Wow, almost a month since my last post.  December happened with all its madness, relatives, travel and other excuses too numerous to mention (including the new Star Wars MMO, dammit!) I hadn’t even been doing any drawing, and getting back to it proved much more difficult than anticipated. I hope this will be a good motivator for not letting so much time pass with no art again anytime soon.  In any case, I managed the following, for Illustration Friday . The topic this week is “Grounded”:

Aviator Camel in Copics, "Grounded"

Derek, a veteran flyer of twenty-seven weeks, was somewhat peeved to find out he had been grounded for several weeks and required to re-take the Dirigible Flight Safety Class. I mean yes, he did come pretty close to clipping a stand of evergreens yesterday, and he did leave the engine running once last week.  Well, twice. But come on! Derek’s gaze lingered over the lovely dirigible for a few more moments before pulling off his jacket and trudging back to the flight school.

Despite the rather awful background, the too thick horizon line, the nose being too close in tone to the rest of the fur, and the fact I should have stuck to blue/brown/grey and avoided green, I am glad to finally finish something new.  And I do like ornery old Derek the aviator camel.  This is a 9″ x 6″ original illustration with Copic pens and markers. Here’s some progress pics:

IF Grounded, Sketch

IF Grounded, Inked

IF Grounded, Color 1

Aviator Camel in Copics, "Grounded"

I am very happy to be back. I look forward to looking at lots of other entries this week, making lots of comments and generally getting back in the swing of things.  Thank you so much for visiting!