Here is my first attempt at an illustration. I set myself a goal to learn to draw, among other things. As I take classes, I’m finding a lot of reasons not to practice (I don’t know how, I’m not creative enough, I don’t really like it, I don’t have time, etc.). So I decided instead to draw a character that I like from a TV show I’m watching. This is Cat Noir, from Miraculous. It’s on Netflix, and it’s about this superhero named Ladybug who is super creative and clever, and always comes up with these random combination of objects a la MacGyver to defeat the villains. Her partner is Cat Noir, he has the power of destruction. He is impulsive and never thinks ahead, and because he trusts Ladybug’s plans, everything always works out. He kicks whatever butts she indicates, she does her thing, and then they win. He also likes to make cat puns.
I started trying to draw my reference freehand and it was amazingly bad. To not get discouraged, I put my reference image on a bottom layer and turned it on an off, trying to draw from what I remembered. Even though it ended up essentially a retrace, I learned about anatomy and perspective (+2 to anatomy and +1 to perspective, not much but it kept me working on it). After that, I had the best time doing the coloring. It took me forEVER to finish it because:
1) I picked a character completely dressed in black
2) He’s wearing some kind to high-performance fabric, with means it’s shiny
3) It has a honeycomb texture
So yeah, not the best image to start with. I had a great time though. It does get in the way now, though. Whenever I see the cartoon I notice new details, so I don’t concentrate on what I’m watching and I also have the nagging feeling that I’m not done with the drawing. All the artists that have this feeling, raise your hand.
