...Invader Zim?

Okay, I'm officially going to make an effort to update more often. Starting... NOW.

Well, starting next time I post Ella pictures. Today, we have sketches from Invader Zim. Yes, the cartoon. My sister roped me into it, and I ended up watching the whole series (only about twenty-five episodes). Oops. This may be kind of considered cheating, since these characters already exist in drawn-on-paper form, and I won't pretend I didn't just copy them from a Google-image search.

That said, They came out nicely nicely, and I am confident that I can now draw a few of the characters without a reference.

Dib, Zim, Professor Membrane, and Gaz. Yes... those are their actual names.

While I've got you here, I want to point out that Blogger recently changed the way it works, so now, if you click on a picture, it opens a weird slideshow-view presentation of all the pics in that post. This is fine, except that it means clicking on the picture no longer enlarges it, necessarily. (I mention this mostly for my mobile user(s) who have a difficult time making out my drawings on a tiny screen.)

The solution, I've found, is simply to right-click the picture and open it in a new tab/window. I don't know how well that will work on an iPhone, etc., but I thought I would pass along the tip, in case anyone was getting frustrated.

Tree Getting!

A new picture! Not "Ella"-related, but I think it's kind of cute.

From left to right: me, Mom, Dad, sister, dog.

While we were Christmas-tree hunting—or, I should say, after we had found our tree and were headed back to the car—my Dad, my sister, my dog, and I were all lined up more or less just like this, and I thought, "This would make a really nice painting." Later, I sketched this at work and then much later scanned it and went over it in Photoshop. When I learn how to paint with watercolors, maybe I'll make a nice background of the tree farm and color in the people in Ps, and then it will be just how I envisioned it!

Knowing me, that is extremely likely to happen.

Mandy, Nancy, and Nathan

Three of the servants in Ella's household. This is the last of the old drawings (done over a year ago!), which means I'll be starting on some new stuff, soon! How exciting!

Mandy, the house cook and Ella's fairy godmother!

Nancy and Nathan, two more servants. I will probably finish up this sketch at some point... I like it. :)

Evil step-family (and some miscellanea)

Back again! Here are Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive, as well as a few mini-sketches of (gasp) actual scenes from the book! It's possible I do big-kid-size versions of one or more of these thumbnails... No promises, though. ;)

Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive: Ella's evil step-family. Ooooh, they're mean. Dame Olga strongly reminds me of Dolores Umbridge... The bow seemed appropriate. :)

Writing a letter to Char.

Scrubbing the floor in her own house, while Dame Olga looks on.

This is Nancy, the serving maid. "She crept behind Mum Olga and pantomimed dumping a pail of water over her head." (pg. 169)

Next time, I have members of Ella's house's staff: Nancy, Nathan, and the beloved Mandy!

Char

Just one, today. Perhaps I will update later with a Dame Olga. This is an old picture of Char, and I clearly haven't figured out his hair yet, but this is the best that I currently have. Once I get the front of his hair to cooperate, I'll post a new one.

I seem to do a lot of blank expressions and boring body positions. Soon, I hope to have some actual scenes from the book. That would be swell.

P.S. I updated my first "Ella" post (from October). It's just a small change: the full-body pic was a little leany-backy, so I straightened her out. :)

Not Ella...

...but still fun!

I doodled these (relatively) quickly when no plain white paper was present. The first one came out pretty well, so I left it on lined paper rather than screw with it on the computer. The second one was really rough, so I did trace that in Corel... and since I got that far, I went ahead and colored it, too. :D

This is the kind of lady I would like to see more of in popular fiction. Like for reals.

Gunslingers can be ladies, too!

Ella and Char

So, just as I got this blog started, my scanner decided to go haywire and start running this huge black line through all my images. I finally got a new scanner, so I can start updating! I have lots of pics to show you!

These were both done hastily on scraps of paper (as opposed to in my sketchbook), so they're not as clean as some of my other drawings.

At the very end of the book, when Char brings around the slipper, Ella doesn't want to be recognized.  "Straining for a new disguise of servant and simpleton, I sucked on my fist and stared about vacantly." (pg. 222)

Mwah!

I have some more sketches of Char, next, and after that, I have Dame Olga and some of the servants.  Stay tuned!