Sketch of the Week

Well!  After a good long hiatus, I'm back with another bunch of sketches this week. How've y'all been doing? I've been really busy myself. Artistically, I've been trying new things, and experimenting with new media. Non-artistically, I've been playing The Sims 2. Anyway, this week's sketches feature-- follow me now-- preliminary sketches...
          ... of the incidental characters...
                                ... from the last few weeks' pages. *whew!*
I actually put a lot of thought into character extras, because it helps me to determine what they might do or say, or how they might behave. So, I give 'em backstories, even though readers may never know what they are. But, with this great little thing called blogging, you all out there can know a little bit more about these characters.

 After the jump, of course...

                                                                             

Inspired by: At the time YJ and I were getting the script for this scene together, I started wondering: what sort of people would be at an ice cream stand at 4:30 in the afternoon? Answer: probably parents or grandparents with their kids just out of school for the day. So I came up with these characters:

-A spoiled 11-year-old girl named Alexis (top left) who is shown in the story with her (guilty) newly-divorced father and his (newly-triumphant) mother. (YJ and I took to calling Alexis "The Loudmouth.")

-A cute little 5-year-old named Maddie (top right) who is shown with her mother, who had earlier promised to get Maddie some ice cream if she left her alone for the the rest of the day.

-Excitable sisters Mary and Emily (bottom left), shown with their grandfather Bud and baby brother Buddy (bottom right). The grandpa is a trucker visiting the grandkids for the first time in a while.

What I Used: Pencils and a sketchbook.  I also chose random pics from locally-generated junk mail for ideas.

The Artist's Best Friend: Time. Or rather, having enough of it to have actually thought of all this stuff. >_<

Well, it's good to be back this week-- if only for this week. I'll continue to sporadically post sketches or drawings in this time slot, but just not on a weekly basis, as I am still quite swamped by this other Shapeshift Fantasy-related project...

...And The Sims 2. 

Thanks very much for reading, though. See ya Sunday the 23rd for Page Forty-Four!