petite_madame | The Big "Ballpoint Pen Sketches" Entry

The Big "Ballpoint Pen Sketches" Entry

Some people run every day, some people go to the swimming pool everyday, some people sketch everyday. (I let you guess in what category I'm in

). I sketch very, very often. Everything. From Coca-Cola cans to cats to TV show characters. Here is a small part of what I drew in the last 2-3 months. Contrary to last post, I managed to scan my sketchbooks (I almost sat on the scan....). I just added a light gray texture because bizarrely, the details of the ballpoint pen were less visible with a white background.

Part 1 - Prompts from friends

I asked some fandom friends to prompt me with various ideas. Sketching is good but if you can sketch for your friends, it's even better. The only conditions were:
* the characters had to be from Supernatural, Sherlock or The Avengers.
* no more than two characters in the picture.

Here is everything I drew. I must admit that, as the following sketches weren't for me, I added more details than usual. I also spent more time on them.

1) Prompt: "I would really like to see Cas getting a hug from Sam. ;) "

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This one was one of the easiest. The pose is simple and the faces are quite big (around 12 cm each - a bit more than 2 inches), which makes them easier to draw compared to smaller faces. I could really have fun with details like Sam's hair and teeth and Cas' stubble.

2) Prompt: "Romantic or cute idea...Something along the lines of chopsticks, Asian food and Dean and Sam or Jared and Jensen or whoever you like from Sherlock or Avengers. Not necessarily a pair either. Maybe just one character if that's easier."

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This prompt really made me laugh because I am known for my gore and dark art so having someone asking me to draw a super cute scene was really awesome. I see it much more as a J2 art but I guess that it can be interpreted as a Sam/Dean too. Whatever floats your boat!

3) Prompt: "Sam/Dean. Can I request the boys doing something completely normal, not hunting related (watching a movie together, having dinner together, sharing a drink at the side of the road in the middle of the day.)"

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This one was difficult, probably the most difficult of the series. I am going to be frank, I am not good at drawing mechas and drawing the Impala with an open hood was a challenge. I took as a reference some screen shots from Supernatural (of course) but also a promo picture from the movie Drive with Ryan Gosling. It helped a lot.

4) Prompt: "Inspired by a fic I wrote. Young Jays transferring cigarette one to other"

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In the series, "that's exactly what my friend wanted but I didn't do it on purpose", here are the boys smoking together. From the reference picture my friend sent me for the sketch, I thought at the start she wanted something with J2 as the bad boys of their school, the kind of guys who smoke to look cool in front of their friends. I had no description of the fic whatsoever and I couldn't read it either because it was in Russian. I improvised and I ended up with something a bit schmoopy. I was afraid my friend would find it too cute but apparently, no, it was exactly what she had in mind. What can I say? I'm relieved!

5) Prompt: "I think I would love to see you try your hand at some schmooptastic domestic Sherlock. I am picturing Holmes and Watson sharing a blanket and drinking tea. "

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The great question about this one was: "wallpaper or not wallpaper?". If you are a fan of Sherlock, you certainly noticed the horrible wallpaper of Sherlock and John's flat. I wanted to reproduce it but I finally stepped back because it would have been too much and the two characters would have become invisible, lost in the amount of details. So much for the wallpaper!

6) Prompt: "Captain American, with a few bruises and wearing the lovely short sleeved shirt he has on when practicing boxing...maybe include on the shirt a little logo that is the same design as his shield. ^^

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This prompt made me smile from ear to ear. Chris Evans. With a tight t-shirt. Boxing. Nothing more to add!

This one was the first one I drew. I didn't include the logo on the shirt because there was already enough details in the picture.

Part 2 - Prompts from Tumblr

As if asking fandom friends wasn't enough, I asked anons on Tumblr to prompt me too. I found around 16 prompts in my inbox and only kept two (some where very close to what you can see above or to things I already drew). There was a lot of Thor/Loki too but as I wasn't interested in this pairing I focused on the things I loved.

1) Prompt: "Jensen meeting his evil doppleganger"

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I must admit I reinterpreted the prompt and that I adapted it a bit. I don't know why I saw this prompt much more as Jensen having out with his evil twin brother. Don't ask. Just don't.

