I’ve got some random recent sketches on hand, so I thought I’d just combine a couple unrelated ones into a single post. My favorite of the bunch is a drawing from the movie Willow. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a fantasy-genre movie from the late 1980s, starring Val Kilmer and Warwick Davis. It was directed by Ron Howard, and produced by George Lucas.
In my opinion, Willow is a really underrated movie. It’s an enjoyable adventure, with an entertaining cast and fun banter – especially between Davis’s Willow Ufgood and Kilmer’s Madmartigan character. I was a kid when I first saw the movie, and I remember some legitimately terrifying moments; a battle scene with a weird two headed dragon that grew from a troll, and the final wizard battle especially.
Credit to: https://imgur.com/gallery/jAdUeh
Madmartigan’s introduction came as Willow (a Nelwyn) was looking for someone to take care of a Daikini (human) child found in his village. Willow and his party find Madmartigan in a cage, imprisoned for deserting during a war. Willow wants to be a magician, and threatens him with a “magic” acorn. As you can see, Madmartigan was not particularly impressed.
I wanted to capture something of one of these first scenes between the two future friends. I started this sketch very casually, really not focused or intending on it turning into anything. It actually turned out better than I thought it would. When I started, it really didn’t look like Val Kilmer at all, but I think once I got some color and facial shadows in place, it became more faithful to how his character looked. Here’s the result:
Switching gears completely, we were hanging out at my wife’s cousin’s house this past weekend, celebrating some birthdays. A bunch of kids, including one of my own, were drawing with chalk in the driveway. Our youngest was sitting on my wife’s lap, looking extremely cranky about the entire situation. I picked up a piece of chalk, and decided to memorialize her grumpiness. I think I pretty accurately captured her mood:
And I final piece is actually a remnant from my series on Warcraft and video game sketches from a couple weeks ago. In one of them, I sketched an elf archer, but I had actually started by attempting that lady’s evil undead sister. I realized it wasn’t going well and, to make matters worse, I don’t even like the character. So, I scrapped it and went with one who wasn’t a zombie. But, I was going through some unfinished sketches the other day (I’m starting to accumulate a nice collection of unfinished ones), and decided to add some lines and color to that first attempt.
I think it turned out okay overall, despite the fact that some of her skulls look happy. She’s supposed to be sort of sinister and frightening I think, but is definitely more cartoonish. Happy skulls aren’t too intimidating! I didn’t actually finish the entire thing, as you can see there is no color and basic lines towards the bottom, and below that pretty much nothing but faint lines. I’m not going to go any further than that, because I want to move on to fresh subjects. But here’s where it ended up:
So, what’s next? Maybe some more video games, but a totally different game I haven’t drawn yet. Or, another movie perhaps – how about a full series from Willow? It might be fun to sketch Warwick Davis’s character, or possibly some of the bad guys.