sketching out a little comic thing for Fun and Practice, having a day where I can’t draw Seamus at all but suddenly I can draw Vern better than ever before, hence the most accurate picture I have ever drawn
D'Artagnan & Company: blogress in progress
darts and arts and darts
I am fortunate to have a friend who is awesome enough to read the Darts script and give me advice on “convincing people that the protagonists aren’t going to make out with each other” (a surprisingly tricky problem).
Luckily the overwhelming subtext of this scene is mostly augh blood, ow god don’t TOUCH it GROSSSSS
Still fooling around with photoshop, trying to get the hang of this. The opacity setting terrifies me, so here is a really splashy picture of Seamus done with the brush at 100% the entire time.
Every time I draw a picture of Seamus I go back and look at the last one and realize that I hate it. Someday I will hate this picture, but oh well. Here is another Seamus from the past. He’s about 21 in this one. As you can see he’s sporting a slightly sillier ancestor of his current haircut, as well as his signature angry face.
Seamus went through a weird period around this age when all his close friends graduated and went to college, and he lost touch with them and ended up stuck with the slightly delinquent remainder friends. For a while he lived with a bunch of them, working at restaurants and generally being regarded as the odd mysterious figure on the fringe of this gang of obnoxious freewheeling kids. Taking things too seriously and getting in stupid fights. Eventually he got fed up with it and left to do his current thing. A step up, at least.
Haha okay this is exceedingly silly but I’m going to post it anyway. Started out as photoshop practice and mostly turned into “can I make Vern and Seamus both into silly cartoons and still have them look sort of like themselves.”
Evidently if I had my way this whole comic might just be Vern bothering Seamus because I find it funny.
The best part of doing this was when I had sketched them both out and then thought “something’s not quite right here, what could it - oh right.” And then I selected Vern and dragged him all the way up next to Seamus. Sahn Vernis: #1 resident of Your Personal Space.
In other other news, Vernis instigates a photo opportunity.
(Haha good lord I don’t know why I drew this, but that may be the best Seamus face thus far.)
In other news, sixteen-year-old Laska is revealed to be a tiny witchy gothbaby, surprising no one.
Oh hey I haven’t put anything up here in a while, whoops. Here’s a fairly sketchy picture of Laska, who I guess you haven’t seen yet? I’m still working on her design a little because I can’t decide what to do with her hair. She’s got kind of a Hime cut in this one but sometimes I just give her plain old bangs, I don’t know.
Several of my pens died a sudden collective death as I was drawing this, which you may be able to tell by looking.
Trivia: Laska is the youngest (human) member of the cast at 22.
exit wounds, bang bang right in the sanity.
This is kind of wonked in a lot of ways (anatomically, color- and composition-wise), but it’s a thing that I did, start to finish, so I decided it goes up here. At least I know I can get a little thing done without being assigned to do so, that’s reassuring even if I’m not entirely happy with it.
Trivia that will never come up in the story: Vernis wears a very thin layer of magic on him at all times, projecting a slightly healthier version of himself. If he took it off he’d look a little more like this - Vern doesn’t eat as often or sleep as well as he should. It’s mostly for his own benefit, as it’s weak enough that any faerie would see through it pretty easily, but he just doesn’t like seeing his reflection looking like that.
After Darts finishes and he and Seamus start spending a bit more time together Seamus starts to suspect a bit, mainly because he’ll sometimes spend a few days with Vernis and only see him eat once or twice.
Hey instead of thinking about things that actually happen in the story, let’s fixate on characters from past storylines who never actually show up!
This is Borsu, Vern’s “handler” when he was a musician for the fey court. He was pretty young at the time, so Borsu’s job was to make sure he got where he was supposed to be and didn’t do anything stupid or get himself killed. Most people think Borsu is just about the most boring person out there, but she’s really very sweet and she and Vern got very attached to each other. She’s only a few years older than him (she lied about her age to get the job, and she’s so serious and restrained nobody’s ever seen through it). She used to knit him things for his birthdays.
“Borsu” means “Wintergrass,” i.e. grass that has turned dead and yellowish from being covered with snow all winter. It’s what they call that really nondescript not-quite-blond hair color. Not a particularly flattering name to have, but tact isn’t really part of the naming equation for them. Another secondary character in Darts has a name that translates to “Stickboy.”
Oh hey, here is something I forgot I drew.
It’s Vernis again, but this time drawn as he would draw himself! I don’t know, I just thought it would be neat to draw something in the style of a fictional character. Vern can’t really draw anything realistic, but his habitual style of drawing absorbed a lot from really, really old books his family had lying around when he was young.
I’m really pleased with that hand I think.
Just more Vern. I actually really like how this turned out because I’ve been drawing so long that it’s actually difficult to try to imitate that awkward quality that you get when you draw without really knowing what you’re doing. Like not even “I know what I want but not really how to get there,” I mean like “I want to draw a hand but I’m not even entirely sure what a hand looks like, maybe it’s like this.”
My favorite, though, is when I did a “Malley draws Malley” picture once - Malley cannot draw to save her life. It’s one of those hilariously terrifying over-detailed things like something done by a seventh-grader who’s just taken a really intense art class. If I ever find it I’ll put it up here.
Vern and, uh, Vern.
This is part of a big character sheet thing that I’m eventually going to color in (and I’ll put the whole thing up, yes). Vernis and his past doppelganger! That one to the left remains the most accurate likeness of him, though the right is supposed to be him during the story events. I’m getting a little better at him though.
What kind of instrument even is that? I don’t remember what I was going for. Some kind of a mandolin?
Verrrrrn!
Prior to his exile, Vernis was known firstly for his uncannily beautiful singing voice, and secondly for being very pretty himself. He was fond of pearls. I’m kind of sad I’m not going to get to draw him with his earrings for the comic, as he let the holes close up long before the story even started.
Also he had really lovely hair. About down to the backs of his knees! He was extremely upset when they cut it off.
More self-reblogs, more Vernis. Fun fact: a while after the events of darts, Vernis will convince Seamus to re-pierce his ears for him. He will do this by never shutting up about it until Seamus finally gives up and agrees. Seamus is Not Entirely Cool With This.
More characters from the thing with the ghosts in it. This guy hasn’t even actually shown up yet, by which I mean in the very unfinished script his has never had any lines or even been mentioned. But I drew him anyway! Here is Vernis.
Also, here are some French notes which I drew on. I think these notes are about how to ask someone out to lunch without implying that you’ll buy their food for them. Good to know!
Just reblogging myself some more. I think this is the first drawing I ever did of Vernis? Vernis is another dude. He looks a little like this. He’s hard to draw.
