More sketches

[caddyman]

Back in 1990, before the advent of the internet, we still played games and I used to draw and/or paint a great deal more than I do now - recent sketches of the Thing and Fat Elvis not withstanding. A year or so ago, when ellefurtle and I were packing to move, and colonel_maxim was vacating the Athenaeum Club before swinging off on his Afghan adventure, we unearthed a couple of sketches I did in 1990 and 1991 for a character in a Cyberpunk game the good Colonel was running at that time.

I recall that I was pretty damned pleased with the original sketch, but less so with the second that I did a few months later. As time passed, I decided that actually, to be honest, they were both so far below par that they weren't worth the time and effort spent on them. A reassessment of that when we refound them found that I had actually been too kind. Whatever the merits (if any) of the character design, the sketches were dismal and I thought that I should redraw and update the character.

Anyone who knows me realises that for reasons that even I can't explain, over the past 15 years my artistic out put has dwindled almost to zero, so nothing got done even though I have had ample space (not something I was blessed with in my Clapham Garret days) and opportunity.

For some reason, over the past four or five months, the urge to draw has slowly been coming back and although it has taken until this May just finished to actually place pencil on paper, that urge built until I just needed an excuse. That was provided by budgie_uk when his son injured his hand and the left arm in cast challenge was born. So I drew a Thing. Twice. Then we saw the Elvis impersonator and the idea stuck in my head and then I rediscovered the ShadowFire character studies and since then I seem to have allocated Sunday afternoons for drawing.

That brings me to the point of the post. Hidden below the cut, saving me from a nagging by the bandwidth challenged is the original ShadowFire from 1990. It's probably not worth the effort of a look,


The character back then was based loosely on Louise Brooks, but rendered appallingly. I seem to have had a thing for impossibly tight catsuits, too.

Over the past couple of weekends, but primarily this one just passed, I have revisited the character - largely for my own edification. I wanted to come up with a drawing I was happy with, even if the game has been defunct these last 15 years and the character will probably never resurface again.



Recognizably a development of the original character, I think, but now more anatomically believable, dressed hopefully in clothes that a woman might actually be seen dead in - though still with a gun (and now a katana), she has become inexplicably right handed and is now of Japanese decent.

I'm quite pleased with ShadowFire 2009.

Comments

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I seem to have had a thing for impossibly tight catsuits, too.

*sigh* don't we all?

I like the new drawing.

[ladkyis.livejournal.com]

no woman would go on the street with that panty-line! even if it is constricta-knickers under there... nope the knickers would have to go

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Tons better. I am distrubed by the first drawing's crotch bulge. Does she have a *nudge nudge* secret identity?

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

No, just a spare pair of socks ;-D

[kathbad]

Both capture a character, I do prefer the second one.

As someone who will and should never wear such a catsuit, I thank you for more sensible attire...