Troll Head

Quick sketch for a troll character. Off the top of my head, he reminds me of one of the guys from my RP sessions, who had a troll PC. Need to do more random character heads like these.

Notably, this is done from the eternally-frustrating scanner at my folks place. Stupid thing thinks I don't know anything about scanning and tried to correct my sketch all to hell, thinking it was some skewed photo or something. Wound up frustrated an hour later before I got it done.

Wereboar

Drawn during the same session as the full-body staff-uniform shot of Donovan below, this was another guidepost for setting up a character in this style. He's athletic, kinda rangy, with simplified fabric folds and a face design I'm quite happy with. (He's also got my little notes for spotting a were in-world, slightly pointed ears, minor fangs in the mouth, and notable body hair. (Admittedly, there could be more elsewhere, like the forearms, armpits, or chest, but I was working quick.

Donovan Fullbody

I've been struggling with the design for Donovan in terms of his bodytype. He's a big guy, but not excessively fat or muscular. My work with his design in animation has been tending towards to muscular side, but this helped me to figure out how to tone that down. It also set the bar for fabric folds as a guidepost, the amount of work I should really be putting into this.

Donovan revision, late 2008

A few weeks ago as of this writing, I had what I called a 'stylistic epiphany'. Basically, I found Cheeks, and his unique approach to a style I'd been playing before. (In bodies, anyway. His unique approach to faces is really what kicked off this image.)

I won't even both posting the interim image, a colored version of the previous Donovan design. This is so much better, in my opinion. Thin-line is the way to go, right now. Most of the basics of my design work don't really change, it's more aspects of the style, like fabric, dynamic posing, and a sleek design to body and musculature, which I realign myself towards.

Donovan revision, early 2008

Recent design for animation. Two separate sketches, actually, the 'after', followed by the 'before'. Was trying to figure out a good design for animated hair (which I did and have now stuck with even through a new design), as well as simplify the character's scaly features. (The eyebrows before had spikes sticking out, and the nose had more width and depth.)

With the most recent design, as seen in color in the blog title, many of these changes might be invalidated. Others might re-appear. (The focus on the three-pronged sideburns was an attempt to foreshadow the jaw spikes, for instance.)

Donovan, last year's diagnostic

A descriptive sheet for the character. Emphasis here was on his distinguishing features, such as his scaled arms and legs, the tail, and the unique spike pattern on his face. Specifics which this failed to include were the borders between his human skin and his scale patches. His skin is generally caucasian-pink, except his forearms and shins where it segues into fine, dusky grey-black scales. His face has a slight red tone at the cheekbones and following the back corner of the jaw around the spikes, but his fully-scaled nose and eyebrows emerged straight from the pink flesh.

Werewolves

Werewolf character designs from way back. The younger guy on the right is one of the main characters for Nightmares, while the one on the left is a menacing but well-meaning pack leader. One of my favorite wolf drawings, the extended muzzle was a unique style I created from scratch. (Much of my style has been built up over the years taking inspiration from others. Not copying, but looking at their styles and referencing a line here or there, adding it to my repertoire.)

Donovan sketch, 'early' form

Originally an attempt to just do a simple comic-style character turnaround. Intended to be 'in the past', before he got huge and muscular, or grew the wings. Later, during my animation class, I found the slimmer design better suited for what I wanted to do, although I still plan on advancing the character to the previous larger, 'later' design in the series' future.

Original sketch for Donovan

Originally drawn 2004, as a roleplaying character. (Specifically, a half-red dragon ala D&D's 3rd edition, thus the specific stripes, horns, spikes, and so forth. The tail was just a personal preference, I like spades.)

Sketchblog Begins!

First post!

Wait, no.. My teacher recommended I do a blogger blog. I have a full website as well, Red Blade Studios, but this one can be the regular sketch-blog.

(So, let's see.. I've got a LiveJournal, a deviantART site, a YouTube channel, a MyToons page, a full website, and now this. Will it ever be enough? Will I ever stop?)