Iron Man - Half of the Man

I'm quite excited to show you guys this drawing, because it's taken me over 11 hours to do! Ok, so normally you'd do the outline then shade the drawing in, then smudge the pencil to fill in those little white dots that don't get the initial graphite. This drawing I went to painstaking measures to give it the appearance of metal. Well, as much that can be accomplished with graphite.

I did the usual shading, then went back over it with a darker pencil that was sharpened to a fine point and filled those little white dots in. Now can you see how it can take over 11 hours?? :)

Not only that, but it was a welcome change from hair.

I did the entire drawing that way, but it was worth it! I'm hopefully going to do more Iron Man drawings, as they are fun, and challenging, to do!

Orlando Bloom

Orland Bloom

I did this drawing for the same person I did the top drawing of Josh, in this post.

I was excited to do this picture, as I've wanted to do this drawing for a while. Personaly, though, I don't like how it the face turned out. I like the hair though :)

Chris Hemsworth as Thor

 Thor Finished



 Before                                                     Middle

Ok, so Eldra has been bugging me to draw Chris ever since we saw Thor (about 3 months ago). I really wanted to do it, but at the same time procrastinated with everything I had in me. About 3 weeks ago, I started it, filling in the left side of the page, and part of his beard, but didn't finish it until the 5th of May.

Considering The Avengers just came out, I felt that this was a perfect time to publish it.

But man! Is blond beards ever hard to draw!! I had sooo much trouble drawing in his beard, and I still don't like it a hundred percent, but it'll have to do. As for the entire drawing, I had to do three renditions of it before it looked like Thor. The Before drawing was the first version. Good, but not Thor. I changed a few things, which ended up being the middle drawing. Changing a bunch of thing, I ended up with the final Thor which is the big drawing at the top.

(to view the drawings 1-2-3, right click on the pictures and open them in new tabs, then click between them)

Kyle Kupecky - Anthem Lights

Here you go, Laurcia. Kyle Kupecky of Anthem Lights.

Laurcia came to me with a request to do someone from Anthem Lights. She gave me five different photos to choose what picture I want to do. Over two days, I worked to complete it before the week was done.

All in all, it was a good project to work on :) Thanks for trusting me to get this picture done!

 - Leauphaun

Padmè Amidala Skywalker - 2012

Padmè Amidala Skywalker

I did this drawing for the same friend that I did Shadow in the Forest for.

It's funny. I did Padmè back in 2007, 2008, then again in 2010, and now in 2012. You can see the difference, quite significantly I might add, between the 6 years. I had a lot of fun drawing this picture, as I always do whenever I draw Padmè. All in all, this took about 8-9 hours.

I just had to wait to publish this drawing on the 4th. After all, May the Fourth be with you! ;)

This drawing is going to be published in an art book soon.

Arwen Evenstar - Fight at the River

                                               Before                                                 After

Click on the left drawing than press on the right arrow key (on your keyboard) and flip back and forth between the drawings to see the difference.

My second LOTR drawing of 2012!

This was done in my 7+ drawing streak that happened this past week. As you can see, I did a before and after scans of the drawing. The one on the left is my initial sketch, while the other one is what I changed it to after seeing what was wrong with the drawing.

Arwen, in the before picture, looks really harsh, with her eyebrows, chin, lips and eyes being quite sharp. I had to soften out her features by adding more to her lips, eyebrows and enlarging her eyes and eye lashes. Her chin got taken up quite a bit as well as the edge of her collar.

Josh Hutcherson x2

I did these two pictures for friends of mine.

I must say that Josh has some of the most fun, and challenging, hair to work with. I must've spent (between the two drawings) 8+ hours on his hair!

Other than that, I don't really have much to say about these drawings.

Raphael - The Red Turtle

Eldra was working on our brother's Nintendo DS, doing a drawing of Raphael, the turtle from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She asked me for some help on how to do this part of the mask. I, being an artist, proceeded on helping her on more than that one little part. At one point, it was to hard to just describe how to draw, it was easier to show what I meant for her to do. I ran to our room, grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, and ran back to the TV room (where she was working) and started drawing Raphael.

I ended up doing the entire head of the turtle before I showed Eldra what she was doing wrong so she could correct it before going on with the drawing. While she was working, I finished the rest of the picture just for fun. As she was working on the band around his head, I shaded in the low-lights of the picture, signed it, and sealed the deal.

What started off as a little bit of help, turned in to a full fledged drawing! By no means is this the final project, but I haven't gone back and smoothed out the shading. Actually, I wasn't going to post this on this blog, but Eldra insisted that it go up, so this is a treat for you cartooners out there.

