Barbarian Schoolgirls

[Legendary Sidekick]

Thanks. See post #1 of this thread for the best color palette ever. I wish I knew who made it, because it's the only color palette I use. (Only difference is that my grayscale has 11 colors: white, black, and nine grays from 10% to 90%.)

I really love the "rough round bristle" brush in PhotoShop. If you have a tablet, at full pressure you get the splotchy effect as seen at the edge of every picture, but if you use little pressure, you get a bunch of thin lines like I used for the wind.

 

[Nimue]

Hey, there's a big ol' difference between having a color palette and picking five or six colors that really work together. I should know...I do not do the color theory...navy blue and more navy blue, anybody?

I recently splurged and bought Kyle Webster's PS brush megaset on Gumroad because I saw a few artists giving it love. I'm not necessarily the kind of artist that would get a lot of mileage out of it--I've used the same brush to paint everything for the past two years--but holy crap is it fun to play with. Legit media effects. I think you might find it even more useful because there's a looot of inking brushes and painty brushes that are really designed for cartooning. Worth a look?

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I only have PhotoShop Elements. It came with the tablet. I wonder if it's compatible with CS5 in the sense that that brush set would work. I do like those brushes!

I use regular soft brushes to color characters (usually the 100-pt at 600dpi or the 45-pt as 300dpi), but for backgrounds, I like to draw everything on the tablet. I draw characters in pencil, but I figure out how exactly to fit them into the scene after scanning.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I really think Addy and Baldy look adorable this week.

^from the 11-6-15 strip​

Am I allowed to call them "adorable" when there are pieces of brain and intestine in their hair?

 

[Steerpike]

There's a typo in Baldhart's name on the list along the right-hand side here:

ham2d

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Thanks for pointing that out. Fixed!

 

[Manalodia]

Nissa in gold valkyrie armor.

Like Maude Lebowski wore, but the breastplate doesn't resemble a pair of bowling balls.

EDIT - Added wings.

Okay, this is cute, especially with the Norse artstyle patterned into stars ^_^

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The thing about making my characters young… it means they still live with their parents. I had no idea until this week, but drawing characters' parents is surprisingly fun!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I'm finally making strips that don't take place on the same day as the first strip. The season even changed... to CHRISTMAS SEASON!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

Here is Baldhart as a not-Barbie and Nissa as a not-Lego Elves. Lego Elves count as girl toys. (And yes, the girl Legos are better looking with more detailed faces, rubber hair, skirts... and Lego Elves have elf ears.)

I also made Raggedy Addy, though she's not in this picture. Raggedy Addy is least likely to get me sued.

The premise here is that the boy toys are too violent, and the girl toys are sick of it so they solve the problem... well... with violence. So they don't solve the problem. So sue me. (Better you than Mattel or Lego.)

 

[Ireth]

Lego elves are awesome. My youngest sis got two sets for Christmas. She wouldn't let anyone help her put the sets together. XD

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

My youngest got Elsa's castle. Me and my older daughters assembled it, since Hannah is still Lego Duple-aged.

I'm glad they want help. I haven't outgrown Legos.

 

[DMThaane]

Bah! Of course the castle figures are losing! Where's the artillery, the fortifications, the dragons! Let's see those girl toys take a trip down to my neck of the woods and see what a real Lego collection brings to the battlefield. Not-Barbie won't seem so tall when a dragon's spitting fire at her from the top of Orthanc.

Incidentally it's my experience that you may not outgrow Lego but if you keep collecting it long enough it can definitely outgrow your ability to store it.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

There are not-Muppets that tower over not-Barbie.

Raggedy Addy is a not-Muppet-slayer. It's like a wyvern-slayer, but in a not-Toy-Story setting. In my sketches, there's no evidence of her killing anything wyvern-like, but she does wear a teddy-bearskin cloak. (I also sketched some heroes on the Blue side today.)

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

A short series of drawings for a personal project.

I had an old They Might Be Giants song playing in my head.

For the record, Baldhart is in her usual outfit by the time her body is fully formed. I also like her hair better they way I drew her as a Barbie doll. The hair is especially fun when she swings a weapon.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

The green thing's too big to "come alive" like Baldy does, so I worked in a different monster who can fit entirely in the picture (and can also fit in the pencil-missile one).

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

And here's the chase...!

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I forgot to draw the wings, but he's being erased so... uh... I DIDN'T forget. Yes. I omitted the wings on purpose.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I'm going to resist the urge to post too much art from this, but I'm currently experimenting with a short story that includes illustrations. One thing I noticed is that in order to work illustrations into the text, I'm better off NOT drawing detailed backgrounds. Thank God for that! The characters are way more fun to draw than backgrounds, and not having to add speech bubbles is nice too.

Will this sort of thing sell? I have no idea.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

My wife was at a paint night party, so I joined her. But instead of painting, I drew a huntress attacking a monster. (Pencil on full 8.5x11, scanned and colored.)