Desmond’s Character Design: Drawing Hair is Terrible

I have trouble drawing hair on males.  It usually looks like mops were plastered on their heads, or they always look the same, so I tend to stick helmets or hoods on them.  Even though my helmets can often be dissatisfying too.

But sometimes the hero needs to relax and not have a helmet on all the time.  And sci-fi people don’t usually wear hoods and cloaks.

Hats are out of the question, I draw them wonky because I’m not interested in studying them at the moment.

So there was poor Des, looking fine, but rather out-of-focus in my head, leaving me with terrible scribblings in the real world.  That simply wouldn’t do for him.  He is a main character now, and he is supposed to look good. (Why else would Astarta fall for him?)

(Des: I knew it was all shallow feelings!)

(Astarta: That is not the only reason!)

Thankfully, after about a million sketches I finally found a decent hairstyle for him.

The top picture his normal Des.  The lower picture is supposed to be a younger Des, though his face seems to be about as disheveled as his hair.  Tsk. Tsk.  And his hair isn’t as nice as the first pic.  It’s been a little hard to replicate.  But at least I have something to aim for.

Now I just have to fine-tune his facial features, and after that, figure out some interesting clothes.  And maybe some backstory.  Possibly I want to try drawing a little comic of his time in school, just to explore what’s in the day-to-day life of someone in a sci-fi world.  Or maybe I jump to drawing the parody comic for The Desolation of Kaldoa I mentioned before.  In that case, Astarta would need additional character design work.

Either way, Des will be grumpy. 🙂

2 Sketches of Meteorology with Eldakiah

 

 I drew a pile of sketches the other day, and these two seemed the best to share because WEATHER! Clouds and rain.  Plus there are dragons.  And Elda is doing something instead of just glaring at you.

But really it was just because of the sunbeams in the clouds and the raindrops.

The First Tag: Writing Firsts

Kate created The First Tag, and tagged me.  Thanks Kate!

It is about a bunch of Firsts in story writing.  Let us plumb the depths of my selective memory and see what I remember about my early days of playing author…

1. Who was the first character you ever wrote?

Princess Lanuka of Lenorin.  (Phonetically, her name should be spelled Lanaka, but…I’m so used to it this way…)

2. What was the first story you ever finished?

Kitallia’s Return

It’s a pile of natural disasters, meteorological mayhem, and underdeveloped politics.  Not to mention, fed-up peasants who decide to build their own city away from the rule of the rulers who get mixed up in all those stupid natural disasters.

“Yeah, last time Kitallia and Naerosha fought, there were five tornadoes, an earthquake, and a mudslide.  We left town as soon as we saw that lunatic mage running up the road.”

3. What was the first piece of writing advice you ever heard? Or what was the first bit of advice you used and it actually worked?

I have no idea…

4. Who was your first villain?

Some guy who controlled enchanted dragons.

5. What was the first storyworld you ever built?

Thren!

6. What did your first attempt at worldbuilding or mapmaking look like?

It looked like two kingdoms with about two cities each on a giant island with a few forests, and a random ruin, and an island far away with a sorceress living in the woods.

7. When was your first crush-on-your-own-character? I know it happened, don’t lie to me.

2011 maybe?

8. What was the first character death you ever had to write and how did you handle it?

Who did I kill off first?

Technically, it may have been a pack of bunnies that got killed by hunters or wolves, and the bunnies that survived were elsewhere because they heard music and were curious.  The whole point was to do the opposite of curiosity killed the cat.  Curiosity saved the bunnies.

I felt no emotion about it.

Otherwise, the earliest incident I can think of is that Kitallia killed some bandits and saved some random travelers and it was all good and boring.

9. When did you first decide that your book needed a full-blown series?

2005?   I think that was when I started on my second book, Secret of Silria, and anticipated more books connected to it.

None of them have been finished.

10. When was the first time you stepped out of your comfort zone to write a new genre?

Probably when I tried writing romance when I was 14.  Complete with evil cultists trying to kill the hero.  No light, fluffy stories since then.

11. What was it like using a prompt for the first time?

I think it was boring and annoying and I’ve never really enjoyed it.  Clearly I have suppressed the memory of the first time I used a prompt.

12. Opening line: share your first, your favorite, and your most recent.

First:

Onec upon a time, there lived a buetiful* pricess named Lanuka…
*I can’t remember the precise misspelling.

Favorite:

Desmond stood before the large window, looking out to the starry nebula that glittered beautifully.

Most recent: 

“No, it can’t be! This is some trick!” the knight shrieked, holding his right wrist as though it were broken, a shining sun sigil glowing on the back of his hand.

13. What was your first ending like?

Nonexistent…

Okay, in Kitallia’s Return it was rather sudden because a sorceress simply locked Kitallia and her arch-nemesis into The Stupid Stone Room where they were stuck for a bazillion years.  Pretty much it was sudden and not foreshadowed at all.

14. What was the first ship you ever wrote and, be honest, did you make them a ship name?

Technically it was in my first story because Lanuka meets a knight named Glanorin, who was turned into a dragon, and they fall in love and break the curse on him. No ship name, that was long before I heard of such concepts.

Bonus: I did come up with a ship name for Desmond and Astarta.  Destar.  (Desstar?)

Which always makes me think of the Deathstar.

Which is highly appropriate for them.

15. What year was your first NaNo?

2007

16. Which novel is memorable for being the first one you ever gave up on?

The first one… (All of them?  Pretty much all of my earlier stories have been given up on or turned obsolete.  Yet, they sit there nagging at the back of my mind anyway.)

17. When did you first share your work with someone else and how did they react?

It was a million years ago, I don’t know.

Stop asking me to remember random trivia from my childhood. 😛

The End!

Wow, I managed to write The End on something!  *Holds a dirge for the poor stories who never fulfilled their true potential.  Nor even received a half-done first draft.*