Monday, July 23, 2012

Alphabooksbeasts: J is for Jeremy Fisher (and Jack Sharp)

As I said in my "Alphadonjon" post, I'm traveling this week, so this post is actually being composed at 3:30 AM on Thursday night, for scheduling, instead of Sunday night. Maybe I'll be able to keep it brief.

Okay, J is for Jeremy Fisher. You know his story, right?

Maybe you'll even remember (I hadn't) that the stickleback he catches is named Jack Sharp.
 

I'm not wild about the way this drawing turned out. I wanted to emphasize the smallness of the characters (I mean, he's just frog-sized), but apparently I couldn't be bothered to draw a setting for him to be small in. (I drew this several weeks ago, knowing that I'd need to be away.)

This was one of those drawings that, like my Gurgi and my Pushmi-Pullyu, went through a lot of problems, even up to a completely inked version of the drawing that I decided to scrap. This time, though, it wasn't a problem of character design.


I just couldn't seem to get the character or the pose to look good. Here's the scrapped ink version, very much like the final version in some ways, but missing even the tiny bit of energy I was able to get into the finished one.


I leave it to you, in the comments section, to diagnose what has gone wrong here.

Next week: a koffeeklatch of ko-konspirators. Wish me luck.

1 comment:

Curious Art said...

Ah, Jeremy Fisher! I love Beatrix Potter. I agree your second inking is much better- the line more taut & his expression more strained. The only thing I can think of to add would be a bit more disturbance to the lily pad? But I have 'druthers after every single painting myself... that's the way it goes.