How I Spent My Hogwart's Vacation, by Steve D.

Now, where was I?

Right, sketches, chronological order, stuff like that. Well, here we have the third (or fourth and fifth, I suppose) sketch done after having been re-bitten by the drawing bug. These are two of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter series, Ron Weasely and Hermione(her-MY-oh-knee)Granger. As you can see, my head was still overfull of HP-goodness, and I needed some kind of outlet.

For whatever reason, the main three characters are the ones I most easily picture differently from their filmic counterparts. For a lot of the characters, I often imagine them to look like the way they're portrayed in the movies. But for the three main characters, I usually see them differently. Which is not to say that these drawings are my final word on what they look like- this is just what ended up on the paper when I was drawing.

I would say these versions of Hermione and Ron are about 17 or 18... Ron's confidence has grown, but Hermione's tolerance for Ron acting like a child has not. And no, Ron's not giving Hermione the "piss off, fascists!" sign. He's giving it to someone else.

I'm fairly pleased with how they both turned out. I drew Ron first, then Hermione. Ron was initally just a head sketch, but when I put the smile on his face, I knew he needed to be gesturing something. Once I finished Ron, it only made sense to draw Hermione next, and her pose came fairly naturally put next to Ron. Hopefully some sense of her annoyance carries through in her look and pose. Maybe it was too many years of drawing angry superheroes or whatever, but I have a tough time conveying emotions on a sketch's face- other than anger or boredom. I now see why so many artists use photoreference for facial features. Or a mirror. Mirror's good.

I decided on making the HP characters look more cartoony for two reasons- one, at the time I wanted a very clean, strong line with them, and the cartoon aesthetic gives me that. Two, I wanted to approach the characters with a more realistic effort later on, but not then and there. I think I succeeded better with Ron than with Hermione because it's much easier to exaggerate facial features on a guy and keep him looking "handsome" than on a girl and keeping her "pretty". Or it is for me, at least. Even in drawing, women are a mystery to me...

coming up: more HP stuff.

For those of you worried this will be an HP love-fest, don't worry. I've got all kinds of other geekery waiting for you. And a list of more stuff to work on.

Since you're here, please take a moment to check out the poll to your right. I have a bunch of different ideas for things to draw, but I'd like to know if you (and you know who you are) would like to see anything in particular. Or at least as particular as the poll gets. Or feel free to e-mail suggestions. Bad ones will be ignored, good ones will be appropriated and claimed as my own.

See you Thursday.

Music: "Secret Garden"- Peter Gabriel