Character practice - Brynhild

As promised, (to myself mostly) I have worked on a character from my current picture book. This is Serenity's mom (I named her Brynhild today). I still have a lot of practicing to do. There are certainly inconsistencies but not too bad for my first efforts, and I feel like I've jumped over a hurdle. I'm excited to push a few of these a bit further and maybe even get out the acrylics.

     Below are the first two sketches I did:

I did the top one and knew I wanted a character that was a little more unique and whimsical. 

I pulled out a copy I had done of an illustration by one of my favorite children's illustrators - 

Chris Van Dusen.  Please click on his name and check him out. He's amazing! Again, this is a copy of his work that I did a few years ago for educational purposes. Once I had a look at these characters, I returned to Serenity's mom and did the more stylized second version.

The next thing I did was get out my clay and doing a little sculpting. Sometimes doing a three dimensional version of something helps me understand how to draw it.

Creepy, yeah? 

I was home by myself as I worked on her and my imagination started to run away with me. 

I was a little freaked out thinking she was going to open her eyes! 

What the heck is wrong with me?!

I pulled her out again the next day to refine her and I changed her expression. 

I was alone again and thought that if she did open her eyes she would at least be smiling at me.

Until next Wednesday! Have a lovely week!