I subscribe to the theory that you're never too old to pick up a new hobby. Recently I caught the drawing bug. Well, actually not recently, more like two years ago, but it's only been recently that I've had the nerve to actually let other people see what I've been drawing.

I originally wanted to draw comic super heros (don't ask) but all my efforts resulted in truly craptacular drawings. My sketchbooks tended to look more like doodling books.

Out of boredom and frustration, recently, I switched to drawing manga characters, and discovered that I was way better at that than I was at the other stuff. Not great, mind you, but my drawings were much more acceptable. I think the breakthrough was when I switched from drawing big hairy men to cute girls. ^_^

I have a Wacom Graphics Tablet which I doodle with sometimes, but for the most part I find I have better results working with plain old pencil and paper (and a really good eraser). As such, I don't often post things done directly on the computer, since I find the tablet's surface is too slippery. I do miss the ability to have layers but the other benefits of real paper outweight the costs.

So, here are links to a few things I've drawn recently. Newer drawings are at the top.

---

Added July 27, 2003

NEW! - A whole bunch of Mireilles - NEW!
These are based on some of the model sheets for Mireille available on the official US website, Project Noir. The first set I drew were three different expressions and angles, which didn't turn out so good. I had better luck on the second try. Then, I went over to the lab and used the jumbo graphics tablet and drew this from memory. I'm quite pleased with it. Finally, last night, I drew four versions of Mireille, all very quickly and from memory, going for speed and accuracy with mixed results. I haven't quite got the hair halo effects right, and if you don't draw her eyes right it throws the entire face off. You can expect to see more Mireille's from me, as I really want to be able to draw the characters from Noir and plan to practice until I can draw them really well.

My first chibi
The source is from the nifty How to Draw Manga by Katy Coope (there's a link to it below). This was remarkably easy to do, and very fun. I think I now understand the appeal of drawing chibi versions of things.

---

Added July 26, 2003

Michiru, stage 2
Slightly newer version, cleaned up a bit, and more detail added. I think I'm going to color her in with colored pencil.

Michiru, stage 3
Used black PrismaColor pencil to do the outline.

Michiru, final stage
Here she is, in glorious PrismaColor. Unfortunately, the black smeared the fleshtones. I cleaned them up a little bit on the computer, but that's disappointing. I also fucked up the right side of her body but I'm not too worried about that. I guess next time I should do the outline in ink rather than black pencil, to avoid the smearing. :(

---

Heads and chairs
I decided to go back to basics, since it didn't seem like I was getting anywhere.. I drew these things from How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Buscema. Oddly enough, that head/helmet figure has turned out to be invaluable. I learned how to draw that really well and really fast, then I began to draw it from different angles. That really helped me with faces, and it's a quick and easy thing to doodle in the spare, odd moment, so it was easy to practice.

First attempt at manga
I did this shortly after I bought a little book called How to Draw Manga by Katy Coope. This was many months ago, last fall I think. The results were actually not all that bad.

Toy Story sketches
From a How to Draw Toy Story from a book I bought at Disney. I'd also just bought a bunch of nifty PrismaColor pencils, and wanted to play with them.

Kirika & Mireille from the anime series Noir
Quick sketches of the two main characters from the anime series Noir (the best anime series ever!). The source for this is a plastic pencil board I bought on ebay. I did these quickly in an idle moment. Kirika didn't turn out so good, but I was actually quite pleased with Mireille.

Random bishoujo
I was just doodling, and came up with a few OK random girls. The one on the bottom started out life as Hotaru from Sailor Moon, but ended up looking more like Lucy Camden from 7th Heaven. I'm so sorry, Hotaru.

Sailor Saturn
To make up for the attempted Hotaru that looked like someone else, I did this one, based off this picture in a German paper doll book I picked up at Yuricon. I was amazed at how nicely she turned out (if I do say so myself).

Sailor Pluto/Setsuna
Bolstered by how well Saturn turned out, I decided to give Sailor Pluto/Setsuna a try. The source pictures (1, 2, 3) are from the same German paper doll book. Setsuna's hairline is a stone bitch to draw, let me tell you. I didn't have a good enough sorce for the slightly angled picture, so I switched to a straight on drawing and had slightly better luck, but these aren't that great.

Usagi's Idol! The Graceful Genius Michiru!
The latest. This is the early stages of a drawing of Kai'oh Michiru from Sailor Moon. The source is from yet another German paper doll book. I plan to do more work on this and will post updated versions of it, just because the process is sometimes more fun than the actual end product.

Coming soon: Sailor Uranus / Ten'oh Haruka