A young petite girl with dual katanas taking on a giant and ferocious wurm at a deserted carnival, what could go wrong? This was a commission that I illustrated last year. I was holding a drawing, taking names during one of my book signings. One lucky winner would receive a free drawing from me at their request.
The Sketch
The winner was an aspiring writer and he really wanted me to draw his protagonist, a young girl names Evamire. He was really descriptive about her appearance: white hair, patched oversize cloak, dual katanas, etc. He wanted her to battle a worm-type monster in a post-apocalyptic setting. What an exciting concept!
The Line Art
I wanted to experiment with my style for this one and I decided to go with more of a Western/American cartoon look for the girl. I wanted her body to be lean and lanky, flowing with curves and not at all stiff. I gave her a button nose and big eyes. The arms and hands were difficult to get right. I had to redraw that a few times.
The Flat Colors
The background was very tedious because of all of the small shapes and lines to fill in. In the future, I may forgo the use of line art for the scenery because I think it helps improve the Masking Effect if the objects didn't have outlines like the characters do. Plus, I can get away with messier strokes and imperfection, which gives the impression of focus/out of focus so that the detail is front and center with my characters.
The Final Illustration
When compared to my other artwork, this one does stand out as being different. I like how it almost looks like it could have been a screenshot taken from an animated show or something. While I love animated shows and cartoon styles, I shudder to think of the amount of work it takes to produce just a few seconds worth of content. That's why I love comics, it's a great in-between because you still have sequential story telling, but the pacing is much more tolerable for a single artist to accomplish.
Even the pencil sketches are amazing.
Sometimes I think the messier it is the better is looks! :D