I’ve spent hours trying to think of a snappy introduction (and title for that matter), and I’ve got nothing. So.
I’m thinking this was inspired by Disney’s Atlantis, but I have no memory of seeing it when I was this young. I very well may have, because when I watched it as a college student I knew what was going to happen and who the characters were and all that jazz. But I can’t say for sure. Regardless, this person looks like she was inspired by that movie (but whitewashed because I’m problematic).
This is one of those drawings that was surprisingly good. Like, okay, her proportions aren’t great, but they’re far better than other examples in this sketchbook. Like her breasts! They’re round and not, like, overdrawn! She has a belly button! And a nose! Hair that looks kinda like hair! And that book she’s holding!! Look at Baby Sarah learning how to draw perspective!! (I feel like I need to support Baby Sarah after last week’s blog post, because my mom sent be a text telling me to stop being mean to her [hi mom……]).
So I was struggling with this redraw. When I first sketched out the pose, I drew it too big and it didn’t fit the sketchbook page (hilarious given that, as we’ll see in the old sketchbooks, I used to draw things super-duper tiny and couldn’t draw full-page things to save my life). I re-positioned and redrew her left (our right) arm like 20 times until I was happy with it. You can see the smudges where all 174691512 variations of her arm didn’t quite erase. I struggled with her face shape and features and expression. I got it to a point where I was okay with it. Then I went to dinner and came back and was like “this is Not Good”. I was going to just accept it and post it anyways, but it bugged me too much and I started to fix her hand and then I just went through and fixed everything else too.
Long story long, it ended up being pretty good. Not my best, but definitely far from my worst. Still whitewashed, though. I tried to give her a less-tribal vibe because, y’know…”tribal” is not an appropriate theme for any white person.
The major success of this redraw was her left hand. I DREW THAT FORESHORTENED HAND ALL BY MYSELF, NO REFERENCE PICTURE. #ProudOfMe
Her crown was inspired by Beyoncé’s. Important.
It was also really important that I properly draw a fat body. The art world (the comic world/anime world, specifically, aka where I learned how to draw) is just as discriminatory towards bodies above size 2 as fashion/TV/movies/books/etc are. I’ve never tried to draw anything other than skinny people. And you can’t just ADD random bulges to a skinny body. You have to make sure the fat moves properly and falls with gravity and folds in a way that makes sense and is in the right places. I used more references for that than I did for the pose, because I wanted it to be right. I’m sure it’s not perfect, because my sense of anatomy isn’t perfect, and fat is anatomy. It’s something I need to work on.
Anyways. Don’t have much else to saaaaay. This wasn’t a very funny pooooost. I’m feeling guilty that it wasn’t entertaining but at least it was shooort?????
Ending the awkward and signing off for now.
See ya!
Falling, Failing, & Flailing 