New Sketchbook, New Queens

This is my new Sketchbook. See the big grease stain on the front? Now you have proof that I have been dragging my sketchbook around in an effort to draw more. And that I am a little sloppy.

Here are some sketches of the Queen of Hearts. (Yes, I am still working on the Q of H.) Version A (top left) is really just me as the queen, and the other versions are exaggerations of A where I slowly dislocate her jaw. But guess what? I think I have *finally* settled on how this character should look!

Meet option D! The lovely lady who has won the competition to be my Queen! Congratulations, your highness. Now I believe you have some capital punishment to mete out.

Vote for a Queen

It's been a little too long since my last post. I am back to working on the Queen of Hearts , but I can't decide what she should look like. Below are three versions – I'd love to know your thoughts/preferences. However the final Queen ends up, I definitely plan to keep the dress from my original post. 

Queen A

Queen B

Queen C

Alice revisited

Finally settled on this version of Alice. Female heroines are tricky; if you don't make them "pretty", no one will understand she is the heroine, so you have a lot more parameters you have to draw within. I prefer to draw villains and trusty side-kicks.

An Exercise in Exaggeration

I am back to tinkering with Alice and Wonderland characters. Above is an exercise in exaggeration using the face of the Caterpillar I did in April (Caterpillar).

To the far left is a loose structural guide of his original face, followed by a rough reproduction of the original. I then progressively stretched his jaw longer and longer, and increased the size of his left eye as I went, taking myself waaaaay out of my comfort zone. At first the changes were exciting, but after a certain point the face simply seems disfigured. But at which point? I keep changing my mind. Right now, I think that only the last face is crossing over into disturbing. But yesterday I thought it was the second to last face, so maybe I am getting used to the stretch.

I think the 3rd to the last face most nicely balances interesting exaggeration without becoming creepy. Since I don't want the caterpillar to be creepy, this one will work nicely. What do you think?

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice

Card Soldiers

The chief difficulty

Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo

King of Hearts

The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said `Consider, my dear: she is only a child!

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

It was the White Rabbit,

 trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I wonder?'

Off with his head!