Character Sheet/Sketches - Belmont (Patreon)

Since I'd been sick and hadn't been doing much drawing at my computer, and then had to do a ton of traditional penci-on-paper sketches, I've been feeling especially rusty when it comes to digital art.  So I decided to do some studies to get back to being comfortable drawing with an Intuos.  I wanted to draw someone I haven't gotten to draw often enough, so here's Belmont!  I still need to get comfortable pushing his facial expressions further since he's such a dramatic dude, but first I wanted to get used to at least drawing his appearance consistently.

The Intuos is a non-screen tablet, so you're drawing in your lap while looking ahead at a computer screen.  I've been doing digital art in some form since junior high (starting with color and screentone), but I didn't get my first tablet until college, and I didn't start *sketching* digitally until maybe four or five years after college.  Developing the hand-eye coordination to sketch on an Intuos is... a chore.  I still sometimes get tripped up with a combination of artist's block and executive dysfunction when I'm staring down a blank Photoshop document as opposed to a piece of paper.  But it's how I do 99% of my DOTU art, so I needed to get back in the habit.

I really want to do new character sheets for everyone.  My art style and abilities have shifted so much over the years, and it can be hard to reference old art, with all its mistakes, as a basis for new art.  So I might do some studies for other characters too.  I also want to do lots of full body studies because I desperately need an anatomy refresher.

Before doing the above digital sketches, I warmed up with a few traditional pencil sketches (below).  Like I said, I feel I get better overall results digitally, but lately I've been experimenting with chiseling my pencil tip, and I really like the line quality you can get with it - particularly in the last sketch below.  So I want to play with that more too, or try to create a digital brush that replicates the same effect.