Inktober: Behind the scenes

Inktober is well underway and while I'm posting my daily ink drawings on Instagram and Twitter, I thought it would be cool to show some of drawings that lead up to the final. This year, I've done a lot more pre-drawing than in the past; brainstorming, practicing reference, trying to work out all the bugs. There's a lot of work that goes into a "finished" piece of art, whether that's in pages of scrappy practice drawings or in years of study, failure, and learning. So while it's good to honor the pretty, final artwork, I think the process of getting there is worth celebrating too!

onwards and upwards,

Bethany

Kitten sketches! ^_^

As I'm adjusting to my new role as "kitty mom", I've been spending a ton of time with the little fur balls. They're still pretty little (8 weeks last Friday) and I'm keeping them under close supervision most of the time. And, since I'm spending so much time with them anyway, I figured I might as well sketch them! 

As you may have guessed, sketching moving kittens is tough! Animals have a hard time staying still in general and kittens, extra much so! But after a bit of practice (and waiting for them to actually slow down a bit!), I managed to come up with a few good drawings.

onward and upward,

Bethany

Skill building: Poses

One of my "goals" (a term I use loosely here) for this summer was to get some figure drawing practice in. I haven't been highly successful at it, but did manage to do a few studies based on reference from some Athleta catalogs. (Which, btw, is a fantastic source for action pose reference!) Here are a few of good ones. 

onward and upward,

Bethany

Sketches from Hiatus: Human and Animal reference

Next batch of hiatus sketches are up! I did some reference sketching while on break of human and animal poses. I'm particularly pleased with how the animals turned out. 

onward and upward,

Bethany

Character design studies: Little Crocagator

I've been doing a lot of story development lately, so I thought it would be fun to show some studies for a character I'm working on. He's a little Crocagator (Jon made up the word; it refers to anything resembling a Crocodile or Alligator). This character needs to be both cute and a bit mischievous/dangerous looking, which is a hard balance to strike.

I started off with some character doodles, got frustrated and did some reference studies, then went back to character doodles. 

I still have a ways to go with this character, but the process of getting to that final design is just as interesting as the final product. (Or so I keep telling myself to fend off frustration and impatience! ;-))

Onward and upward,

Bethany

Animal sketches from Disney pt 2!

Second half of the sketches from my Disney trip. I feel like these ones show some improvement from the first batch, especially toward the end. I also love how the ink solidifies and polishes the forms. When I sketch, I try to capture the shapes and forms as best as I can without worrying about how messy the pencil work ends up. But since I add the inks later, when I'm no longer looking the reference, I get to decide which pencil marks to emphasize with the pen strokes. It's kind of a neat process. 

onward and upward,

Bethany

Animal Sketches from Disney pt 1

Hey everyone! I'm back from my crazy intense adventures at Disney! There were plenty of ups and downs, as with any vacation, but it was definitely a good trip. My favorite parts were all the animals we saw, all the yummy food we ate, Epcot, and seeing the attention to detail put into each of the parks.

Speaking of animals, I did a ton of sketching on this trip, which is impressive because usually I utterly neglect my sketchbook while on vacation. But not this this time! Jon and I made an intentional effort to take the parks at a slower pace and as a result, I filled up an entire sketchbook, plus a few tiny note pad pages!

All my sketches are loose, gesture drawings (which I inked after getting back), but it was really neat to draw so many unique creature from life (even if they wouldn't stay still!) Since I ended up with so many drawings, I've decided share some today and some next Tuesday. Here's the first batch!

onward and upward,

Bethany

Nov '16 Sketchbook

More sketchbook sketches. Mostly of our "temporary cat" Lope (we're cat sitting for Jon's sister for a little while.) Having her around has been a lot of fun and is seriously making me want to get a kitten or two! Maybe in 2017! ^_^

onward and upward,

Bethany