Pencil Sketch of Scarmother Vrynna by Ralph Contreras
Drawing Scarmother Vrynna from Legends of Runeterra
Here’s my first drawing for 2020. It’s a pencil sketch of a cool image I found on Pinterest. I just had to draw this awesome Warrior Woman. Pinterest has become my go-to for image references and inspiration for my artwork.
The original image comes from a collectible card game called Legends of Runeterra. I had’nt heard of it, but from what I found the artwork is amazing. The character I drew is named Scarmother Vrynna.
I had fun with this quick sketch. Just using a cheap 0.7 mechanical pencil I bought from a dollar store and drew. I aim to enjoy the creative process more and try not to worry about always being perfect. Guess this is my 2020 New Year’s resolution, Create Art Today.
Character Sketching: Creating a Street-Level Fighting Hero
Here’s a quick practice character drawing I did last night. I didn’t use any photo references for this drawing, just what I could imagine in my mind’s eye. I feel like the proportions are good. I wanted to draw an athletic female who is a street-level fighting hero.
I really wanted to draw her as Afro-Latinx like Rosario Dawson or Gina Torres. I also tried to add some emotion to her face. The drawing has my drawing style too. There is no character name yet, but I have some fun story ideas for her.
Pencil sketch of an Astronaut on his smoke break by Ralph Contreras
Drawing Inspiration: The Take Me To Your Leader Challenge with an Astronaut
Here’s a pencil sketch of an astronaut on his smoke break for the Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday challenge. The Spaceman was drawn with my trusty Pentel Mechanical Pencil. I wanted to give him a melancholy look like he was ready for the day to be done.
Thanks to Marshall Lee and Scott Serkland for coming up with this fun weekly prompt challenge. They started the challenge on their YouTube channels. The challenge is to draw an alien and post it on your social media with the hashtag #TakeMeToYourLeaderTuesday.
The Art of Practice: Diving into the 2,500 Drawing Challenge Starting with Hands
I’ve learned of this great challenge to help strengthen my drawing skills. The 2500 drawing challenge. The goal is to do 2,500 drawings in a year; 250 Hands, 250 Feet, 500 Legs, 500 Arms, and 1,000 Heads.
The challenge was created by a group named Drawaholics Anonymous. I don’t remember how I found out about the challenge, probably on YouTube or Instagram.
I pulled out my handmade sketchbook I made myself this year and started with the hands part of the challenge. I found a bunch of good hand images to draw from on Pinterest. Here are the first 15 hands I’ve drawn. I can already see my drawing progress from hand #1 to hand #15.
I feel that this challenge is a good one for me. How about you? Have you ever taken on the 2500 challenge? I would like to hear about anyone else’s experience with this or any other great challenges.
From Sketch to Color: Creating an Alien for Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday
I love a good art challenge and there are so many good ones these days. So I was excited to participate in a fun art challenge called Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday. This challenge was thought up by talented comic artists Marshall Lee and Scott Serkland.
I follow both these fun and energetic artists on youtube. They started the challenge a while back and decided to start it up again. The challenge is to draw an alien and post it on your social media with the hatch tag #TakeMeToYourLeaderTuesday. I posted my alien on my Instagram page.
Pencil Drawing by Ralph ContrerasInk Drawing by Ralph Contreras
I wanted to draw someone fun and show the whole figure. I’ve been focusing on drawing faces lately. So I knew I wanted to draw the full figure. I drew a female alien with a staff and antenna on her head. First I started off with a sketch using my hb mechanical pencil. Then added details and shadows in the pencil sketch. I feel the drawing came out well. Maybe a little stiff, but I like it.
Then I inked the pencil sketch and added a few extra hatch lines. I’ve really started enjoying inking my drawings. I then colored the inked drawing with Prisma color markers. I tried to add shadows and depth with the colors. I colored the character’s skin blue and didn’t even realize I made her look like an Andorian from Star Trek. Andorians have blue skin and antennae on their heads.
This was a fun challenge to participate in. I really enjoy Sci-Fi so drawing an alien was right up my alley.
