Other Art By Me
Pictures of my characters, and of miscellaneous other folks...
ravnbatl.jpg
(05/11/2002): A picture of Raven hin'Elric from my own sketch pad. The
perspective is a little off, Elemacil doesn't really look right, and the foreshortening
isn't as good as it could be, but this is the first picture of Raven that I've
drawn that I was even remotely happy with. Progress is progress...
merai.jpg
(05/11/2002): Another
picture from my sketch pad, this one of Merai hin'Dana. I am very happy
with this one, and I was delighted that it came out as well as it did. I think
it does a good job of bringing out both her youth and the subtly feline features
of her face. I didn't draw in her fur because I didn't want to clutter up what
was, for me, a very successful picture, but you can imagine her thin, close-lying
pelt of tawny fur as well as I can. :) Note the black tear-marks, a feature
common to several of the big cats; I've never explicitly stated what kind of
cat Merai was modeled after, and she may even be able to take several different
feline forms, but I've always felt like she had a bit of lioness hidden deep
down inside her, whether she realized it or not. :)
sljackson.jpg
(05/11/2002): This sketch is part of a series of experiments on my part
at drawing real-life people from photographs. I chose Samuel L. Jackson (here
in his role as Jedi Master Mace Windu) because he has interesting facial features
and an incredibly penetrating glare. (And, of course, he is the bad@$$ to snuff
all other bad@$$es. :) I don't think I quite managed to convey the full glower
in his expression here, but this is the closest I've gotten yet to reproducing
emotions in a drawing. This was a fun picture for experimenting with shadowing,
too.
tessa.jpg
(05/12/2002): Tessa, the half-Elf Lightbringer initiate, reaches back
into her quiver for an arrow. Lots of experimentation going on here: first sketch
on a real sketchpad, first successful sketch that uses foreshortening, first
sketch I've colored (which is a lot more work than you might think), and the
first sketch I started using a light blue pencil like the professional comic
artists use. I think it really helped, too -- the blue erases more cleanly than
a normal pencil, which results in a much cleaner final sketch (though it still
required several hours of work to clean up for coloring). I think Tessa looks
a little older here than in my current stories with her -- Jack recently mistook
her for sixteen -- but I think this sketch does a good job of bringing out the
stubborn, defiant aspects of her personality.
blkwidow.jpg
(05/15/2002): This picture was based on the painted cover of issue #1 of
the 2002 Black Widow mini-series by MAX Comics (a subsidiary of Marvel). Here
we see the second and current Black Widow, Yelena Belova, locked and loaded
and ready to kick some tail. I was particularly happy with the way the guns
and Widow's Bite bracers turned out; the latter was my first attempt at drawing
a metallic surface, and I think it's quite convincing. I was also pretty satisfied
with her expression, which carries a lot of the hard, cold demeanor I was going
for. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the midriff look more three-dimensional,
especially around the edges, but this was definitely another incremental step
upward in my skills.
cassandr.jpg
(03/25/2003): This is a picture of a character I helped create for a GURPS
Fantasy game: Cassandra, a 16-year-old telepath who was psychically
linked to her twin brother Taden. Sadly, Cassie contracted a magical plague
and passed away a few months into the game, but this is still one of my favorite
drawings -- in large part because her quirky personality came through in her
facial expression.
raven.gif
(10/21/05): A little sketch of Raven that I did in the airport while I was
waiting for a flight. "Furry" characters give me enormous trouble
in my drawing, so it gave me a tremendous thrill of accomplishment to finally
produce an image of Raven that I actually liked. Drawing in profile is the easiest
way to do muzzles, and I still have a long way to go before I'll be a
decent fur-artist, but I cherish this image as one real victory after years
of frustrating failures.
toon_kate.jpg
(11/23/05): A cartoon-style image of my sister-in-law, Kate. And before
I get accused of excessive artistic license, I must tell you that she really
is as ... gifted ... as I've shown here. :)
toon_casey.jpg
(11/24/05): A cartoon-style image of my brother, Casey. And yes, this is
a fairly accurate representation of the looks he gives me much of the time ...
especially if I have a camera. :)
morgan.jpg
(01/18/06): Lt. Dr. Morgan Drauling, the MCPD's head medical examiner
and resident vampire. Featured in my MK2K
stories Welcome to the City and Huntress, here she lets her vamp
side show a little more than usual. Better back away slowly, friend -- she looks
hungry...