Shadow in the Forest - The Hunger Games

Ok, first thing I want to say is that I know that this isn't the original Katniss. It is a fan made picture that someone did, and I used as reference. The hair was the biggest challenge, but it helped me work on the quality of how I do the hair.

But I did this picture for a friend of mine who wanted it drawn. Of course I didn't refuse at a challenge! Or request...

He ended up really enjoying it :) I asked him to name the drawing, and he came up with... Katniss. I urged him to name it something other than the character's real name, as this isn't the same girl. I suggested that he come up with a name that deals with one of her colors. Since she wears a lot of brown, he decided on naming the drawing "Shadow in the Forest". I agreed.

I think I ended up putting 8+ hours into this drawing, spread over two days.

But I'm happy my friend came to me with this request, because it sparked a 7+ drawing streak that I went on, and can't seem to stop. I love it!

Completed on April 6th.

Alex Burrows - Signed

Alex Burrows

Some time ago, Alex Burrows came to the Best Buy near me to do an autograph signing. But he ended up breaking his left hand the day before in an away game, and had to fly back to Vancouver to get his hand looked at. On the day he would've been signing.

I saw in the newspaper that he was doing a signing, and stayed up that night (until 2 in the morning) doing this drawing. That morning I woke up and found out that he wasn't going to show up. I didn't feel like I waisted my time doing that drawing, but was a little disappointed that I couldn't give him one of these two drawings.

About a month ago, my younger brother, Goose, saw that he was actually going to becoming back to do the signing, I gathered my two drawings that I wanted to show him.

Long story short, we ended up meeting him, and I presented him with two drawings, so that he could choose which one of the two he wanted to take home. With much surprise on his face, he choose "Anticipation", and signed the other one; my birthday drawing. For personal reasons, I blurred my name.

I aquired this drawing on March 11th.

Thank you, Alex Burrows!!!

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

This is my two-day, 9 hour drawing: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, rising star of the Edmonton Oilers (NHL).

I was looking for random hockey photos, and ran across Ryan. I immediately knew I had to do this drawing. But I realized that all of my 8B-9B pencils (really dark) were too small to work with. I went to my local art store and picked up a brand of pencils that I'd never tried before, and tested them on drawing this dress. I then decided, after really enjoying how they felt/drew, to do this picture. I did the drawing the first time around.

If you want to see a tip on how I change the image without Photoshopping it, click here to go to my post on my Thoughts blog.

 

First draft                                                Second (and final) draft

So as you can see, there is quite the difference with how the drawings looks. I had to change many things to make it look more like Ryan. The first draft I didn't really like. I usually can tell if there is something wrong with the drawing before I see it over the original photo. The main thing I needed to change were... well I'll just name everything, as all of the parts contribute to his look.

His lips needed widening and filling out, as well as the shadow under his lip. I darkened his teeth, and made them less noticeable as it was in the photo. His nose needed defining and the bridge of his nose needed taking in and a little more shading. His hair line on the right side of his head was too high, so I brought it in, as well as add some more volume to the part on his left side.

The thing that needed major changing was his eye area. His eyebrows got filled out, and the shading under his eyebrows needing darkening. His eyes got enlarging by shrinking his bottom eyelid, as well as lighting up his grey-green eyes.

In a nutshell, he got a complete redoing of his features!

Michael Barnes - Lead Singer of RED

Michael Barnes of the band RED.

I've finally come to a point where I like the photo as a drawing, as well as a picture. I did the drawing originally, but didn't like how it looked so I put it as an overlay picture in Photoshop and matched it with the original picture. Man, oh man, was it in need of touching up! The bridge of his nose needing fixing, as well as the tip, his beard, jaw, neck, scalp, ear, eyes, eyebrows, the works!!! Thankfully, this isn't a dark shaded picture, so erasing and touching up the picture wasn't much of a problem. But it's come to a point where I enjoy it.

Larry Mullen, Jr.

Part two of my U2 drawings!!

Larry is the drummer of U2. He is unusual, because he has an Elven look that not many people have.
I think the top drawing looks way more like him than the bottom one does... what do you think?
I spent up to 9 hours on the top drawing, but not nearly as many on the bottom one.

Galadriel - Queen of Lothlorien

My first Lord of the Rings piece this year!!!

As everyone is getting hyped for the first part of The Hobbit, myself included, I decided to do a LOTR picture in honor of it releasing this year. I actually did it on the 2nd, but since I was - and am - in a U2 mood right now, I have another 2 to 4 U2 drawings to publish. So I might as well publish this one and get it over with. Also, this is the third drawing that I've done in 4 days, so I felt I rushed this one a little bit.

And yes, I've noticed that I'm quite terrible at explaining about the drawing... >_>

Bono - U2

Happy New Year 2012!!

I think I should start this new year off on the right leg. So I decided to do a drawing of one of the worlds most famous singers... Bono from the band U2!!

I've been wanting to do Bono for a long time, but felt that I didn't have enough skill, patience or the right photo to do him until now. I have been listening to U2 the entire day it seems! That is what I try and do if I'm doing a person from a band. I try and listen to the music that the person has created and, usually, it comes out better. I will hopefully be doing the other band members one of these days :)

Usually I get lost while I'm drawing, and this time was like no other. I remember sketching and letting the pencil flow with the music. But that's about it.

In honor of it being New Years Day, and doing a post about U2, I though it would be fitting to post a video of U2's song... uh, "New Years Day"... But this is from their DVD that they shot at Chicago in 2005 (personally, I just like the vocals better in this version).

On another note, I wanted to thank eveyone who has come into contact with my blog. Thanks to you, I've reached 40,000 views!!! That is AMAZING!! Thank you all :)

I think that I need to say thanks to God for giving us another year, to let us glorify him, and advance His kingdom like no other year!! Like Bono says in this song, "I will begin again", and I will live this new year beginning again. Have a great year, taking it a day at a time, not staying in the past, but looking towards the future :)

Christmas Andalusian

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Let's not forget this time of the year as being a celebration of the birth of Jesus.

I just thought I'd post this just to give you guys a drawing to look over the Christmas holidays.

Alex Burrows - "Anticipation" The Second Time Over

For those of you who have been following my blog since 2009, will know that I drew Alex Burrows of the Vancouver Canucks for an art display that I was participating in. Well, something happened this past week. On November 24th, I saw in the newspaper that Alex Burrows was going to be appearing for an autographing session at a store that was opening up near us on the 27th. Me, being me, wanted to give him a drawing, and decided to do a new one. So on the 26th, I got out my paper, pencils and laptop and went through my Burrows pictures. The only good one I could find was the one I had already drawn. I looked at my old drawing and decided that it was worth it to redo the same picture. I did this picture, drawing from 8:40pm-2:30am to complete, and guess what? Burrows didn't appear at the opening of the store because he broke his left hand the day before in a (away) game and needed it to be taken care of :/

So I ended up not meeting him, but my time the night before was worth it.

To see the old drawing, and compare it, click here.

Anthony Armstrong - Guitarest of RED

Anthony Armstrong

This is a picture from RED's music video Feed the Machine. That is why he has no shirt on...

The day I was going to do a drawing, I was first going to work on a horse head, but Eldra convinced me to draw Anthony instead. I had told her back in September that I would do this drawing, but since I had an art show, and a concert, I was busy with artwork the entire month. In October, I got commissioned to do 6 drawings which took me most of the month to do. Only now have I completed this drawing!

I think that this really turned out, more than what I was expecting, with my personal favorite part being the little waterdroplet on his cheek. I LOVE little details like that.

Cantering Horse

Now this is an odd angle, you might think. Yes, this is a very odd angle to draw! But it was surprisingly easy to do. You might think that, because the horse is going forward/away from you, and turning at the same time, it would be a tough angle to draw. Nope! I really enjoyed this one :) The shadow was harder, though, because I really don't enjoy drawing grass of ANY kind!
Favorite part: The horse's right knee
Least Favorite Part: The horse's left front foot.

Edmund Pevensie - Skandar Keynes

Here you are, JesusIsMySavior. Here is Edmund! :)

I'm sorry I've taken so long to do this drawing, but procrastination had a hold of me and wouldn't let go. But I have conquered him... for now...

I tried to get a picture of Skandar when he was playing Edmund, but in all the pictures I saw, he looked really young. This was the best one I could find. Hope you like it!

My favorite part has to be his hair. I think I finally have hair looking like hair.

Jeremy Dunn - Nine Lashes

Jeremy Dunn - The Lead singer of the band Nine Lashes.

I have recently fallen in love with this newer band. They just got signed with Tooth and Nail records, and are releasing thir first 'offical' album. Guess who got them hooked up with T&N?? Trevor McNevan of Thousand Foot Krutch!! Haha, trust Trevor to find a diamond in the rough.

Anyway, this is the lead singer of the five member band. For the past week I've been wanting to draw him, but haven't been anywhere that is sutible for drawing. I was in Calgary for a chruch conference for five days, and then I got sick (almost better!), so just now have I been able to do him.

I still need to add more shading to the darkest parts of his face, but I really like how his hair turned out! I posted this on Nine Lashes page on Facebook and this is what they said. "This is amazing! Great work!"

Haha, how can a band like them not be nice about it?!

Oh, and I will be doing Edmund soon, JesusMySavior :)

Commissions, Part 2

Peggy's Cove 

United Grain Elevators 

Eagle

This is the second half of my Commissions.

The top drawing is of Peggy's Cove, in Halifax. The middle is of United Grain Elevators (prairie), and the bottom drawing is for my pastor's, spiritual father (the man who helped him on his spiritual journey).

The hardest part was the grass in the Grain picture. I had to draw it 2 full times! I have no idea how to draw it, but I think it will have to do.

Commissions, Part 1

 Mountain Reflection

 Mountains with Lake and Wood

Niagara Falls and The Maid of the Mist

I got commissioned by my pastor and his wife to do drawings for the 6 head members of Church of the Nations. I was given 6 pictures of Canadian places or things. I don't know what mountain the top drawing is, but it has a name. I just can't remember it. The same thing with the second drawing, but the third drawing is Niagara Falls.

I had never drawn landscapes before, so this was a new experience for me. It took me quite a while to get the hang of trees, but the ended up working out.

Trevor McNevan - Signed

Trevor McNevan of Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK).

This is one of two pieces of art that Trevor had the choice of taking home. It was either this drawing or this painting. He choose the painting (I would've too, if I were him), so he signed this drawing. Eldra was happy that he choose the painting instead of this drawing, because the drawing was more recent.  I loved both, so letting go of one of them was kind of hard, but easy at the same time. I mean, COME ON. It's TREVOR!! Lol.

He, like everyone we met on the MapleNoise tour was SUPER nice!!! An amazing person!!

THANK YOU TREVOR!!!!!

Ty Dietzler - Signed Drawing

Ty Dietzler of Thousand Foot Krutch.

This is a drawing I did in 2010, but I got to show it to Ty this past September along with this one.

He had no choice but to take the other drawing because there was no room for him to sign it (without signing his cheek). So I decided to give Ty the other drawing, and ask him to sign this one, which of course he did :) He is such a nice guy!!

THANK YOU TY!!!! MEETING YOU WAS EPIC!!!

Joel Bruyere - Bass Player for Thousand Foot Krutch

Joel Bruyere from TFK (Thousand Foot Krutch)

I think these drawings surprised Joel when I showed them to him. The top one is the one he decided to take, while the bottom one is the one he signed for me.

I can see why he would take the top drawing as opposed to the bottom one. The shading is darker, giving him more depth to his face, while the bottom one has minimal shading. The one thing I do remember drawing on the lower drawing is his mouth. I had such a hard time drawing it!! I probably drew it 5 times before getting it to a point where I was satisfied with it. Also the beard. I had difficulty drawing that.

I think he was happy with the drawing, or at least I'm hoping he's happy with it >_> :)

Thank you so much Joel, for the kind words, time and ability to put up with me ;)

Travis - Drummer for Manafest

My signed drawing

Travis, the drummer for Manafest.

Surprisingly, the bottom drawing only took me 2 hours to complete, while the top one took me 2 days. The hardest part is the bandanna which has lots of white detailing with dark fabric, but other than that he was an easy person to draw. I guess that's because of all the hair, which was easy despite the wild Mohawk starting at the top of his head.

It's weird. For the most of my new drawings, I just can't remember what happens as I'm drawing it. I just remember the outcome.

Such a nice guy, despite his 'tough guy' appearance. I think he came close to tears when he choose which one to take ^_^. Just like Bodan predicted...:)

Thank you so much, Travis. It was an honor meeting you, and who knows what my next piece will be for you...

Bodan (Guitarist for Manafest) Signed Drawing

Definitely not the better of the two drawings that I've done of him. But still...nah I really wish it looked more like him.

This was a challenge. Unlike the previous drawing, this one just WOULDN'T work!! No matter how many tries I did, it just didn't want to work out. I can't blame him for taking the other drawing.

Thank you so much, Bodan, for your kind words, and for signing this! It may be a painting next, eh?

Melanie Greenwood

Who is this beauty?? It's Melanie Greenwood, the wife/graphic artist of  music artist Manafest.

I had the privilege of meeting and talking with Melanie this past weekend...such a nice person!!!!

