Illustration Friday: ferocious

RAWR!:

 (watercolour, A5)

I really wanted to follow the topic and draw something mean, dark, ferocious even, but for some reason I just couldn't think of anything. I must be having a creative block in terms of dark subject matter. Hmm, worrying...

At least her hair looks fierce.

It felt good to do another watercolour, I've been trying my hand at oil paints and it's been hit and miss (mostly miss). I think I miss the speed at which I need to paint with water-based media. Oil paint is great for blending and reworking but you need patience. Oh, and cleaning up afterwards is tedious.

(BTW I suck at creating characters)

As you can see I was going to try and draw a cartoony cat. That didn't pan out, but cute kid in a cat costume did. The ball of yarn was an afterthought, as the kid looked odd bearing her claws at nothing.

As usual my initial sketches are weird-looking. While others go into great detail and produce reams and reams of ideas, revisions, revisions of ideas, I usually doodle a few things in pen on a tiny scrap of paper (those are A6 sheets up there!) then transfer it onto the final paper. Thankfully my paper is very forgiving as this is when I end up working and reworking the pencil lines. I know I should do proper sketches beforehand but hey, it's not easy to change, especially when it works for me.

While I wait for a painting to dry...

...I broke out some white Conté crayons and decided to do a quick portrait. Unlike most of the portraits that I (attempt to) do in black on white paper, this one was reversed. Slightly different process, I think.

(White Conté crayon on black paper, A3)

This time I tried to keep it sketchy instead of smoothing it out too much, otherwise it starts to look too unnatural. That said, I've noticed that when I try a portrait, I usually end up drawing the eyes much bigger than they are supposed to be, thereby making it unnatural anyway. Hah. I guess that's my thing then. I must really like eyes.