2) Prompt: "What about skulls? Animal skulls?"

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This one is original. I love drawing skulls. I draw them quite often so I was very excited about this prompt. Because I like complex drawings, I added a distortion effect as if the scene was seen through a crystal ball.

Part 3 - Random sketches

I also draw for myself a lot of random fandom stuffs. Here is a small selection

1) Sketches for the Paris Apocalypse Convention

FULL SIZE : MARK - RICHARD - SEBASTIAN

On June 1st, 2nd and 3rd, I had the chance to go to the Paris Apocalypse Con where Mark Sheppard (Crowley), Richard Speight Jr (Gabriel) and Sebastian Roché (Balthazar) were the main guests. I thought that you could only give official photos provided by the con staff for the actors to sign but...no! Thanks to some great ladies I met there, I learned that drawings/art were allowed. Only printed photos from the Internet were forbidden. I fixed VERY quickly 3 sketches when I came back home after the first day. I drew from 10:00pm to 2:00 am. Unfortunately, I was too tired to draw something for the 4th guest, Chad Lindberg. I had to wake up at 5:30am to be there at 8:30 so no way I would stay up longer to sketch something. I'm sorry, I had to take photos for those ones: they were too difficult to scan and the autographs weren't visible because the actors used a kind of silver marker to sign my art.

2) Androgynous Sam

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I recently fell in love with the fic Silk by

minchout written for the latest round of

spnspringfling. From the moment I read it, I knew I wanted to draw this androgynous version of Sam and more particularly the following sentence: “His jeans were skin tight, tucked into a pair of calf-high black boots, laced halfway up, and he wore a slouchy sweater half hanging off one shoulder, his duffel slung over the other. His hair was half up in a messy knot at the back of his head. A cigarette dangled from his lips”. I asked the permission to the author and

minchout kindly accepted! I hope to draw a color version of another scene in August but first, I have to finish working on my

spn_j2_bigbang.

3) Man's best friend

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I am a cat person but sometimes, very rarely, I find dogs cute too. I found on Tumblr a photo of a dog "smiling" while watching out of a car window (and I lost the original pic. If someone has a link, I would appreciate). I've been wanting to draw Jared with a dog for a long time and I thought that this precise dog was perfect. He looks completely stupid but so happy. I couldn't resist!

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The Ballpoint Pen Entry Trivia

1) Tools of the trade

- Ballpoint pens (BIC pointe fine). I usually use two ballpoint pens. One new (= full of ink) for the outlines and dark shading and one old (= with not a lot of ink left) for the small details and lighter areas.
- A blue watercolor pencil for construction lines.
- A BIC mechanical pencil (Bic Matic, 0.7mm), also for the construction lines.
- An Staedtler eraser.

- Sketchbooks. I am not picky but I must admit I prefer when the paper is thick so I tend to choose sketchbooks with a 80g (or higher) type of paper. I prefer sketchbooks with a metal spiral binding. The big drawback is that it's a pain in the ass to scan but I feel more comfortable with this kind of sketchbooks. Sometimes, it's not even a sketchbook per say. I use photo albums. They are great too!

- Scanning and picture enhancing: I use a Canon scan and scan in 300 ppp. Then I open the picture in Photoshop and darken the picture with the Levels Tool. I add a light gray texture with a layer set to Multiply.

Fail?

It happens! I had a lot of problems with the "J2 smoking together" art. I screwed up Jared's face. The likeness was off so I decided to start from scratch. Here's the first version (just a photo, I didn't have the occasion to scan it).

How long does it take for a sketch?

That's a very tough question. I can't tell precisely. Maybe two hours, two hours and an half per sketch. The problem is that I don't sketch in a continuous way. I sketch, then I stop, I go to the kitchen to eat something, I come back, sketch, go to watch some tv, come back, etc...I always have problems answering this question. It takes time, yes but how long does it takes... I have no idea! What is sure is that some sketches take more time than others. For example, the one of Sam & Dean drinking on the edge of the road took maybe 3 hours because I had to draw 2 characters + the Impala with the hood open.

Voilà!!!!!! That's it!!

I'm sorry for the rambling.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate!