Mario Kart

“LET’S-A GO!”

Here’s another request I did earlier this year, featuring Mario as he appeared in the Mario Kart 8 (note the anti-grav wheels).

So who else plays Mario Kart here? Fun fact: I’ve raced as Mario less than ten times in all Mario Kart games combined. Never really appealed to me for some reason.

When I played the very first Mario Kart game on the Super Nintendo, I was always Koopa, who is lightweight character with good handling. I beat the Grand Prix for the very first time using Koopa. He’ll always have a special place in my gaming heart.

With the newer Mario Kart games, I’ve found myself choosing Princess Daisy more often than not. In addition to her statistics (medium weight class with decent acceleration and handling), she’s the tomboy of the three Mario verse princess, and that is kind of super adorable.

Random thought: People say getting hit by a Blue Shell is bad, but I think getting hit by a Green Shell is worse. Sure, Blue Shells are unavoidable and often take you out of first place… Green Shells, on the other hand, are embarrassing to get hit by. They’ve zero homing capabilities and bounce everywhere. It’s bad enough if you’re knocked out by a skilled player who launches one at you, but when you’re hit by a random one ricocheting off a wall is all kinds of frustrating. AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON GETTING HIT BY MY OWN GREEN SHELL.

ULTIMATE DISGRACE.

*exhales*

I’m alright.

Happy Racing, everyone!

King Dáin

“Good mornin’! How are we all?”

Those of you who already know me well enough are fully aware of my love for Tolkien and Middle-earth. Those who aren’t familiar with that fact will find out over time how much the world of Tolkien means to me. I could explain my history in one go, buuuuut it’s a rather lengthy tale and I’m sure most of you are here for the pictures anyway. All you really need to know for now is that if whenever I’m asked to name my favourite fictional world and fandom, “All things Middle-earth” will forever be the answer I blurt out with pride.

With that said, here’s a very quick sketch I did of King Dáin, from the third Hobbit film, The Battle of the Five Armies. The character is portrayed by Scottish actor and comedian, Billy Connolly, and yes, that is indeed a war pig he is riding on. King Dáin is the epitome of a hot-tempered dwarf at war. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know that in the heat of battle, Dáin really uses his head.

I’m super tempted to draw him again, but on a larger scale and with more details. You can’t really see his boar-tusk moustache in this one, so you’re really missing out.

…

Yeah… Definitely going to draw him again.

Crusher

Here’s another subject that I’m not all too familiar with. This is Crusher, from the Skylanders video game. I’ve never played it before but this was certainly a lot of fun to draw.

The game itself involves tangible collectible figures that also act as your playable character, which you can level up in game and then have your progress saved by touching the figure to a peripheral that detects the specific character via proximity sensors in the figure’s base. There are dozens of figures/characters to collect and try out. As interesting as it looks, I have a slight tendency to be a little obsessed with collectible items, so I’ve intentionally stayed away from trying this out.

The lighter looking rocks on Crusher’s body are actually supposed to be glowing green jewel type things. They look pretty awesome in colour. I may not be familiar with this series, but I do know how to appreciate a fun design.

My Drawing Comb

Welcome to another edition of Tools And Tips Tuesday! I’d like you to meet one of my favourite, and most useful, tools for drawing:

Yup. It’s a comb.

Now before you start thinking I’ve lost my mind, hear me out.

This is my secret weapon against smudging my own pencil work. As someone who often leans his hand on the page he’s drawing on, I have a horrible tendency to ruin work when I start moving over the paper. This is particularly a problem when I use dark pencils with soft lead. Multiply the inconvenience by a billion when my hand becomes sweaty and warm.

I’ve tried lifting my hand instead of dragging it across the sheet, and using barriers like an extra piece of of small paper or plastic, but it seems those methods can still smudge work. I cannot help but feel terribly annoyed after lifting my hand to reveal my pencil art has be smeared. Thankfully, I came up with a remedy to that particular annoyance.

So how does it work? Let me show you!:

As you can see, unlike a wide surface (like a portion of my palm) rubbing against the page, the waviness of my comb barrier allows me to rest my hand with minimal contact.

Add to that the fact that it is plastic (a material that pencil marks have trouble sticking to) and made with fairly wide-spaced teeth (allowing my hand to breathe), this comb is the perfect little makeshift tool for clean(er than usual) work.

