Pastel Drawings (Merry Christmas Everyone!)

Two days ago I felt the inspiration to do some drawings. The first drawing were I was inspired by one of the characters from Diane Gaston Christmas novel:

The next pastel drawing is of a female dandy:

The next pastel drawing is of a wintery feel:

An Element of two Eras, Tudor and Regency:

A couple kissing under a large mistletoe:

Lastly a response to the first image:

To anyone who visits my blog, I would like to wish you all a great Christmas and an awesome new year.

September-November Tasks

Since September, I have been working on the alternate version of my second manga jiman comic, but due to unseen circumstances, I am now working on the prequel which is based on the main protagonist at the age of ten. I will not go into further detail, but I think it might be an interesting comic to be seen by readers. On the winners are announced, the comic will be shown on SmackJeeves. I'm quite nervous because it has indeed been a while since I've shown some artwork on line.

In October I drew a girl playing a violin, this represents that during that month I began to play the violin:

This month, I have done a character pin-ups from historical romance. This one is of Jack Alden. He is not only from 'Her Cinderella Season', but a couple of other books by Deb Marlowe. He's an amazing scholar and an am

azing character.

This is an completed pastel drawing, of a couple wearing Regency clothing. The building is the house of the Lord John Ashburnam. It now a place people come for a prayer retreat. I took a lot of photos, from this place, I hope to depict some of my characters within the chosen settings.

Lastly, as I have now turned twenty-three, I have drawn myself in Tudor Clothing, with my last hairstyle which was in Ghana cornrows. I'm quite proud of this drawing because I feel that I have really captured the dress perfectly.

Catherine Stevens Drawing

As this is now the final day of September, I re-drawn this pen-sketch of a drawing that I made at the National Portrait Gallery. This person was a famous opera singer within the Regency Era and was also one of the musicians who sang at the Vaxhuall Pleasure Gardens:

Tomorrow, I will be going to the gallery to see an exhibition of a photographer called Camille Silvy. I thought that it would be necessary to have a look due to the vast advertisement in the gallery. I will be also posting up some more re-design of the drawings and sketches that I created not only in this gallery but at the Museum of London.

Bridget Hyde drawing

Today, I was peering through my drawings that were made at the national portrait gallery and decided to modify one of them on Photoshop. This drawing that I manipulated, is of Bridget Hyde from the Stuarts Era:

This is the first of the drawings that I will manipulate on Photoshop.

A gentleman in Regency Clothing

I just finished the last of this drawing today. It looks awesome, this was done on Photoshop CS3. I researched some clothing that men wore within this era and created the drawing immediately.

The Split Me 1 and 2

Last month, I created two sketches of myself. On one side has modern day clothing and on the other side has Victorian clothing:

This first drawing was used for my ID on Deviantart. The patterns that were made on Photoshop CS3, the pattern on the left is based on an Easter treat that my younger brother made at school and the other is the logo of my company: Memenda Seven.

The second drawing was completed today, the clothing on the left is clothing that I wear on special occasions, the clothing on the right is based on the Victorians. The pattern that is depicted represents the traffic light symbols STOP and GO. I was inspired to design this pattern after listening to the track Keep it Comin' Love by KC and the Sunshine Band. Oddly enough I imagined the STOP and GO symbols, running after a villain and managing to be successful, as the song closes.

A Poem for Sepetember!

I wrote this poem last month but I thought it might be useful for this month:

"When you get up,

Dust yourself,

Restore your clothes,

Smile, be strong,

And walk towards your success"

I'm not sure if it makes any sense, but I this came out from the top of my head.

Friday Drawing!

This is a pencil drawing of Miss Lily Beecham from the historical romance novel, 'Her Cinderella Season'. By Deb Marlowe . This drawing depicts a certain scene within the earlier chapters of the book, where she has sits frozen on the street. I will not reveal why, but you must read the book to find out. (^_^)

Céline Dion - Immortality

This video I find so marvellous, not because the song is very soothing, but the video is brilliant. It has a certain feel of the Regency era, and I think this is shown within the dress sense as well as the rooms that the video was set. The video depicts the song so well that I have a sense of history in this video.

Monday Drawings!

Yesterday I visited the National Portrait gallery to draw more portraits from the Tudor era, Jacobean and Stuarts sections of the gallery. Most of these drawings are brain drawings and the rest are the portraits:

The Wave Painting Hunt (Alternate Version)

Now that the second Manga Jiman entry completed, I am now ready to begin the alternate version of this comic. As a result of this I decided to create the antagonist of the comic who is called Leanne. (I know she should be named differently but this came at the top of my head.)

This is how she is visualised, with her expressions:

The template was created by Nancy Lorencz, and with her permission I used the template not only on Leanne but on the other three characters of the comic:

From thumbnails to the finished comic would probably take me until the end of next month... hopefully if this is successful. It might be formed as a webcomic.

Reading Historical Romance Novels

Recently I have been reading a new genre of literature other than comics, the genre is called Historical Romance, this genre was recommended by a old secondary school friend of mine, of whom I met unexpectedly in the library.

