6. Rooftop

I don't have a ton to say about this one. I sketched this around the first time I read The Blue Sword and The Hero and The Crown, and I think started liking cats after reading those books. Thus my attempt at a cat on the roof. I don't know that cats really lay like that, but oh well. I think this girl was also supposed to be a misfit/tomboy like the girls in McKinley's books (thus her presence on the roof of the castle). Her lack of face makes it hard to know why she is up there. Is she on the roof to escape? To enjoy the stars? To ponder? Maybe she is waiting for someone. What do you think?

5. Treasure Planet World

One of my favorite movies as a teenager was Treasure Planet. I loved the creative blend of science fiction and the original book setting, and it had a great soundtrack too! This image is based off one of the worlds that flashes briefly into view through the portal in the climax of the film. In the still below you can see the similarity. 

Source: http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Treasure_Planet_(location)/Gallery?file=Treasure_Planet_34.jpg

I drew this before everything was available on the internet, so I had to sketch off what I could see from the brief flash in the movie, and then added a few elements of my own. 

Apparently some spacer decided to wait out the storm inside one of these weird formations. I am not sure why their ship doesn't get blown away, they must have a pretty good anchoring system. Anyway, it is a cool world concept, maybe some day I will get around to writing something about it.
I have been heavily influenced by my favorite films, books, and music, as will become more obvious in later sketches. It is fun to play off of the creativity of others, I don't think anyone can create in a vacuum. Is there a film that inspires your creative juices?

4. Attempting a Face

-Skyflyr

A new laptop and a few other projects later, and I finally have another sketch ready! My last laptop died right as I was finishing this up. Annoying, but now with my new computer I have a touch screen, which is really fun in Gimp.

Speaking of Gimp, this picture made me learn a lot more about it! The sketch was extremely faded, especially the background. When I drew it I was nervous about drawing buildings so I did them very lightly, and they are barely visible now. But computer technology is pretty amazing, and I was able to recover a lot of it, although it looks a bit fuzzy still. 

In terms of skill development, in this sketch I finally attempted a face! I got most the features down but "eyes are the windows of the soul" and all that, so they were the most intimidating. I got about as far as the outline of one eye before I chickened out... One step at a time, right? Some face is better than none at all.

On that note, I really like two (related) concepts taught by "The Fly Lady" Marla Cilley. She always talks about the importance of taking baby steps and not only doing things if you can do them perfectly. In her book Sink Reflections she says "Housework done incorrectly still blesses your family!". I have applied that way of thinking to a lot of things besides housework and it helps overcome the barriers I set up for myself. For example, I have been wanting to start a blog for a long time but I never did because I wanted it to be "perfect" and I didn't know what that would be. But then I realized any blog would be better than none at all, so I am just going for it. Blogging done incorrectly still blesses me. Are there things that you want to do but are worried you won't do them perfectly?