For those of you who haven't read my blog post, there was a 10-band concert this past Saturday and Melanie was manning Manafest's merch table. I recognized her from the picture I'd used to draw this, and talked with her for a few minutes. I gave Chris the drawing to surprise Melanie which it did (I think) :)

But this isn't my first time drawing her. I originally did this same drawing only something happened to it.
So I finished the drawing, (first one), late one night and left it on top of my laptop as I was too tired to put it away. The next morning I had a shower, and after I got out of the shower and was fixing my hair, ONE hair that had product on it landed on her nose and stuck there. I didn't notice the hair until hours later when I noticed a darker smudge on her nose and tried to erase it. Well, all it did was smear the product on her nose and permanently stain the paper. She has almost flawless skin so this huge black smear ruined the whole drawing!! GAH! It made me so mad!!! So had to do a second drawing of the same picture, but it ended up working because the second drawing looked more like her than the first.

Thanks Chris & Melanie!! You guys are awesome...keep rocking for God!!!

Legolas (For SOTK)

Here you go SOTK!!

The third and final piece...completed!

While I was drawing Legolas here, I found out that I've gotten better at doing hair, not to mention found it more enjoyable to do. I think that I finally pulled off blonde hair. Before my blonde hair looked more like brown (or white :/) but I've finally had enough practice to get it looking light, but not white.

Eldra said that his features were a little off, but that is how the picture is. His expression (to me) is like 'what?' with the one eyebrow raised.

Hope you like it!!

Frodo Baggins (for Squeeks)

Frodo Baggins of the Shire

A very dramatic picture of this special Hobbit.
This is the drawing that I'm giving to Squeaks. I hope you like it!!!

Gandalf the Grey (for Torpedo)

naur an edraaith ammen

Gandalf is here

For those of you who read my post on my Thoughts blog, will know that Eldra, Goose and I met Squeaks, SOTK (Son of the King) and Torpedo last Saturday. All of us being LOTR junkies, I asked them what LOTR character they would want drawn out. Squeaks wanted Frodo (coming up next, btw), SOTK wanted Legolas and Torpedo wanted Gandalf.

I was expecting Legolas, but Frodo and Gandalf took me by surprise. I have already drawing Legolas and Frodo so I knew I wouldn't have any trouble with them, but it was Gandalf that had be a little bit worried. But I was excited to draw him. I had almost no motivation to draw him before but now I know he is an AWESOME character to draw. Minus the hair because - for me - hair is hard.

For the beard to look better, stand back around 6 ft and it will look way better.

So, Squeaks you can show this to Torpedo whenever you see him next. Let me know if it isn't what he wanted. I have an awesome picture of Frodo coming up!!

An Eye for Music

This is the theme piece that I did for the art exhibition that I was in. The theme was 'A Rhapsody of Art' which means 'music in art'.

A friend of mine was kind enough to model for me with her GORGEOUS eyes. I then put the picture through Photoshop Elements 9 and added music notes. But because I don't have a warp tool the notes didn't want to bend around the Iris. *Blah* so I ended up doing it by hand.

But the story behind this picture. I originally was going to paint it on a 11" x 14" canvas. Well that didn't work out as the colors DIDN'T want to blend together. I then moved onto a 9" x 11" canvas to which the same problem occurred. I then decided to switch to pencil and, well, you see the results.

Kevin Bieksa - Defence on Offence

Kevin Bieksa of the Vancouver Canucks.

This drawing goes along with Half of the Duo, and Excitement for Practice.

Not really that much to say about this drawing other than it was an easy drawing to complete.

Ty Dietzler (Portriat)

Ty Dietzler from Thousand Foot Krutch

 

THIS was a fun drawing to do with the Dreadlocks and the huge headband...SO MUCH FUN!!

Surprisingly, it only took me 2 hours to complete it. I guess it's because it is mostly all darks and few light spots.

Now, for those of you who aren't good at doing hair, dark pictures are the best because you don't have to struggle with strands or middle tones, it's only highlights and darks.

 

This has turned into my all-time favorite drawing!!!! Unfortunately, I may not be keeping it as I am meeting the band later this month and Ty may or may not choose this drawing to keep O_O I hope he does, and doesn't!! GAH I'm torn...;)

Ryan Kesler - Excitement for Practise

Here is Ryan Kesler of the Vancouver Canucks.

I am putting this drawing into an art show this September along with Kevin Bieksa, and Half of the Duo.

This drawing took me 3 different days to complete it. It just kept on giving me trouble. I got so fed up with it that I decided to leave it as it was on the third day. I didn't even have time to photoshop the fingerprints off of it.