Streamlining Character Creation: Embracing Croquis Templates
Character Design is one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I’ve probably created over 100 characters in the past few years. For my comic book, design challenges, and just for fun. but sometimes I feel like I’m spending way too much time just drawing the form. So I decided to give Croquis a try to let the creative juices flow. A Croquis is a figure template you can trace over and add a character’s costumes to.
Character created by Ralph Contreras using a Croquis Template
A few years ago I created a female Croquis for my other blog Comic Book Graphic Design. I took that template and extended it to have 3 figures. Here’s one of the characters I created using the Croquis. A Roller Derby type character with spikes. It was fun just to add the elements of the costume to the character and not have to worry about drawing the form. I traced the figure and added goggles, spikes, and a big “A” on her belt. She has a very 90’s X-Men feel, well at least to me, lol.
I’m happy with the way this character came out. I’ll have to write a short comic story with her in it or put her as a background character in one of my comic book projects. I’ve included a youtube video of me drawing over the Croquis and creating this character.
Finding Beauty in the Unfinished: The Story of a Sick-Day Sketch
A few weeks ago, I started a face drawing that I didn’t finish because I got sick. Despite its incomplete state, I think what I drew came out good. Even though I wasn’t feeling well, I embraced the challenge and focused on drawing as much as I could. I was able to sketch this full-page drawing of a Japanese man.
This was a quicker sketch, about 10 minutes with my 0.7 HB pentel mechanical pencil. I’m particularly proud of how his eyes came out. Sometimes, things take unexpected turns like getting the flu, but we can adapt and make the best of the situation.
Challenging Myself to Draw Bigger and Bolder Faces
I recently completed a few new face drawing in my new sketchbook, and I wanted to challenge myself by using the entire page for one face sketch. Usually, I fit around four faces or heads on each page. So it was a challenge for me to fill the entire page with just one face.
While I strive for accuracy in my sketches, it’s important to note that my sketchbook is all about capturing and expressing creativity, rather than achieving perfection. So, I embraced the imperfections in this drawing. Her eyes may be slightly oversized, and her lips a touch too small, but overall, I’m still very happy with the outcome of this sketch.
As with many of my sketches, I found the original reference photo on Pinterest. It’s an incredible platform that provides a wealth of inspiration for drawing.
Sketching Expressions: A New Sketch Book and New Faces
Here are some faces from my new sketchbook. I’m always buying new sketchbooks because they inspire me to keep creating. I have a small stack of unfinished sketchbooks though, lol. I found a nice variety of different faces on Pinterest, which served as a great reference for drawings in my new sketchbook.
I’ve been challenging myself to draw as many faces as I can. A few months ago, I attempted to draw 100 faces as part of the 100 Heads challenge. While I didn’t quite reach that goal, I had a lot of fun in the process. Now, I’ve decided to start again and continue drawing as many heads as possible. It’s not about the specific number this time around, but rather about the practice and improvement.
Each of these head sketches took me about 20 to 30 minutes to complete. I wanted to strike a balance between capturing the essential features and maintaining a sense of spontaneity in my drawings. And I must say, I’m really pleased with the way they turned out. I learn something new and gain more confidence in my artistic abilities.
Here’s my latest sketchbook entry. I decided to draw a side-view portrait. I found a photo of Zoe Saldaña in her iconic Gamora makeup as my reference, although I didn’t focus too much on capturing her likeness or the details of the character. Instead, I wanted to experiment with shadows and highlights, emphasizing the play of light on the subject matter.
For this sketch, I took a different approach by incorporating more dark shading than I typically do. I’ve had success with using shadows in some of my recent drawings. So I wanted to create go deeper and bring out the contrast between the light and dark areas. It was a quick drawing session, lasting about 5 minutes, I used a 0.7 HB Pentel mechanical pencil for the drawing.
Although the resemblance to Zoe Saldaña or Gamora may not be immediately recognizable, I’m very happy with how the overall sketch drawing turned out. It served as a valuable exercise in exploring different shading techniques and capturing the subject with shadows.
