I did something WILD this week, and not only drew TWO drawings…but one of them…IS A DUDE.
This is important, I promise.
Not the dual drawing; these characters were all designed in the same fandom phase, and it made sense to do a double. The man, however, is a rarity. I am generally terrible at drawing men. Terrible. You’d think since their bodies are pretty much just straight lines it’d be easy, but as I’ve learned time and time again, that’s not even remotely true!!
Maybe it’s because, as a female, I understand female anatomy more intuitively. Just kidding, that is a bogus theory because I’m terrible at all anatomy. I just, I dunno, drew women way more than I drew men. More practice, I suppose.
This guy isn’t that good anatomically. I couldn’t find a good reference so I just did it, and I think it shows in his hands. Not really sure what they’re doing. Take note of his shoes: this Kingdom Hearts influenced style will be sticking around for quite some time.
Completely random things I’m good at drawing for 0 reason: lightning. At some point in my life, while drawing Fullmetal Alchemist fanart (don’t worry, we’ll get there), I discovered my inexplicable lightning art skill. Good to know I guess?
The ghost girl is not my best work. Legit took 3 tries to get something presentable. I picked a tough pose, and struggled to capture it correctly from the reference.
During a later phase, I’ll learn how to draw ghosts, and I’ll do it better than I have in the original. For the new one, I used a blending tool to fade the arm & leg (specifically the arm and leg I didn’t know how to draw………….whooooops). Thinking retrospectively: maybe around Sketchbook C or D, I’ll get a manga art book called How to Draw Manga: Horror and Macabre. Oh man, this book. If you ever wanna know how to draw realistic severed limbs, demon horses, or other terrifying things, I highly recommend this book. I went through an INTENSE macabre phase, eventually leading to my complete disavowal of anything horror. But we’ll get there.
At the Sketchbook B point in my life, however, I was just entering the world of gross-out horror. My entry point (other than being a 12yrs old art school emo nerd)? A delightful book series called Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan. Lemme just say, this series was, and still is, one of my favorites. I loooooved these books as a tween. If you know any angsty middle schoolers who have a unquenchable thirst for horror, but who maybe shouldn’t be exposed to the Saw movies just yet, give them this series. It will delight their gorey sensibilities without overwhelming bloody details, and is also imaginative & compelling.* I would stop them there, though. His Demonata series was honestly too gross for me even in my peak grosshorror phase, and I was the girl drawing severed arms.
So I think—and I’m not too sure, because it’s been quite a long time since I drew these—these characters were OCs for Shan’s series. I think I was imagining more sideshow characters for the Cirque Du Freak (the oddball travelling circus that serves as home base for the main characters). Although, I missed the point of the circus, because these guys are more super powered than they are mutations of human genetics mixed with fantastical beasts. The bearded lady, for example, is a skelk (mythical creature created for this book), with a penchant for growing unbelievably strong body hair. Lighting dude is just…..shootin’ lighting. Whatever, at least I’m creative, I suppose.
OTHER FUN ART THINGS: So I mentioned that my fiancé, who’s with me for the summer, bought a drawing tablet. I think I may do a separate post on that experience, because I finally attempted a freehand sketch the other night! So that will be coming very, very soon.
My fiancé’s love language is gift-giving, so he surprised me with a nice set of Prismacolors—the coveted colored pencils that are stupidly expensive and every art student’s top holiday wish gift—the other day. I haven’t used them fully yet, but I tested them and WOWIE they are so smooth. Very excited to experiment further with them.
More art, more ramblings, and more revealing details about my preteens coming next week!
*If representation is something important to you when considering recommendations, I will say that this book is VERY white and VERY male. I can only think of two vaguely important female characters, who are really just love interests for the main character’s mentor. And I can’t think of a single character of color.
Background noise: I made this post & the drawings spread out over a few weeks, so there were a few soundtracks. I listened to some ymusic, which is an awesome mini-orchestra currently touring with Ben Folds in honor of their collaborator album So There. Really beautiful stuff.
I’ve also recently been introduced to James Blake through his new album Timeless, and I’ve started seriously listening to Missy Elliot. Both phenomenal artists in two totally different genres.