Sketching with Beast'sbelle: Kristoff and Anna

Okay, so my plan for today was to do some writing on my book.  However, when I ended up with two sick kiddos, that plan became slightly less practical, so I did some drawing instead. :}

Really, I should be doing one of my promised posts right now, but I was too excited to wait to share my drawing with you. :}  This is the first time I've attempted to draw any of the characters from Frozen, and I'm quite pleased with the result. :)

I started by Googling Frozen images.  The one shown above has always been one of my favorites, so I decided to try replicating it.  I found the image HERE.

Because it can be difficult to copy a picture that's upright on a screen, I decided to print it out as well.

I started with a very basic outline.  I really hate doing this (I'm too impatient to do things correctly), but it does at least give me a good goal to shoot for.  Besides, I've been teaching my elementary students all about the basic shapes that make up the building blocks of our drawings.  I felt like I should probably practice what I preach. ;)

And then I totally changed it because Anna and Kristoff were NOT cooperating at all. :}

Experimenting with arm angles.

This is what I ended up with at the end of the sketching session.

I decided I wanted to color the picture this time around, so I outlined it in pen.  I really need to get some new fine point Sharpies or something along that line.  They work so much better for tracing artwork than ball point pens. :}  At least I was drawing on computer paper instead of sketchpad paper this time. :)

This is the point where I always hesitate and think, "Do I really want to color this, or just add some nifty shading?"  When you erase the pencil and add color, there's no turning back, and you can really mess up a good drawing. :}  I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, though, because I kept going. ;) 

I was able to erase all of the pencil, but was irritated to discover that my eraser left an odd little red rub mark on the page right between the two faces.  It would NOT come off. :{  Oh well...moving on.

I thought that this would be an excellent opportunity to use my incredible new Sharpie set I got for Christmas (thanks, Mom and Dad). :)

I also decided to supplement with my trusty Pentel Color Pen set. :)  (Sorry for the annoying sideways upload...Blogger hasn't done that to me in a while!)

So, between this picture and the last were a few hours of experimentation and struggle.  I thought I took some pictures of the process, but apparently I was "in the zone" a little too much to think about documenting every step. ;)  

I made a couple of discoveries when coloring these two.  First, they have a pretty difficult color palette when you're dealing with basic markers.  I found Anna's hair especially challenging.  The color you see above was a result of several experimental layers of marker from both sets. :}  She has goldenrod, two shades of orange, yellow orange, and even a light brown in there.  Kristoff's hair was much easier, but still required a bit of trial and error.  I also need a better skin color.  Both Anna and Kristoff have much fairer skin than what I gave them, but that was the lightest skin tone I had.

Their clothing gave me some trouble, too.  The colors were pretty difficult to match, and some of them I just had to change altogether.  If you compare my finished picture with the picture I used as a reference, you'll see some pretty major differences.  If you just look at my picture by itself, it's not so bad. ;)

The other thing I discovered while drawing these is that Anna is REALLY hard to draw in profile.  She and Elsa both have a very exaggerated profile with a big, sloping section between forehead and nose, and their little button noses and mouths poke out at a rather odd angle.  My Anna ended up with a slightly different profile simply because I couldn't get her to look right in my drawing when I tried to draw her faithfully. :} 

Overall, though, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out...

...except for that annoying red smudge!!  I know it's not really that big, but this is where my silly OCD perfectionist side comes out. :}  I knew it would bother me every time I looked at the picture.

Aww...they're so cute...wait, what?  What's that smudge there? ;)

So, my only choice was to color in the background around them.  I left a slight white edge around both of them so they wouldn't get lost in the backdrop (I was especially worried about Kristoff's dark vest disappearing into the dark background), selected a nice, deep color from my Sharpie set, and went to work.  Listening to the Frozen soundtrack while I worked made it go a lot quicker (normally I'm far too impatient to fill in a whole background!).

I actually started with just a thin border around the two, but I kept enlarging it 'til I got to this point.  Then I knew I would never get the arch perfectly even...

...so I decided to fill it in all the way.  The weird, unfinished edge on the bottom will probably drive me nuts, too, so I'll probably end up either adding to it or trimming the picture.

One cool thing was that the picture looked pretty good from the opposite side, too (something I always check to see how I did on proportions; if it looks normal from both sides, you did pretty well). :) 

I think Anna's arm might be a little short, or her head might be a little big, now that I'm looking at it repeatedly, but overall I'm super pleased with how it turned out, especially since this was the first time I'd drawn any of the characters.

And here's a side-by-side comparison.  Definitely a different color palette, but not too bad.  In my defense, Anna's hair is a little lighter in the original picture than it is in the movie. ;) 

And this was the result of my art day on my computer desk. :}  I can't believe I didn't follow my own instructions to my kiddos and keep a spare piece of paper underneath!  Thankfully, most of it came up with a Lysol wipe! 

After I had finished, of course I had to stop by Ribbet.com and play around with some editing. ;)  I really like how these two look "winterized" with a Frost Frame. :)

I also decided to do a new header with my sketches, so here's a copy of my old one.  At some point, I will actually have a header that does not feature Frozen characters. ;)

Not sure how much time I'll have for more drawing (this one took me about four hours), but if I do try another one, I'd love to experiment with Elsa. :)

Talk to you guys later! :)