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Delaware, United States
Deborah Hawkins, penned Debra Renée Byrd, began writing after a blank book project in elementary school and never stopped, fashioning stories based on her favorite TV shows and movies before creating more original works. She studied at the University of the Arts and Florida State University before settling down and graduating from Temple University. She now resides in her hometown of Dover, DE, where she spends most of her time at work or at church. She loves fantasies, superheroes, is a trekkie and a brown coat. She loves television and lives for Final Fantasy video games, having collected most of them. She has read a myriad of authors, and her favorite authors change whenever she finds a new book that changes her life... "When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl...well, you know the rest." -Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"

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Thursday, September 5, 2013

Why I'm Glad Computers Became Accessible to Mere Mortals

Drawing for 2 hours really flares up the carpel tunnel. Or is it tarsal tunnel when it's your knuckles? Or just arthritis? =\

Anyway, I was one of those kids who did nothing by type the moment a computer entered my house in like 1996, so the giant pillowy callus I developed on my ring finger from the weird way I hold my pencil diminished greatly once I was able to save stories onto a computer.

Yesterday, if you follow me on Twitter, you saw that somewhere around 2pm, I decided to sketch (yes, I do that sometimes lol) some of the essential characters in my fantasy WIP Save the Queen, this time the beasts of the Contagion, the metal army hunting my MC. I finished a little before work got out, so here they are. Each machine has a trait modeled after Boccioni's "Unique Forms of Continuity in Space", a piece I fell in love with my Freshman year of college. Also, the loops on each around the arms and back are tubes. They are magic-infused and water-powered machines.

The Helichimera, who I knew as I drew it that I described them as having 4 heads in my story, but I realized I didn't know what a 4th head would do, so I nixed it thanks to brainstorming this sketch. This is also the first time I took on drawing a ram and a lion. I'm almost sure I've drawn snakes before but can't remember.
The first one I set out to draw and the first seen in my story, the Iron Giant with an armless profile to show the back detail. It's cuter than I meant it to be, but in all-black cast iron and at 12 feet high, I imagine it would be scarier in person. I eliminated the description of the faceless shield somewhere between drafts, but the giants have no hands.


And the one that took 2 takes, lol, the Mythril Eagle. It kind of looks more like a hawk, but I don't draw birds. They're 3x bigger than vultures, and the wings pretend to flap. All of the machines run on jet engines. The detail on the talons are also plates so the talons can bend for grabbing people.

If I take on drawing the actual people again (I did years ago), it will be a slow, slow process. Like 1 a month. lol

3 comments:

Misha Gerrick said...

Drawing characters are such fun! I really should get back to it... Sigh.

Heather R. Holden said...

Ooh, you sketch sometimes? Very cool! I always find animals incredibly tricky to draw, so I'm impressed by all the ones you sketched for this!

Anonymous said...

Misha, do it! :D

Heather, by sometimes, I mean like I get the urge every 7 years lol. Thanks!