I finally got around to finishing up my Halloween drawing for the year. I decided to go with a classic...well, not a classic classic, but a reasonably-modern-classic: Eric Draven of "The Crow." For those unfortunate souls unfamiliar with "The Crow," below is a short blurb and video.
Shelly and Eric were very much in love. But no one gets married on Halloween, not in Detroit. The two are brutally murdered on Devil's Night, a night when the henchmen of crime-boss Top Dollar traditionally indulge in wanton acts of violence and arson. A year later death is no longer what it was as Eric Draven, accompanied by a Crow and gifted with new powers and a world of grief and pain, is brought back to life to avenge his love's death. After all, love is forever. And some of us Believe in Angels. (This description is an accumulation of written summaries listed at IMDb.com)
The movie is fantastic and has some amazing lines. And, of course, who doesn't love a movie with a leather-wearing guitarist with super powers out to avenge the love of his life and save some others in the process?
Without further ado, here is my rendition:
Unfortunately, it does not do the character or movie justice. It's a fairly common pose; in fact, I believe the pose was one of the original movie posters. I was mainly playing with the white on black shading here and am not all-together pleased with the outcome. I was working with a sketchpad that is about half the size of a standard paper and using General's White Charcoal (which comes in square sticks with blunt edges), so details were difficult and I didn't achieve the overall effect I wanted. Oh well, it was good practice with mid tones and highlights, at least.
The last few days I've gotten a wild hair up my......er......I've gotten the urge to re-hash a few things. If you are super observant (or a follower of my Twitter account) you'll already have seen the changes in the headers on the site. Not a lot of differences. The bar at the bottom has more depth to it, the font and floral swirls are now beveled, and the logo has been moved to a more prominant frontal location.
I've also remade my "Back to Top" buttons. They're now a completely original Anika creation; rather than simply being graphics I'm using from FlamingText.com.
Finally, I've redone my Twitter button a bit. I created the original art button about three months ago. I had always intended to pull it back up and clean it up a bit, but didn't get around to it until now. The original button was more of a sticker in appearance and the shading on my Twitter bird was somewhat rough. I've gone back in and smoothed out the shading and created a new background to the bird.
As you can see, the new background is an actual button...as in a pin-type button. Few reasons I decided on that. 1) I wanted to see if I could figure out how to make it, 2) I wanted the button more three-dimentional-ish, 3) I wanted the colors to match this site more, and 4) I collect button pins and just wanted include one somewhere.
Unfortunately, I've got nothing else at the moment. Trying to think of something special to get up for Halloween. Suggestions are always welcome on that front. Just click the pretty comment link below (right above the shiny new Back to Top button) and give me some ideas!
P.S. I'm not promising to actually DO any of these ideas....but if I really like them, then I just might. :Þ
P.P.S. If you look at my Back to Top button on any page in the site (outside of this blog) you'll see that I made it go pressy when you hover the mouse over it. Ooohh. Ahhh. ;-)
Been a bit since I last updated. Sorry about that. I've not been idle though. Went to Vegas, visited family, got a cold, worked way too hard...and of course, been drawing like mad. I've been doing some work-related graphics stuff, which I'm not going to show off here because, well, work is boring. Or, at least, not entertaining enough to go on about when there are other grand things to show.
Other than work related graphics, I've recently delved back into the world of The Labyrinth. Some of you may recall other Labyrinth fanart that I've done, like Jareth (old and new-ish), Sarah (old and not-quite-as-old), and a Hoggle Get-Well card. Now, I have a shiny new Hoggle drawing to show off. This is done in oil pastels on black paper and is, in my humble opinion, a fitting drawing for the month of Halloween.
I also created a darker version of this, but what it gained in depth it seems to lose in visibility. Check that one out if you'd like to see the changes.
Also, as a I'm-sorry-for-not-posting-for-two-weeks bonus, here's a pretty Trick or Treat special:
Buzz it!
