally

It's a good thing I finished this yesterday because if I hadn't it would have been time to cut my losses on move on to Week 44 whether it was finished or not. What am I going to do for Week 44? Nothing is set in stone yet but since I saw Thor 2 yesterday afternoon there's a great possibility it will be related to that.

Week 43 Has An Inkling

I'm surprised I haven't used that horrible pun for a title yet. And now that I have you won't ever have to see it again. Hopefully.

Week 42 and 43 Squished Together

Due to National Novel Writer's Month and general business and a week-long slump, not much drawing happened when it was supposed to. Today, however, I finished a commission in one sitting that was going to be Week 43. Week 42, however, is nowhere near finished. So I'm switching them up. This is now Week 42:

This is a commission for a dear friend of mine of a little role play family that we write, and her late sweet kitty Thomas who died a few weeks ago. It's very sad and I wish I could make it better, but at least I could do this drawing of our way of immortalizing him.

This is what was originally meant to be Week 42. Yes, it's another couple dancing but I don't draw fanart of these two very often and I've never done anything colored or finished and pretty. So I dove in and then life happened as mentioned above. Hopefully I'll finish it within the next few days.