Hatter Madigan

Again, it's Hannah. Fear not, I assure you Sarah shall be posting again! But for the moment, my fan art is piling up on the back order. And so it's a coin flip between the two that I did a whole bunch of stuff - hours of computer time - on. 

This is my best rendition of a legendarily epic fellow named Hatter Madigan. Seriously epic. Like, on the same level as Batman, Halt, and Pinkie Pie. You might not think that the last one's that awesome, but you just don't know Pinkie. 

Anyway, Hatter is a character created by Frank Beddor in the Looking Glass Wars series, which I would recommend to you if you like fantasy or sci-fi or period drama or awesome things or chocolate chip cookies. He was, in fact, so cool that he got his own spin-off graphic novel trilogy. Hatter is loosely based off of Lewis Carroll's Mad Hatter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, except with several big differences - Hatter is a very somber, very sane bodyguard; a skilled fighter known as a Milliner.

I based his appearance rather strongly on another character from the Looking Glass Wars, Homburg Molly

(http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/41/81/77/418177ef00288cb24d4a8999671a7e5b.jpg).

Hatter began as a sketch: 

So I put it into Photoshop and quickly realized I'd need to stretch him out considerably to keep him from looking short and plump.

So I took the original and added several virtual pounds of paint. When I was reading a book on writing by Gail Carson Levine, she stressed the importance of making several copies of my documents (she often had several hundred files at the end of a book, I believe) so that if you change your mind about deleting something, you don't have to recreate it by memory, you can just go back to an older draft. Since then I've done the same with my word documents and my Photoshop documents.

This is what my Hatter M file looks like now that I'm finished. Something I like to do is page through all of the files and see how it got from beginning to finished product. However, these files get so large and numerous that I have to move it to my secondary drive to keep it from overloading my computer's memory, which did nearly happen with one of my last projects. See, I still prefer to use Windows XP instead of the more recent versions Vista, 7, 8, and whatever else have you, so my family bemoans my very sluggish computer (that's one of the reasons I keep it - no one else wants to use a computer that takes ten minutes to start up and five to open a browser, even when it's Google Chrome!)

In any case, I worked on the sketch for several days and it came out like this:

As you can see, not the same as the finished product. For example, he looks like a zombie, his overcoat is missing it's fancy-schmancy decor, he's short with a hint of a potbelly.

Okay, so he's taller and thinner...

...And now with the help of the Liquify tool, I've given him a chiropractic adjustment. I called this de-hipping, just 'cause I made it look like he wasn't being all feminine and sassy. But he still looks positively ghastly in the face, and that's because I tried to follow a "painting a photo-realistic face on Photoshop" tutorial on Pinterest. First of all, this picture's not supposed to be photo-realistic, second of all, the person who made the tutorial was working off of a real picture, not a fuzzy idea in their head, and thirdly, I stink at following tutorials without skipping around impatiently. So I just went back to the original sketch, made the drawing's skin a tad rosier than white, tossed on a handful of brass buttons and heart appliques, and voilà!  

So this wasn't exactly a Photoshop tutorial on how to fill in a sketch. I kept a whole lot hush-hush, mostly because it's way too boring to write down step-by-step. When I do it, I just sort of feel my way around, making faces at my computer screen and erasing stuff and covering it up and finding references on what metal actually looks like and stealing the designs from people's boots and consuming large amounts of salty snacks and getting advice from my siblings and playing around with colors and freaking out because I thought I ruined everything and making teeny-tiny recalibrations and adjustments and basically spending a long time acting like I know what I'm doing until it looks okay. If you really want to know something about Photoshop and how to edit stuff, go ahead and ask, but all I can really say is that it helps a ton to have a mother and older sister who have absorbed the program and it's capabilities so much that they can do all sorts of freaky photo adjustments without going "Oooh, I wonder what this button does!"

Lastly, as far as I can tell, Vance Kovacs was the concept artist who made the Homburg Molly picture, so apologies, sir, for filching designs. I only did it because yours were awesome. 

Is that everything? Good, good...

To God be the Glory,

Hannah

Artemis Fowl: Cast Of Characters

Hands up, who's read Artemis Fowl?

If you haven't heard of it, it's a spectacular series. Hilarious, intelligent, with a ridiculous but lovable cast of characters, my favorite of which are shown below. Juvenile genius, bodyguard, and fairy vigilante included.

*SPOILERS* Spoilers are in the eye of the beholder, but you know, the stuff after this warning might could give something away. So if you don't want any spoilers about the Artemis Fowl series, continue at your own risk.

Artemis Fowl: Cast Of Characters



Left to Right: Foaly, Minerva Paradizo, Butler, Mulch Diggums, Juliet Butler, Holly Short, Artemis Fowl, and Julius "Beetroot" Root.





This is just a personal idea of what they'd look like, by the way. I was sort of revolted at the interpretation in the Artemis Fowl graphic novel. Butler's not a neanderthal, and Foaly is supposed to be a centaur, not a horse-man-hybrid-mash-up. Plus, Mulch has 'tombstone teeth', not rabbit teeth.

I also took a bit of artistic license to be able to fit them all together. As you know, if you've read the books, Minerva and Root wouldn't be able to be in the same room together, given the events in The Opal Deception. Said events that wreak havoc on fangirl emotions. And of course, Mulch would have gotten rid of his prison garb as soon as possible once he was on the surface and traded it in for his mining outfit. But he wasn't tall enough for me to show the more notable aspects of that outfit (cough cough), so I settled for a sterotypical prison shirt. Not that the Haven would be likely to use stripes for their prisons anymore.  

Artemis' outfit is based on an Armani suit. Because I pay attention to the little details, if not the big obvious ones. And Foaly's lower body was copied from one of Sarah's centaur drawings, which was copied from another centaur drawing from a library how-to book. But that's just because I'm not very good at drawing animals.

Some of the people in my house argued that Holly wasn't short enough, but I had already "downsized" her once, and once is enough for me. Trinity pointed out that Foaly looked "like someone who would sell insurance to little old ladies". Oh well. One certain person mentioned that I gave Juliet the same haircut I give Trinity whenever I draw her, and also voted for me to erase Minerva entirely (she doesn't like her very much - at all). Ahem, well, excuse me if I actually thought Artemis and Minerva were a good pair.

And no, I didn't add No. 1, or a certain pair of human brothers, or Opal Koboi. Maybe later. I'm sticking to these now.

Please tell me what you think! I'd like to hear what your opinion of the characters are supposed to look like. For those of you who have read the books, this is just my personal idea of what they look like. You have your opinions, I have mine. I try not to enforce popular book character appearances... much. Except for Arya, from the Inheritance Cycle. Have you seen the Eragon movie? "Raven black hair", the book said. "Green eyes", it said. She's an elf, folks! Would pointed ears really break the bank? Red hair, blue eyes... grumble grumble...

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

It's Hannah, with another geeky little post here. While I am procrastinating on my wall mural (for the concrete storm shelter in our back yard) I decided to do a bit on this sketch.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

*Possible Spoilers?*

Okay. I'm not a HUGE Harry Potter fan... well, I say "not huge", I read the books before the movie, I know the names of most of the actors who play main characters and own a Harry Potter making-of book, I've studied the creation of Buckbeak aka "Witherwings"... anyhow, my sisters and I were not allowed to read Harry Potter until a couple years ago. We finished the series about a month before Deathly Hallows part 2 came out. My mom and aunt like the series a lot, so I grew up hearing about it, but not understanding any of it. I thought Dumbledore was a dwarf with a pink umbrella - seriously.

So. Of all the books, Order Of The Phoenix was my favorite. Except for Cho Chang and... the end. Trying to avoid spoilers, but I really hated the end. I gasped and panted and squeaked my unhappiness quite a bit.

For those of you who have NOT read Harry Potter... I'm sorry? This post might not make much sense. But my next one will not be a Harry Potter one.

Unless you watched the movies and not read the books. In which case I am giving you a disapproving look through the screen.

That was my disapproving look.

Anyhow. This picture was done when I wanted to practice some art to widen my repertoire. I usually do manga, stylized-ish cartoon-y drawings.  So I did an attempt at something more realistic, and my closest example at hand was the DVD case for Order Of The Phoenix. We'd gotten it from the library in hopes of seeing it again (it never happened). 

This is a bit reminiscent of my first attempt at realistic art, or rather, my first attempt to copy a picture without tracing it. The result turned out WAY better than I'd anticipated. I think it was when I was twelve. I was copying a drawing of Wonder Woman from a Wonder Woman DVD set Christmas present, the full three seasons of the series with Lynda Carter. Wonder Woman is one of my favorite super heroes, right up there with Batman and Robin/Nightwing (Dick Grayson). They are epic.  According to the dictionary, that means "heroic, majestic, or impressively great". So they are epic.

And another reason I decided to do the cover of this movie and not, say, Goblet Of Fire, is that Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint actually have decent haircuts! Voldemort too.

This was sketched with a plain graphite pencil, and enhanced on Photoshop, Mostly to get rid of the lead smudges, like usual.

Besides all that, I think this is all I have to say. Well, I don't think Rupert Grint's face turned out quite right. I tried. He's a weird-faced person and is hard to duplicate. Despite this, I personally think it looks great as long as you don't compare it to the original. Which, you know, isn't spectacular. But you could tell what it was, right? In any case, tell me what you think! Art isn't much good if no one looks at it, and I'd like to know your opinion.

Bye-ya!

Goodbye, John

It's Hannah, again.

I'm trying to do what I can to keep the blog running smoothly. A post a week, maybe, ought to do.

 It does take sometime to draw something spectacular, but, you know, the results can keep cranking out, even after awhile. Art is, well, in the eye of the beholder. So if a 60-year-old man covers a canvas in finger-paints, then makes a little popping sound while revealing it (and he wears a beret), then it can sell. At outrageous prices. An identical painting by a three-year-old will be disregarded.

So, you know, it's not like writing a book. For me, writing is pretty tough. It's also apparently a life-and-death matter for around forty elves and a few humans. Writing is a science. And not a science. They want you to do it anyway you want, BUT NOT LIKE THAT! Sketches are much less complicated to me.

So anyway. I have a timed session on a library computer right now. So I'm going to try to finish this up within a 37 minute time span. Let's get directly to the pretty stuff.




*SPOILERS* Spoilers are also in the eye of the beholder, but you know, the stuff after this warning might could give something away. So if you don't want any spoilers about Sherlock BBC, especially Season 2, continue at your own risk.

Goodbye, John

Now this would classify as geekery. This is not intended to give out any spoilers or such... someone who knows what this is, well... knows what it is. Sorry for the heart ripping-outing title (it was the unanimous choice - based on my sisters' whimpers as I threw around ideas). Now I am a fan on Sherlock. If you haven't seen it, (and apparently disregarded the Spoiler alert), I would recommend it. My Mama and Papa love it, and our whole family has pretty high standards. I suggest you look it up.

As for all of the fans who are already present: axbcxkuihwohfaskgfksg. You understand.

This just started out as a basic sketch. It began with a typical skyline generating completely from imagination. Then, while re-watching Reichenbach Fall, I discovered that the skyline was.... sigh, completely different. So I go erase erase erase erase erase erase erase erase, and start over. And there was more erasing, and more touch-up... I turned Sarah's eraser black with all the re-sketching I was doing.

The original picture was just a line drawing, but I didn't think that was quite good enough (there wasn't enough contrast and eye-poppitiness), so I took it to Photoshop, partly to remove the pencil smudges around the main picture. Then I began messing around with the saturation and the negatives, and eventually got around to this result.

This was a bit easier to do than the Manga Warrior. It stayed black and white, so it wasn't so much of a pain.

Oh. Except for the heart-tearing out and dropping-into-a-bucket-of-broken-glass blast-you-Moffat feelings while researching this thing.

Oh, and then I named it. I don't usually name my art (it seems a little weird), but while listening to the Sherlock Season 2 soundtrack, I came across a few tracks that inspired emotional names. It was a battle between Prepared To Do Anything, Blood On The Pavement, and Goodbye, John. Which do you think is best?

Well, gosh, that's all I have to say. Which may just be a first, hmm. Except for this last bit: feedback is very welcome. Criticism, complements, requests, I don't mind. Except the criticism. I tolerate the criticism. 

That's all then. Toodle-pip!