I doubt very many people have the same issue that I do while drawing, so having a comb like this seems pretty unnecessary. Of course, if you do smudge your work like I do, then maybe something similar to this would be helpful. Either way, I just would like to take this opportunity to say that sometimes, the best solutions are the most unique ones. Creativity while drawing doesn’t have to be limited to the paper!

Harry Potter’s Wand

For those who don’t know, I’m a bit of a Harry Potter fan. Long story short, my youngest sis (who is a much bigger fan than I am) got me hooked on the fandom. So much so, that I started to carve my own custom wands out of old, broken drumsticks. I have a fairly decent number of them now but I haven’t carved any in recent years. They’re super fun to design and create, but these days, I can’t muster the effort to set up a proper workspace to actually do the woodwork. Maybe sometime soon, I can get back into it… but for now, this wandmaker is on hiatus.

The knowledge of my wandmaking was probably the influence behind this request. I’m sure the one who asked for “Harry Potter’s Wand” probably wanted an actual wand, but since I’m sticking to drawing for now, this is what they got.

While drawing one may not be as fun as carving a tangible wand, it’s definitely a lot less effort and takes a lot less time.

…also, makes a lot less mess. I’ll take cleaning up eraser shavings over saw dust any day!

Pretty Little Liars

Does anyone watch Pretty Little Liars? Because I don’t.

And yet, I decided to take on TWO separate requests to draw the four main girls from the show.

Here’s one I did late last year:

And here’s one I did earlier this year:

Yes, there are some obvious differences between my drawings and the photo reference, but I’m certain I’ve caught each characters physical likeness to some extent. I’m sure if I spent A LOT more time drawing each (I may have rushed them a bit), they would have come out a lot nicer. I have to admit, I’m not a fan of drawing light/blonde hair using pencils because I have yet to master pulling it off realistically. I’m definitely not giving up. I actually really enjoy drawing hair and this was was pretty fun practise!

The Avengers

Here’s another request drawing I did of the Avengers, specifically Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America himself, the main reason I chose to share this one today.

The poses in this sketch were based off of another drawing of the trio in their comic form, which I then updated to match their looks from the newest Avengers film, Age of Ultron (which, I haven’t seen yet… *laughs*). It was because of their comic form that I omitted their pupils (at least for Thor and Captain America). Some comic versions often seem to stick to the pupil-less eyes and I kinda liked the look myself. In any case, this one was definitely a fun draw.

And to all my neighbours south of the border, Happy Fourth of July!

The Flash

Just a quick one today. (See what I did there?)

Much like the character, sketching this one out took me a lot less time than I expected. Was very tempted to just blur the whole thing to simulate superhuman speed even more, but then that would also look lazy. *laughs*

KLM MD-11

Like you needed proof that I have trouble drawing vehicles, here’s an airliner I drew as a request earlier this year.

KLM’s MD-11 is an aircraft manufactured by McDonnell Douglas, half of which (Douglas Aircraft) created the DC-3, one of my favourite aircrafts ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3

In addition to being a revolutionary form of air transport and one of the Allies most useful assets in WWII, I’ve always been a fan because my grandfather piloted the Douglas DC-3 often during his time served in the US Air Force. He’s transported supplies, armaments, soldiers, and a whole assortment of important cargo. It’s a very awesome aircraft and I could go on and on (I even did a school report in elementary on it), but I digress.

KLM’s social media saw my drawing of their MD-11, and they seemed to like it. Perhaps that’s a sign that I should practise doing more aircraft. I like signs. More often than not, I obey them too!

True North, Strong and Free

Happy Canada Day, everyone!

There is no country I’d rather live in than the True North. I’m viciously proud of being a Canadian. Whenever I travel, I definitely don’t hesitate to let my origin be known. Of course, I do it as politely as possible, without any trace of boisterousness or arrogance. I think there’s already another country that has that sort of patriotism covered. *laughs*

For today, I’ll share a very Canadian drawing. Behold! The Great One, himself! Wayne Gretzky!:

I’m quite proud of how this one turned out. Though he was awesome in the Kings and Rangers, I wanted to draw him in a Canadian team’s uniform. While drawing this, I occasionally started to daydream about the Stanley Cup coming back to Canadian soil. Maybe one day…

Now go out and celebrate Canada Day and have something with maple syrup!