January '16 sketchbook

Looots of sketches today, partly because I ended up having a lot more stuff from December that I didn't get to share before. Guess that's not a bad problem to have. Also, the badly drawn 4 panel comic is an extremely obvious pun that I somehow still find amusing. Don't judge me. >.<

onward and upward,

Bethany

Environment studies

I decided to take a break from the picture book project today, so I'm posting these environment studies instead. I've been doing environments off and on in my sketchbook for about a year now. With these particular ones, I sketched and inked them first, then added color later to create more depth. Drawing them as thumbnails keeps me from getting overwhelmed.

onward and upward,

Bethany

Yeti's character design

Originally, I planned to blog about something else this week because I wasn't sure if I'd be ready to do another Pixie and Yeti post, but then the project I was going to blog about didn't come together in time. So I'm going to talk a little about the process of designing Yeti.

The first yeti I ever drew was in October '15 during my first Inktober. I drew this guy and called him a Dog-earred yeti.

After that, the idea of re-imagined and unique yetis interested me, so I played around with adding different feature to see how that would change the character. I drew this one, who I think of as an Owl faced yeti, a sort of mysterious, forest guardian, perhaps.

Around the same time, back in Spring of '15 I believe, Lauren and I were discussing the idea of changing the collaborative project we'd been working on to a picture book. As we thought about possible characters, I suggested yetis, because I had some past experience with them. I started playing around with making a warm, friendly yeti character for our story.

After a few attempts, I arrived on this design.

Time passed, life got crazy, and Lauren and I put our picture book project on hold. Then, a few months ago, once we'd decide to start working on it again, I start really refining Yeti's design.

Drawing him in profile is a challenge. I still haven't got that totally figure out yet. :-/

His face shape change a little to give it more dimension (and cuteness!). I also realized that adding fur was very important to making the character feel like Yeti.

Which brings us to where we are now.

I still don't have everything about Yeti figured out yet. I'm still not sure how he looks from the profile or behind. I need to make sure I can draw him in any pose our story calls for. I'm also not sure if he has any name beyond Yeti. But the basic elements of his character are there; large, egg-shaped body, deer antlers, droopy goat ears, furry. I picture his personality as being quiet, contemplative, and a bit wary of things that seem new or scary. He also loves cheese. :-)

Thanks for letting me share Yeti's design journey with you! Unless anything unexpected happens, I plan on talking about Pixie next week.

onward and upward,

Bethany

A Special Announcement for 2016!!

For the past few weeks, I've mentioned that I have an announcement to make about my art goals for 2016 and now the time has finally come to share! Are you ready? This year, I will be working with my dear friend Lauren to create a children's book!! :-D

Today, I wanted to give you a quick introduction to our story's two main characters; Pixie and Yeti (as we are calling them now).

As you can see, they're a friendly pair. ^_^

I'll be sharing more about Pixie and Yeti, the story, and other project stuff throughout this year. Since I've never written/illustrated a children's book before, I know I'll have A LOT of learning to do and I'm planning to share my journey and discoveries here. 

This book will most likely be my main focus, art-wise, this year. Ideally, I'd like to have it done and ready to share by early next year. I'm not sure if that's a realistic goal or not, but we'll see. I'm planning on sharing weekly updates on how the project is going. In order to make room for that, I'll be grouping skill-building and sketchbook art into one post at the end of each month. 

Also, I now have a fancy-pants Facebook page, so if you're interested in following this project and my other art adventures, you can head over there are and like the page, etc. Here's the link. Feel free to share any questions or thoughts there and I'll do my best to answer them. 

Whew! That was a lot of info. Thanks for sticking with me to the end! I'm really nervous/terrified to start such a massive project, but I'm also very excited. This should be a crazy year! ^_^

onward and upward,

Bethany