Happy New Year! Wow, it’s been a bit since I last updated here. I’ve been meaning to start updating my sketchblog again for a while, and the new year seems like a prime time to start. My plan is to start using this blog as an additional archive for posts I make on social media. Which is sort of funny, as when this blog was first created, it was intended as the main archive, and social media was the secondary avenue – how it switched during the heyday of social media during the 2010’s!

Now, with how turbulent social media has become post-2020 (which I largely think began during the NFT-fiasco, and the nail in the coffin was generative AI images – though BlueSky is now sort of a tentative phoenix rising from the ashes), it’s lead me to pursue keeping this blog updated more seriously than I have in the past.

To start, I’ll post a few of my favorite personal artworks from within the past few months, in no particular order. Mostly of my original characters, and two fan pieces.

The first one above is a painting of Kurt with his original blue hair design, instead of the pale brown/blond he’s had for most of his design. I was practicing some painting techniques with this one, something more smooth than what I usually do. It was a fun experiment, and I’m happy with what I learned from it.

Above is a sketch of Corveil, in a looser style I’m more drawn toward. I really like the looseness, though I suspect it might be a little more difficult to read as a viewer. Though I haven’t posted more anywhere yet, I’ve been developing more about these characters over the past few months. I would really love to create a little story involving them, just small ones to explore their characters. I’ve done several small one-shot comic pages involving them, which are in various stages of thumbnails to flats. I’m not sure which of those I’ll finish – their quality varies immensely – but they’ve felt really rewarding to do just for myself over the last year.

One thing I seem to be forever struggling with is coming up with a name I like for the project involving these characters. I’ve  tried several last year, and I still am not enamored with any of them. I really want to have some kind of name to unify them with, instead of a vague “my characters,” though I’m leaning toward this not being very important right now and that I’m overthinking it.

Above is an in-progress crop of Trahearne and Malyck from Guild Wars 2. I really love painting this characters, and I have so much I want to explore with them – which I have plans for later this year. :)

Above is a practice painting of Corveil looking contemplative.

Here’s a sketch of Corveil looking a little malicious. I’m personally fond of this one, though I also suspect this one doesn’t read very clearly.

And above we have a Cardassian (from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) study, which I just did today as a warm-up painting. Though I first watched DS9 three years ago – and I even did a small painting of Garak afterward, which I had completely forgotten about (it’s not my favorite drawing, otherwise I would post it here) – but that first watch was as background material I had on while I was working. I had the random urge to rewatch the series recently, and upon a rewatch (I’m in the sixth season now), I realized I had missed so much during my initial rewatch.

There is so much that is lost if you are primarily watching the show while not actively viewing it, as I had – so much wonderful physical and non-verbal acting by the performers which adds incredible layers and depth to their characters. I went into my second watch with The Next Generation as still my favorite Trek (DS9 was the last series of the pre-modern Treks I watched), and by very early on during this rewatch (by season 2 or 3), knew that DS9 had overtaken TNG for me. It is now my favorite Trek, by a long shot (incidentally, TNG is probably now my second-favorite, followed by The Original Series, then Enterprise, and then finally Voyager).

This study is based on the quintessential Cardassian, pioneered by Marc Alaimo – none other than Gul Dukat, of course! After I read how the makeup artist (Michael Westmore) largely based the Cardassian design on Alaimo’s “unusually long” neck, I knew that if I decided to learn how to draw Cardassians, I would start by studying Alaimo’s Gul Dukat appearance.

I really love Alaimo’s portrayal of the Gul Dukat character – there is so much subtlety and nuance to his performance, and his voice has this ASMR-quality to my ears that makes him intoxicating for me to listen to.

I love Alaimo’s/Westmore’s physical representation of a Cardassian so much, that I didn’t want any drawings I do of the character to be a replica. We have seven wonderful seasons to admire their work on the character for that. I knew from the beginning I wanted to try some kind of merger between Alaimo’s physical appearance, and an artistic interpretation of the character. I’ve done a number of “Gul Dukat” sketch studies before this one to try and figure one out – I’m sure this won’t be the end version, but this is probably my favorite result so far.

I don’t think I quite captured his charming malevolence, though I am pleased with how knobby his Cardassian neck turned out.