The first book I read was called 'Not Quite a Lady' by Louise Allen, shortly after I was reading a book called Written in the Heart by Judith Stacey. Within a span of two days both books were read. Soon after I read the first book called 'The Dangerous Mr Ryder' which is part of a series called 'Those Scandalous Ravenhursts'. This is also by Louise Allen.

Other books that I found very inspiring was the book 'Her Cinderella Season' By Deb Marlowe. This is because some parts of the story revealed parts of 'The Slave Trade', and also how certain issues of love were resolved. The other book was set within the Victorian Era, the book was called 'The Ac

cidental Countess' and it is by Michelle Willingham.

This book I came to love alot, other than how the author revealed some interesting quotes by the protagonist, but how each of the characters were able to become so realistic. I felt so inspired by the book that I decided to do a fanart, which can be seen here:

Alot of humour elements were revealed and I was utterly amazed how vividly theses author was able to depict some of the scenery settings. I was so facinated and amazed of what I read that I decided to e-mail some of these authors my response and reactions Some of them I am waiting for a response, others have already replied back.

There will indeed be more of these books from this genre that I'll be reading and hopefully getting inspired from.

Images for unknown project

These are images that I created for a project that will never be made. I had high hope for these images to become of good use. But I guess maybe they might be used for another comic or probably logos.....

More Sketches (part 3)!

Once again but this time it was today, I visited the National Portrait Gallery, to create some more sketches:

Commencing from Charlotte Sophia: (1744 - 1815)

John Burgore: (1722-92)

Catherine Parr : (1512 - 48)

Catherine Stephens: Countess of Essex (1794 - 1882)

I was marvelled of how she was depicted on the painting, so I decided to do some more research on this person. From what I gathered, she was a soprano vocalist and an actress and quite known within the life that she lived.

Robert Burns (1759 - 96)

This final image is half completed however, I was amazed of how the sketch became almost accurate. This drawing will be shown again but completed the next time I return to the gallery to create more portraits.

Second Manga Jiman Entry!

With the first Manga Jiman entry completed, I will now proceed to the second entry, with the story and building sketches completed. The only tasks that need to be fulfilled are the character designs. Still using the theme waves, there is a drawing that I have created on Photoshop. (But this will not be seen since it will be used in the comic entry.)

The first two protagonists are Tanisha and Aiden. Here is how they are visualised:

Tanisha's hairstyle was something I drawn quite quickly, this was just a quick sketch and I somehow seemed to be quite satisfied when I finished her characteristic faces.

Aiden's hair style is similar to Mick Hucknall's hairstyle from the 1990's. (T

he front man of the band Simply Red) The sooner I realised this I decided to leave it as it is. I was a fan of their music ever since I was a child and it quite surprising that their music still sounds as brilliant as it did ages ago. The last two characteristic faces on the bottom will indicate how his hairstyle will be revealed in the comic.

I have chosen to use my secondary school teacher Ms Debbie Brown again (she was previously used in the Obsession Project) in this story because during the time of when I was studying art in school she was very influencial and inspiring. I admired the way she would always give me advice to create new ideas in the projects that I was creating. This comic entry is dedicated to her because I feel that she has indeed been a huge influence on how I continued to pursue art from school to university.

Originally she was going to be depicted on how I have seen her i

n the past. But since I was unable to depict how her hairstyle in my thoughts I decided to look on the net and find something suitable. On the other hand, I have chosen to make her wear the same thick black lenses she wore from my school days.

This is how she will be seen in the comic:

Now that the main characters have been completed I will now proceed to thumbnailing a rough draft of the comic entry.

More Sketches (part 2)!

Here are some more:

More Sketches!

I have created some more sketches of clothing from the Pleasure Garden at The Museum of London. I also did a portrait from the National Portrait Gallery.

New Competiton: Manga Jiman 2010: Part One

A new Manga Jiman competition has now begun, so I have now decided to enter again but this time I might enter more than one entry. The first one, will be based on a past memory* of Kylan, who is one of the bullies who abused Petra.

This is how he would be visualised as a child and in his late teens I also have created various facial expressions that will be used for the comic:

*I thought of that this will be necessary because this entry, because I yearned to do something in a boy's point of view so this entry is heavily based about him.

Brain drawings and Clothing sketches at the British Museum and The Museum of London

After the ending of my degree course, I decided to use my leisure not only to find a job but also improving on my drawing skills as well as reading. During the first week that I finished my degree I managed to meet up with my old friend form secondary school that recommended me to read some Historical Romance novels.

After reading about four of these novels, (where three of the four were set in the regency era and the last one in the Victorian era) I decided to do some research of clothing that were based in these tow eras. This led me to visit the Museum of London and to do sketches of clothing.

I checked out an area of the museum called the pleasure gardens, and was so surprised of the clothing that was shown that I decided to commence sketching. For the next two days I sketched about five designs of clothing and I have to

say that drawing them felt like a breath of fresh air.

Here are the images:

On the other hand I also took a trip to The British Museum and did some brain drawings, of some of the objects that were featured on a BBC radio 4 show called A History of the World in 100 Objects.

Here are some of them: