Something old, something new

All right, sports fans. Once again, it's been eons since we've spoken. To make up for it, I have oodles of content to show you today.

Ella's been revamped, again—every time I change her style, I like it more. I'm also working on Hattie, since I was never fully satisfied with my first few attempts. She now looks completely different. :) There's some Char, of course, and three new surprise characters. I tried to focus more on specific scenes from the book, this time, and I hit a few of my favorites.

This update comes in two batches. I meant to do an upload a few months ago, but apparently I never got around to it. Oops. I have since reworked Ella's hair, and the old stuff now seems chunky and stiff by comparison, but I liked the other components enough to show you.

This may be a slightly older Ella, triumphantly displaying her mother's necklace reclaimed from Hattie (who stole it early in the book).

Char happens upon Ella and the ogres.

When they are reunited, Ella imparts to Char her lessons from finishing school.

Apparently, Ella's father, Sir Peter, looks a lot like someone else I know... And they happen to share a first name. Coincidence?

Ella grinds some dirt in Hattie's face. "It becomes you." (p. 53) They're actually in a carriage when this happens, but it looked awkward every time I tried to draw them sitting down so go away.

I'm not in love with this, but here's a first attempt at Lucinda the Idiot. Even though it's never cited in the book, she wears mostly pink, and she absolutely carries a sparkly magic wand.

And this is how she signs her name. :P

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Here are a few old thumbnails. I don't really like them enough to enlarge them, but I might consider doing so with the last one, if only to force myself to learn how to draw a horse. :P

Ella, enjoying the sun. This became irreparably smudged on paper, so I colored and cropped it in an effort to salvage it.

A slight crossover with the Disney movie, when the fairy godmother magics a dress for Cinderella. In the book, Ella wears her mother's old gowns to the ball.

Ella contemplates a willow, a "crying tree," at her mother's funeral.

The elves give Ella a pony to ride to the giants' wedding.

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And now for the more recent batch. I'm finally finally finally starting to get Ella's hair to a place that I like. Starting. And I'm starting to dislike Char's hair again. Guess that means it's time to improve.

This is what Ella looks like whenever she converses with her rotten step-family.

Writing a letter to Char. I did a thumbnail of this a long time ago, and I finally decided to tackle it in full size.

"I trimmed the pen, then found I didn't know how to begin. I could call him 'Char' quite easily, but writing it was another matter. 'Dear Char' looked disrespectful on the page. 'Dear Prince Char' or 'Dear Highness' seemed too formal. And how would I conclude? 'Yours truly' and 'Sincerely' seemed stiff, while 'Your friend' seemed childish." (pg. 162)

Practicing Ella's hair, clothes, and figure.

"Everyone called it losing Mother, but she wasn't lost. She was gone, and no matter where I went—another town, another country, Fairyland, or Gnome Caverns—I wouldn't find her." (pg. 11)

Mandy takes advantage of Ella's curse to boss her around, so Ella plays the literal game with her. This one happened when Ella was eight.

"When Mandy sent me to the pantry for more almonds, I returned with only two." (p. 6)

When Ella's friend finds out about her curse, she exploits it ruthlessly until Ella punches her in the nose. This picture of the aftermath is my favorite of this update.

"Mother issued one of her infrequent commands: never to tell anyone about my curse." (pg. 7)

Walking with her after the funeral, Char finally gets Ella to laugh.

This would be so much better without the notebook paper lines, but I didn't have my sketchbook with me. I definitely want to try this one again.

On the third night of the ball, Hattie unmasks the mystery maiden, and it turns out to be... Ella! Shock and horror abound, and she races out of the castle, but not before Char recognizes her.

A new attempt at Hattie. I always pictured her as slight and pretty until I read the book a couple more times. She's described as a smaller version of Dame Olga, who is a "tall, plump lady with long and wavy honey-colored tresses." We're also told that Hattie has large front teeth and looks like a fat rabbit.

I think she's pretty clearly supposed to be overweight, but I decided it's possible for her to look like a fat rabbit without actually being obese, and I've never really agreed with making all the evil characters fat and ugly. I went for a compromise here. She's still not drop-dead gorgeous, but she's not repulsive—that is, until you've spent thirty seconds listening to her talk.

Areida

Hi, friends! Got a new character for you! Before we get to that, I also colored my most recent picture of Char. I updated the post, so you should go check it out!

On to business.

Tragically, my copy of Ella seems to have misplaced itself, which means I don't have access to direct quotes. Oh well. I can sum up.

Ella's father sends her to finishing school, where she has only one friend, Areida, from neighboring country Ayortha. I can't find the direct quote, but Areida's described as having cinnamon-colored skin, and her hair is a lot of tiny braids tied up into a knot. I have no idea how to draw that, but I tried... :)

They first meet during an embroidery lesson. Areida is much better than Ella at making tiny, delicate stitches.

Areida is good-natured and kind to everyone, while Ella displays a penchant for vengeance.

Singing is big in Ayortha, so Areida is naturally gifted.

