Omg I finally finished all the cyclist portraits! I saved the cutest for last of course – although this might have been better if I’d drawn him before he retired. OH WELL so here is the eternally boyish Andy Schleck. Reference
What’s next on the list? Dunno. The Queen, probably. Although there’s a slim chance of Log Horizon on the… horizon. Also don’t forget Fanservice Day is coming up!
Jensie is one of my favourite pro cyclists, because he’s funny and fast-talking and wise and seems like a really nice guy. Decided not to draw the same old happy publicity shot that I did for everyone else, but instead to use a silly face! Not quite successful, but I’m still learning and don’t practice enough.
My first paid commissions! : O I work as a music teacher at a Yamaha school, and one day before Christmas I mentioned to my boss that I did visual art as well, and he asked if I had a rate, and long story short, I did some art of real people! Plaid is hard, but you know what, I’d rather do plaid than bike helmets now…
(I forgot to take a picture of one, but it was the least good of the four anyway…)
Stuey O’Grady! One of the quiet but long-riding, high-profile domestiques. Who doesn’t quite look like himself. Well, improvement is always slow.
Drawing bike helmets is a pain. o_O I had to desaturate the picture in order to figure out the red, white, and black, and the reflections, and the holes and shapes. Dang.
(Jensie and Andy will be upcoming at some point… but I have a few other projects getting in the way. You waited six years for these guys, you can wait a few more weeks. XD )
George Hincapie has always seemed a pretty decent guy to me. I first knew him as the person who shepherded Mark Cavendish to flat-stage win after flat-stage win on the HTC-Columbia team, and later as Cadel Evans‘ lieutenant. I only dimly knew about all the Lance Armstrong drama, but I never really liked Lance – I sort of did because the media did, back then, but I found the focus on him kind of annoying, probably because I never watched him when he was winning races. And I also didn’t like him because he seemed to do things just to get the camera on him. He didn’t seem like a nice person. Then the doping came out, and now it’s clear that he’s not a nice person. And now everyone has a reason to feel ‘meh’ about him.
That is way too many words put towards someone who I don’t like and who isn’t the focus of this picture. George is all right (his own doping aside). I stole his name for one of my stories.
This strange-looking being is supposed to be Tommy Voeckler, le Petit Prince of cycling. I loved him since the …first…? year we watched the Tour de France and he won on an immense breakaway down into some coastal town… you could see the peloton coming up behind him but he just sat up and grinned because they weren’t going to catch him.
Tried to draw Cadel Evans. Not sure I succeeded. Anyway, I’ve been a fan of Cadel for a long time, especially when he moved over to BMC and gained a team that would pull for him. Remember that time he smashed his elbow in a little group spill and pulled through the next day without telling anyone? He might have lost yellow that time, but damn that takes guts. I was really happy for him when he won the Tour! : D
It’s been a while since I drew a real human being, huh? And actually, I’ve probably drawn more real human beings this year than anything else. Weird. Anyway, this is from a couple weeks ago when I was checking off OLD projects from my to-do list, beginning with those portraits of professional cyclists whom I admire. This is Frank Schleck, the older of the two Schleck brothers from Luxembourg. The top of his head is missing because that’s how the photo was cropped.
Hrulash and Hitomi’s babies decided it was time for them to be all growed up, so here they are as teenagers. They used to look like this.
Aiya is 19; Mwennon is 15. She’s grown beautiful as her mother, but cold as her father – she has a warm heart, but she hides it away carefully. She is an expert spearwoman, but she prefers a more calm, urban life. Zamir annoys her as much as he can, to her mystification. Her theme song is Splendid Flowers (takes after her father in music, too!)
Mwennon was the wilder one, and ran away from home to become a mercenary at age 15. He got some tattoos, and began dual-wielding spatha and gladius. He eventually returned home, and it took him a few years to fit back in. His theme song is Reluctant Heroes which is TOO GOOD FOR HIM, but he’s a greedy little boy and wants it anyway.
Hrulash and Petrus, wearing the same armour (though Hrulash updated it) and wielding the same spear, with their dragon partners Stormback Maruldarn and Garekhen.
Spiritual brothers across time…
