pete here // west coast rising character sketches

HEY. Look, I'm still alive. Can you believe it? Cause I can't, I'm stunned, quite frankly. The spring semester is drawing to a close, but I've managed to still find time to draw, a few sketches each night - no more than 10 minutes each.

And I think I've finally found the baseline for my style, which excites me. I've been trying to refine and fix it up for a long time now, and I think I'm finally figuring out what it is, exactly, than I'm looking for. The sketches below are in a timeline fashion of how my sketching has progressed over the passed few days, in regards to the style I'm hoping for.

Right now, don't...even bother looking at anatomy, please. 8|; I know Percy's anatomy is absolutely wonky and horrific, I know, I know. I'm just trying to find a groove that I'm comfortable working in, so right now body proportions are the thing furthest from my mind. Like. Seriously. Furthest thing from my mind.

I'm making next week my anatomy week - for the remainder of this week, I'm focusing on refining stylistic details because, ultimately, for me, those stylistic details are going to be what dictate how I choose to draw a character's anatomy and body proportions. Does that make any sense? It makes sense in my head, but seeing it typed out, it makes no sense. Idk. I'm tired.

ANYWAYS. Remember, these are in chronological order in regards to when they were sketched, and I spent only 10 minutes on each. I sit there with an egg timer, and at 10 minutes, I flip to a new page. Because if I don't, I'll end up working on one sketch way too long, and not getting anywhere. The more I do, the better I can refine little details here and there.

Yeah. Idk if that makes sense, BUT IT MAKES SENSE TO ME AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS. ...I guess.

Percy~ I really do love her and I think I mentioned this in my last post, but I really do wish she appeared in book one of West Coast Rising more frequently. But yeah. First [acceptable-ish not really] sketch drawn, about a week ago.

Sponge, second [acceptable-ish not really] sketch drawn, 4 days ago. Drawing him kills me, because it means drawing dreadlocks, and while I love dreadlocks, I hate drawing them. But it was this sketch that I finally felt as if I was getting the hang of drawing 'em, and how to style them for him in particular.

Third sketch, draw two nights ago, and way way way way more acceptable in terms of what I'm looking for in my sketches - this is the first sketch in a LONG time that resembles what I see in my head when I think of my characters. Honestly, when the egg timer dinged on this one, and I took a chance to really look at it, I was pleased. Idk why, but I felt like this was the baseline for my style, and so now I'm trying so desperately [& hopefully not futilely] to recreate this style, or at least continue to advance it.

We'll see what happens, I suppose, in regards to style. Practice makes perfect - I just need to make sure I keep up with it. I know that as soon as I stop drawing again, I'll get rusty, & have to start from scratch. So I'm trying to do at least two quick sketches a night before bed. 8| We'll see how that goes, especially when finals come rolling around.

BUT YEAH.

I updated.

:| I know. Soup's arts are way better than mine, I know, I know. Hopefully, though, I'll get myself up to her level. Eventually. For now though, I need to crawl into bed.

Hopefully it'll be less than a month when I update again.

Until next time (づ.｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ ❤

- Pete

soup \\ sketch DUMP

Well, this is a mini sketch dump. I hit about halfway through the semester, and yet I'm only about a quarter of the way done with the 100 drawings 8| ;;; This is not good.

This is also the first post of April. Bad us. Bad.

Anyway, here's a continuation of the characters from my previous post (link to it here). There are no previous sketches because those were done by my co-author :> I redrew them for the sake of the rewrite, and because.......I wanted to.

Really need to tweak that back arm. It's kind've...not working well with the spear. To relationship counseling they go.


I love the profile heavy-lidded man eye. Seduces me every time. And to think, I almost started all over with this picture.

I don't care that the plot in Sherlock Holmes sucked. Give me RDJ and Jude Law and pre Edwardian fashion any day. Men in uber crotch pants? Cheese and rice. Those don't look good on anyone, and yet here I went and drew them.

This is supposed to be...underwater. It's hard to tell, but uh. She's trying to pull him up. I thought to add bubbles to insinuate water, but then I should add Ariel and shell bras and a lobster conducting an under the sea orchestra.

So, you know how I feel about that.

Btw, anatomy is off. Yes. My head is also off. Your head is off if you thought this was something other than what it was.

This pictures sucks in small size. As you can tell, I haven't finished it. I never finish anything, as stated in my first post. And they aren't underwater, the wind is just...blowing up.

Take that, Newton.

Anyway, that's all for my mini dump. I've been noticing a particular trend recently where my drawings are looking skywards. It's so symbolic that I'm embarrassed for myself.

As of this moment, my co author and I are about 40k into this book, which is pretty good. We're trying super hard to keep it as close to 100k as possible, but as of press date, our previous chapter was eleven pages. Over 6k words. Holy fish paste.

Status updates as we go. Now I have to check and see if the hot water is working yet, because when you're sick and pathetic, a hot shower is just the thing to boil out all the mucus from your throbbing sinuses and soothe your aching eye sockets. It sort've sucks when the water heater goes out. And you haven't showered since Sunday afternoon. Kind've really sucks.

That's all for nao.