Later, Char stays at the inn run by Areida's family, and we see an excerpt from her diary.

These are all from fairly specific scenes, so I'm bummed I don't have my book. I'll probably update this when I find it. Le sigh.

Char 2.0

One of the best ways to learn how to do anything is to find someone who does it well and copy their style. A search for "disney faces" brings up some really weird stuff… but sifting and narrowing down sometimes yields sketches of various expressions that are quite useful to practice from.

Basically, if I don't know how to draw something, I've discovered that a good way to figure it out is to just find a picture of it and copy it.

Remember when I promised to post a new picture of Char after I figured out his hair? Well, I was copying some drawings of Flynn (from Tangled), and I started trying to meld his expressions with Char's face, and these pictures happened. I also figured out a new way of rendering curly hair (curly boy hair, at least), which I like quite a bit.

Ella meets Prince Charmont at her mother's funeral, where he tells her, "You can call me Char."

A similar exercise yielded some nice sketches of a favorite secondary character. Can you guess who it is? :) Tune in next time!

Blogger Pro Tip: Did you know you can click the tags at the bottom of a post to see all posts involving, for instance, Char? Try it out!

UPDATE: Finally got around to coloring this! He came out looking a bit younger than in the sketch, I think. Maybe because his jaw got rounded out when I traced it (and his eyes are a little bigger). He's supposed to be like seventeen, though, so this may be right on the money.

"Even my father calls me Char."

Ella runs away

I felt bad about copping out last night with a pseudo-made-up character, so I fixed the drawing I promised and am posting it tonight! Aren't you lucky ducks! It turns out that Photoshop is really good at things like resizing abnormally largely drawn heads, so it wasn't as much of a pain as I thought it would be.

I'm a total noob. Sorry.

So this is Ella just before running away from finishing school. On her way out, she sneaks into Hattie's room and steals her wig.

(Of course I couldn't be bothered to look up the chapter before I drew this. Ella actually snatches the thing right off Hattie's sleeping head, which makes more sense and is much funnier. Oh well.)

I may go back and shade this… If I do, I'll probably attempt to draw the rest of the room. Don't hold your breath on that one. xP

Doesn't make sense that Hattie would keep her wig on a wig form, since she shares her room with other girls who don't know her hair is fake, but I like how this turned out, anyway.

"Now, what to do with it? If I threw it into the dying fire, the smell might wake someone. I could drape it over the head of the china cat that adorned the mantelpiece, but if Hattie woke early, she could rescue it before anyone saw. So I took it with me, a trophy." (pg. 87)

Cecilia

So… last time, I promised I'd do a scene from the book. In all fairness, I did start one. I can't tell you what it is because I'm still planning to post it. But I started it in June, and when I opened the Photoshop document to finish it this evening, I realized it was all wrong and I need to re-draw a head and that will be a gigantic pain.

In the meantime, I have a sketch for your enjoyment! Cecilia never actually appears in the book, but she's Char's younger sister, and he mentions her a couple of times. She is two years younger than Char, making her exactly Ella's age.

Anyway, there's next to no information about her in the book (except that she may be musically inclined (p. 178) and that Char is protective of her (p. 179)), so I made up a character for her. My Cecilia is much less serious than Char, being free of the "first-in-line" responsibilities, so she's a little spoiled, very energetic, and talkative. I imagine she and Ella would be close friends once Ella moved into the castle.

Char's little sister is either modest and reserved or an amped-up version of Ella. For reasons that should be obvious, I'm going with the latter…

(As always, right–click and "Open in new window" for full size.)

One day, I'll get the steadiness of hand necessary to draw smooth, flowy lines. And I'm thinking I will clean this one up in Photoshop, although I don't know if I need to color it.

Next time, I promise (and by "promise" I mean "hope") I'll post the scene. It's more work than usual because it involves (minimal) scenery. Blech.

Hourlies 6/13/12

I decided to draw what I did all day! Currently working on an Ella for next time. Hopefully this holds you over until then. :)

Conclusion: my family is hilarious.

Ella 2.0

It's been too long since my last Ella drawing. By way of apology, I put extra work into this entry! You get the line drawing plus color. I even tried my hand at shading. Cool, right?

Ella picks out a green dress after her mother's funeral because her mother hated black. This is what it might have looked like. (I need to study medieval/Ella-period fashions; I apparently don't have much of an imagination for gown design.) I really like this Ella, although it's weirdly disproportionate in some places. Also, one day, I will learn how to draw hands that don't look crippled. One day.

Ella's post-funeral garb. I don't know if bare arms would have happened. I was tangentially inspired by Belle's yellow dress in Beauty and the Beast, maybe?

"Although I suspected Father wanted me to wear another mourning gown, I put on the frock Mother liked best. She said the spicy green brought out my eyes. I thought I looked like a grasshopper in it—a skinny, spiky grasshopper with a human head and straight hair." (pg. 17)

My pledge for next time is to attempt an actual scene: action, emotion, maybe even multiple characters...? You'll just have to wait and see!