Art: Gawain (G)

[sigune]

I haven't been terribly active on the Net lately because - well, we're finally having summer weather! So I have mostly been sitting outside to draw or read or just be lazy.

I know it is hard to believe, but I am actually working on the continuation of the Gawain Comic. I am 13 pages into it, in fact, but I want a few more before I start posting again. It's actually quite difficult to work on the story the way I did before - my train journey is shorter now by some 20 minutes, the commuters are more numerous (so that I don't always get a seat with a table, which makes drawing rather impossible) and it seems like the track is less smooth too, though the latter may be my imagination :p.

Anyway: the comic will post again soon now. In the meantime, have a little portrait of Gawain.



I drew this picture, looked at it and asked myself: "how many creators do you know who draw their main character really badly? You are the exception that confirms the rule D:!" Because I'm really never happy with how he comes out :/. In the meantime, however, I think he's not too bad. He's kind of cute.

Comments

[ysilme]

Cute indeed! :o) I love those freckels. ♥ And the shirt closure detail. And his hair.

[sigune]

Thank you! XD

I should do more detail. I'm learning ;-).

[ballincollig]

I absolutely cannot get enough of this drawing! It's one of the two that sustained me during NaNoWriMo this year, in which I limped my awkward way through my own Gawain-centric (writing) project.

[cabepfir.livejournal.com]

Yay more Gawain soon! This is a wonderful news!

Re: difficulties with characters. After so many years of fiddling with it, I still have problems with one of the main characters of Asanor, Naide (the one on the right here http://fav.me/d242d5s), because she's supposed to be very beautiful, and bearing a kind of similarity to a young Sharon Stone, and I usually fail at that :P Besides, I always seem to change the shape of her facial features. But I'm probably the only one who notices that, so don't despair! :)

[sigune.livejournal.com]

I know, I know, my troubles aren't necessarily obvious to other people... I sometimes think that my problem is that for Gawain, I don't have any reference at all - but you do have reference for Naide and that doesn't solve your problems either :P.

Maybe the problem is that Gawain doesn't have any very distinctive features that I can use as a basis. I mean, Morgana has a heart-shaped face and a small mouth with very full lips, Uther has a Roman nose and a dimple in his chin - Ned Stark has a long face, Snape has a thin face and a hooknose... But Gawain, he's just handsome. It's funny because I see him so clearly in my head - I just have trouble translating that vision to the page. Maybe he's too 'real' for me; I need to find a way to exaggerate him a bit.

[cabepfir.livejournal.com]

No, you are absolutely right. Sometimes it is more difficult to draw beautiful people because their traits, in a sense, are less specific than those of not-traditionally beautiful people. There is more symmetry in their features and less exaggerated traits (such a big nose, prominent brow, etc), which also make them less distinct on the paper (while in real life you'd see also the colours, the texture of the skin, etc). Just a lineart is sometimes insufficient to make a supposedly beautiful character to stand out, unfortunately.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

What i"d say to this is: how can you claim to draw Gawain badly when we all enjoy looking at him so much? I'm happy to see more Gawain. :) BTW, how is the arm?

[sigune.livejournal.com]

The arm is mostly fine. The cast was removed a few weeks ago, but some movements still hurt me. I hope that is going to go away... It should :p.

It makes me very happy to hear you want to see more Gawain :D. He's just very difficult to draw because he's so dear to me, I think. Somehow I find it easier to draw fan art of my favourite characters than to draw my own characters to my own satisfaction...