Art Challenges - Tumblr Posts
Day 13 is based on a cartoon character, can you guess which one? This is another one using water-soluble felt tips, I think I’m starting to get the hang of it! On my instagram there’s a photo of how it looks before the water: https://www.instagram.com/p/BxZwKlIlR4n/
I forgot to post my mermaids! NOOO! For day 14 I asked Sammy what I should draw, and she said Gumball to match Darwin from the day before. I didn’t have any better ideas so here he is! He’s a catfish, of course. I think I’m getting somewhere with the water-and-felt-tips combination, but I haven’t worked out how to get muted colours yet.
Day 15 is a freshwater pearl mussel! This mermaid is rooted to one spot. She can produce a pearl of rare size, but getting it from her will be tricky. I fell behind a bit on day 14 (I used my comic-drawing time to go and see Detective Pikachu, so I had to use my mermaid-drawing time to do my comic, and ended up with no time for a mermaid), so this one was lagging about a day behind.
For day 16 I fancied doing a classic mermaid after all the weird animal ones. A lot of the students at work have been wearing their hair like this lately. I was still catching up, so I sketched this on day 16 but did most of the work the next day.
Day 17 is a pokemon mermaid, in honour of Detective Pikachu being the reason I fell behind. I never had a Milotic in the games, but I like the weird stained-glass-window look of its tail. I made a bad decision with this one though! I finally caught up on the previous days and just had this one left to do, but I decided to use masking fluid to do the background, and you can’t remove the mask until the paint is completely dry. It was so late at night by then that I had to leave it to dry overnight and fell behind again! *facepalm*
Day 18 is in biro because I was scared of falling behind again! I was out visiting friends and asked them what sort of mermaid I should draw, and they said a pike mermaid who lives in a moat. I think in hindsight I could have pushed the underbite a bit more and given her a really weird face.
Day 19, we’re all caught up! This one was inspired by DrawingWiffWaffles, specifically a video where she re-drew art from her followers. At first glance I thought the thumbnail was a pond mermaid with lilypads on her head. It was actually an ocean mermaid with a seashell crown, but I thought I’d try drawing what I thought I saw at first. I’m really testing the limits of those novelty pencils! I think the biggest issue with them is that they’re so low-pigment they don’t scan or photograph well.
Day 20 is a merman! One of the prompt lists had ‘merman’ for today, so I turned one of my male characters into a merm. (I haven’t been using prompts in general, but I look at the lists if I’m stuck for ideas.) I wasn’t sure about the spot colour so I scanned it before colouring as well. I’m still not sure which one looks better.
Day 21 is a friendly little vampire squidmaid! She’s appeared in a portfolio piece in the past. Be careful as you approach, she may try to hug you without considering all her teeth. I was messing around with masking fluid again (I learned it’s not as good with ink because the mistakes are harder to fix) and I tore the paper, so I decided to go in with the rubbish novelty pencils again and see where their limits really are! I still think they hold up surprisingly well? Don’t let cheap materials hold you back kids.
I forgot to upload the rest of my mermaids! I got super-busy towards the end of May, so I’m afraid I only managed 28 in the end. I’ll finish the final three when I have time, but these are the last ones drawn during May. I did have another go at the coralmaid, like I promised! I’m sort of pleasantly surprised by my own work for this challenge, more of them turned out well than I ever expected! Did any of you manage all 31 mermaids? Did you have fun?
Inktober 2019: day 8 - fineliners
If you tell her to wait, she’ll wait.
I was going to shade this with grey pens, but I decided on a whim to try doing just clean line art instead. I’m quite pleased with it?
Inktober 2019: day 10 - G-pen
Sweetpea is trying on a new hat, but I don’t think it’s going to stay on over his hair. Maybe he’ll have better luck once the other ear frill drops.
I promise I drew this on the day, I just ran out of time/energy to scan it! I keep coming up with ideas that I know will take too long, but then I can’t bring myself to go with a weaker idea so I end up having to finish it at night. Sweetpea turned out looking so cute though, so it’s worth it, right?
(If you know your nuts and seeds you can work out how big he is by that hat.)
Inktober 2019: day 12 - brush inking and coloured ink
The way Nettle’s hair waves around when she uses her powers is a sign of poor control.
I wanted to practice using those rigger brushes a bit more, so I drew something pretty simple. They’re so hard to control! You can get more ink in them at once without losing the fine tip though.
Inktober 2019: day 13 - brush inking and ink wash
A character we haven’t really met before! This is ‘Sapling’, the Dai Empress, in extremely casual clothes. This might even be something like pyjamas. She rules a vast empire that spans more than half a galaxy. I normally try not to use the same inking method two days in a row, but carrying bottles of ink to and from work was making me nervous so I thought I’d better do all the brush inking at the weekend. I did use different brushes though!
Inktober 2019: days 14 & 15 - ink and water
“Those thus blessed shall ye know by a stain of blood that cleareth not, neither by water nor by milk.”
Something very exciting has been happening this Inktober! I’ve had Meilee and Lin since I was a teenager, but I could never get a bead on who they are or what their story is. Now all of a sudden I’m learning a lot about them! I didn’t know about their port wine stains until a couple of days ago, so I drew these two back to back so I could post them as a pair.
Inktober 2019: day 17 - Pentel pocket brush and felt tips
His whispers blend right in with your own thoughts, until you can’t tell the difference.
Inktober 2019: day 18 - fineliners and ink wash
Jessie can summon lightning even on a clear day.
I spent a good 20 minutes just staring at my sketchbook drawing a total blank on ideas, so in the end I decided to extend the ‘girls looking straight forward’ set from last year. Maybe I’ll do a few more?
Inktober 2019: day 20 - mapping pen
It’s not clear to anyone why Coda attracts so many butterflies.
I went for something simple again because I’m tabling at London MCM this weekend and I’m starting to panic a little bit!
Inktober 2019: day 23 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash (G-pen for the strings)
Here’s another character we haven’t met before, although you may have seen his eye if you’ve been here a while. Jothan is a courtesan at the palace of the Dai Empress, with music among his specialist skills. His people never show their open mouths, so he wears a veil if he’s been ask to sing as well as play.
(The harp design isn’t final, I think it should be a bit less symmetrical.)
Inktober 2019: day 24 - ink and water
This isn’t quite as dangerous as it looks.
This one was originally going to have a dramatic background, but I was travelling to London with a suitcase I could barely lift, so this was all I could manage. I think I might re-draw it so I can compare my worst Inktober days with what I can do if I have all the time in the world.