My boys! They look so vastly different in just two and a half years!
I loved doing this redraw, not only for experiencing first hand my newer process and how I've grown, but also being able to look at both finished versions side by side and having visible proof of the evolution of my art. It really goes to show that, while progress isn't always immediate and or linear, time and practice really does equal improvement in the end.
progress pictures, comparisons, and my thoughts on this redraw below:
First thing's first, looking at my old art I feel like those poses were the extent of my skill at the time, a real challenge that I set for myself, Leo in particular. I still appreciate them, especially for the first attempt I ever made at drawing any or the turtles, so going into the new one, I really wanted to emulate that same dynamic: Leo crouched down, supporting Donnie's elbow. But I didn't want it to feel as static.
In the new one, I wanted to be more lean in Donnie's pose, as if he's really putting his weight on Leo. Leo himself stayed relatively the same pose-wise, but I felt there was a way to push the pair of them to make it more dynamic. Hence, the perspective.
The second thing I wanted to tackle was the energy of the image. In the old one, I feel it gives more fun, pop-of-color vibes. It's energy was from me trying to take on the Rise style, of attempting to take on the vibrancy of the show and translate it to my art.
Now that I've had a few years to test what works best for me, I feel as though I've improved at balancing the color palettes a bit. I've always favored more muted tones, but always fought the Rise style to find the right give and take, but over time I found a happy medium that tends to lean toward those more muted tones for the body while still adding that pop of color, usually in the eyes or a source of light.
Rim lighting might just be part of my style at this point.
And lastly, I'd like to be able to compliment the original background, but it didn't work for the poses and colors I had going on on Donnie and Leo. The idea was to have a TMNT spray painted on a wall, but since the bodies covered most of the work, it was difficult to tell what was going on.
On the new one, I really leaned into the drama of the scene. They're ready to fight, they're moving, and they're a threat. I didn't want the background to fight with the characters this time around, so starting with the dark, monotone slate helped me smooth out the rest of the ambience before attempting the mystics on Donnie's bo, Leo's portal and what ended up being the wind. And finally the text. I intentionally kept it hard to notice, a small detail that added a bit more texture without distracting and also taking some of the blues and purples throughout the drawing. That last detail, the boy's names, was what I used to mimic the original background.
This ramble turned out a lot longer than I intended, feels like I should end it with "in conclusion" XD
Overall, I'm really happy with how this went and how I've grown since I started drawing tmnt art. Thanks for sticking around to listen to me chatter endlessly, please let me know if this is something you'd wanna read more of in the future!
I'm going singlehandedly keep this dead fandom alive, damnit!
This is a redraw from a picture I made in 2015, back when I started this blog. You can find the post here. The second pic is from when I remade it 2019.
My rushed redraws of two random draw tests I did in 2021. I named the two July and December based on the months I drew them in that year. I’m not proud of July’s redraw, because even though the art style is outdated, she looked interesting in the old form. December on the other hand was a beautiful result of my testing out new ways of drawing. What do you think?
I tried so HARD TO POST THIS LAST SECOND ON MARCH 31, but some stupid bug made it impossible. It’s bugging me that I wasn’t able to post something for March!
