Sketch Nest

Daily sketches by an illustration student. I am a Communication Arts major at Virginia Commonwealth University, currently employed as a graphic designer. I dream of being a concept artist. I also dream of cupcakes.

[charactersweekly]

First post! Draw yourself as a fantasy or sci-fi character (or a mixture of both)! Although this prompt wasn’t chosen with the random word generator as future prompts will be, I thought it would be a fun way for people to introduce themselves to the blog WITH ART! :D

New prompt will be posted on 6/7/14.

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mango strawberry flavored selfies

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sketch day: 5/5/2014

ref: x

twitter

AHH, yes. we meet again, lichen

my arch nemesis

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god my older work on this blog is worthless

i cant wait until i bury it in better art

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sketch day: 5/4/2014

ref: x

twitter

i have this massive fear of ice caves, so this was particularly fun

caves are so weird...the shapes are all organic but they grow...geometrically???

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sketch day 5/3/14

ref link: x

on twitter

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UH-OH a selfie!

I don't know how long this took...30 minutes, maybe?

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day 10

45 minutes

A friend recommended that I paint a tundra. it was a fantastic exercise; I was still able to use a diverse color pallet while using local color. I decided to use a reference this time, since I've never painted a tundra before. I think I should probably do that more often, so that my more imaginative landscapes convey a more logical understanding of true environments.

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Day 9

20 minutes

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gross i just spent the night on this concept.

well, by the next time you see it, it will be fully rendered.

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a little something i'm experimenting with.

a renegade magic user, i suppose. anatomy's a bit wonky, but i'm fairly pleased with the preliminaries.

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Monster girl challenge - centaur

I have come to find that centaurs usually don't...feel equine enough for my liking.

I gave her a mane, like a horse's, sort of like a mohawk that runs all the way down her spine. She was inspired off of the way white horses tend to have areas that look dark and transparent in a lovely way. I like to think of her galloping through the snow.

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Day 8

20 minutes

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Day 7

I would say video games rarely feature female protagonists, rarely feature POC protagonists, and almost never feature female POC protagonists.

Not that this makes it any less important!

To make matters worse, the few female POC video game characters I know of don't even have the kind of hair or facial features I associate with their background. They are often (not always, but often) whitewashed - as if this is supposed to make them "more attractive" - simultaneously reinforcing the kind of media disparity behind the Doll Effect, and the idea that male characters have to be interesting and relatable, while female characters have to be sexually appealing.

Admittedly, I began with a pretty rough speed painted face model that ultimately wound up being a bit whitewashed and idealistic herself.... Sadly, I failed to notice this until I was about halfway through, and by that point, there was no turning back.

Still, it was a good exercise, and I learned a lot.

I also learned that tiny braids are a bitch to draw, and that I will have carpal tunnel before my 20th birthday.

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Day 6 - 11/3/13

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Day 5

20 min

a sort of floating, ethereal fantasy environment that isn't quite a "landscape."

I can't wait to remodel this into something really fascinating!

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Day 4

30 min

Well. It seems that I've posted this after midnight. Not quite living up to the challenge. Oh well.

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Day 3 - 10/27/13

30 min

I was given the prompt "mauve, swamp" by cutiechekov. What a fantastic idea! Thank you!

You all can free to send me prompts and concept art requests whenever you'd like. I will attend to as many as I can.