Art therapy was a career choice I decided back in the end of my middle school years, hence why I am currently pursuing it at Marywood University. However, if I went down a different pathway in my younger years, I probably would’ve pursued illustration since I enjoyed drawing so much. Though considering I’m always rushing and procrastinating deadlines, I think it would’ve been an ill-suited job for myself, nonetheless, drawing is a favorite hobby of mine. If given the opportunity and time, I would be more than happy to create comics similar to the kind I see on Webtoon.
One of the prompts for my Character Design class was to create a short comic showcasing a character, it was mostly an exercise to practice drawing different facial expressions on a character. I won’t share the short comic since it’s heavily incomplete and I personally find it unsatisfactory, but I did want to show one of the main characters of the narrative.
Since I enjoy playing Twisted Wonderland, I thought it would be cool to make “twisted” counterparts of Disney characters like the game. My character, Flint Abernathy, is inspired by Mr. Flaversham from the Great Mouse Detective. Albeit he doesn’t have mouse-like features or has red hair, Flint was very much based on Mr. Flaverhsham’s wardrobe, occupation, and dynamic with his daughter.
My first drawing of him (as seen above) was more-so a blue print of what he would look like, so I wanted to do a “family photo” in order to draw Flint full-body, but also his daughter as well. It wasn’t all too difficult coming up with an outfit for him, considering the apron covers a majority of his person, since he’s a toy-maker. At first I was worried that I made him too tall because I wanted to make him appear “lanky”, but the proportions were pretty well thought out. The face was a bit difficult, despite having a reference of the initial sketch of Flint. I think I wanted to lean more into realism with the family photo, so I changed the facial structure and nose size a bit, along with how the facial hair appeared on the face.
Certainly, the hardest part of the drawing was Florence, Flint’s daughter. Quite honestly, most of my drawings consist of young adults so I went a bit out of my comfort zone trying to draw a child. Honestly, Flint took me a bit out of my comfort zone too because he is an older man, so I had to pronounce his age onto his face.
Obviously, Florence is very small side-by-side her father, but her head doesn’t quite fit her body since she is still growing. Her dress is reminiscent of the ones I wore around Christmas time was when I was little, and to the ones my little cousin wears too.
With this drawing, I wanted to put a more tangible look to the characters that are swimming around in my mind. Florence and her father are a sort of love-letter to the father-daughter dynamics that make me happy to see in media and real life.
