Teen Witch

I watched Teen Witch last night and drew this piece of fanart today from memory.  Its such a dorky eighties movie, I look forward to watching it each year at Halloween.

Saint Alia of the Knife-Process

While I was backing up my computer I rediscovered the process pics I took in 2011 while making a small figure of Saint Alia of the Knife. She is a powerful girl first introduced in the novel Dune by Frank Herbert. Alia was born fully aware and is the younger sister of Maud'Dib, the "savior" and self-imposed ruler of spacefaring humankind. There is a lot more to this character so go read the entire series of books-they're recommended!

This is the step-by-step process I used to create this piece:

STEP ONE- Gathering Materials
I didn't sketch anything in advance for Alia, this project was only for fun so I let serendipity sort of dictate how the figure was going to look in the end.  I knew I wanted something similar to her David Lynch movie look so I gathered a palette of blacks/greens (the colors of House Atreides) and other odd bits and ends that might come in handy as I dressed the figure later on.
These are the materials I ended up using:
Paperclay, translucent sculpey, craft styrofoam, heavy gage wire, a selection of pre-mixed craft paints, black fabric, a scrap piece of furniture fabric, a scrap piece of leather, a rock, doll hair, thread, two glass beads, seed beads, matte medium, and super glue.

STEP TWO - Making the Support Structure for the Figure

I thought the rock I used for the base looked like something Alia might stand high upon to survey the desert.  Based on that notion I cut the heavy gage wire to make a stick figure with childlike proportions.  I then took small chunks of styrofoam and super glued those to the wire to bulk out the form.  Once that was done I bent and twisted the support into a pose I liked and marked the two areas on the rock where I would eventually glue the finished figure.

STEP THREE - Sculpting the Figure

To sculpt Alia's body I added paperclay directly onto the support, there's no need to add glue or wrap a smaller gage wire to provide grip. When I had a rough approximation of the face I pushed in two blue glass beads for her eyes (because she is a spice addict) and added paperclay on top to create the eyelids. After I finished the basic form I used a potter's needle and loops to add in the fine details. It took about 24 hours for the figure to fully dry. In the pic below I've already started to add color into the face. Also at the bottom of the pic in front of the mechanical pencil is Alia's crysknife made out of translucent scupley and "aged" with craft paint.

STEP FOUR - Painting the Figure

I used a selection of craft paints to paint Alia.  I wasn't sure where I was going to glue in her fabric robes so I decided to paint the entire figure. Better to do that then try and remix colors if I missed a spot. I painted an Atreides Hawk on her right shoulder and a stylized "A" on her left. Because she was in a dessert I added dustiness to her boots that matched the color of the rock. I wanted to make sure it looked like her and the rock were from the same environment.

STEP FIVE - Glueing on the Details

To finish the figure I super glued black fabric that was stiffened with matte medium onto the body to create Alia's robes, a scrap piece of leather and furniture fabric for her belt, thread and seed beads for her lasso, and braided doll hair. Once the costume was complete I went back and made a final pass with craft paint to blend all the elements together.  The finished figure is approximately 5" high and 2-1/2" wide from front-to-back.

Saint Alia of the Knife was entered in the 2011 Crafts Competition at the OC Fair.  I ended up winning Second place in my division-not bad for a little project I did for fun.

Genin Ninja

Sorry, I got bored and started drawing ninjas again.
I can't help it! It's so much fun!!!

Kakashi Doodle

Drawn in ballpoint pen.

Does Kakashi ever not have that book?
LOL...Jiraiya must make a fortune off this guy.

Naruto Doooooodles

This is just the tip of the iceberg...I have a gabillion of these sketches all over the place.

Boof is my favorite sound effects word. BOOF!

Evil ninjas striking evil poses.

L-R: Rock Lee, OC, Anko in ANBU gear, and TenTen.

Killing water clones.

Quick Doodles

As the title implies I tried drawing these as fast as possible. Top to bottom we have: Gai from Naruto, Nightwing from DC Comics, and the ever-so-chipper Pixie from Marvel's New X-Men (or is it X-Men disbanded or the X-Men hiding out on SF? I can't keep track of that mess of universe anymore).

Weekend Doodle

Drawn in pen. Colored version is located here.

Dungeon Lineart

This is Boubenko and Sukhota from Dungeon-Zenith V.2 by Sfar and Trondheim. It's an awesome comic that deserved some fan art. Finished color is here.

Ninja Kick!

Drawn in blue-line pencils. I tried adjusting the colors and levels in Photoshop to make this read better, but I ended up de-saturating it and bumping up the contrast.

So this was the best part of a ninja fight sketch I was working on. It's loosely based off of a UFC fight pic I ran across on Google. Man I wish I could kick that high. *sigh*

Rock Lee and his kitten...

This started out as a cute sketch until I noticed where I placed Lee's hands and the angle of the kitten's neck. Then the sketch turned into "Why you don't give the village idiot animals to play with."

Seriously, I love Rock Lee....but this cracks me up. I wonder what Gai would say?

Beware!

Oh no...scary ninja doodle!
I've sure have gotten alot of mileage out of that red marker.

Stanley Cup!

We interupt this sketch blog for a shiny pic of the Stanley Cup!

Isn't it a beauty! This pic is courtesy of a friend whose Mom works at a school the owners of the Ducks sponsor. The Cup stopped by for a visit and said hi to all the kids.

Sunday Quickdraw Challenge

Once again I'm trying to see how fast I can turn out character sketches. I did these both in pen in under five minutes. I did cheat a little and clean up some messy areas in Photoshop, but for the most part these are the original drawings.

Batman doesn't looked as peeved as he normally does in the comics...maybe he just saw a cute puppy.

Ninja Kid

Doodle of the ninja as a kid.

Thursday Doodles

Yay! Ninjas drawn in ball-point pen.

My Daemon

Meet my daemon, Achaean the Ocelot, as chosen by the Golden Compass website. I did get a cute banner to post on the blog, but since this is a SKETCH BLOG I thought it would be proper to post a doodle instead. :P

Mugen vs. Butterfly

Samurai Champloo doodles drawn in pen.
Haha! Mugen cracks me up. He'd want to kill anything that was nice towards Jin, i.e. the butterfly on Jin's head there on the left. In the last doodle on the right, Jin is getting ready to slash the butterfly that Mugen can't kill. Not that I see Jin actually killing the butterfly, maybe he's using the scabbard to gently guide the butterfly away from the worn-out Mugen. Poor psycho Mugen. ;P

Wednesday Doodle

Drawn in pen and marker and inspired by Samurai Champloo.
I'm totally amused with polar opposites of Mugen and Jin. The hotheaded bad-ass versus the cool as a cucumber bad-ass. Haha, I was trying to capture different types of "bad-ass" in the sketch. It has to do alot with posture, but shading helps capture the look. That and the red marker for blood. Geez....

Makai Tensho

I drew these while watching "Makai Tensho/Samurai Reincarnation." Awesome movie! A must-rent DVD for you fans of martial arts fight flicks.

Remember me blog? It's Barbara!

Yep, yep, yep...the queen of the procrastinators is back to blogging. To show my good faith I'm uploading the best of my weekend doodling.

I'll be back later this week with more sketches/art/rants/misc. posts/etc/etc.....