Babs Dodge

Framwinkle's picture
Babs Dodge

My first big attempt at draing Babs in an original pose. For this drawing I started with nothing but a simple skeletal form, flowing in the general motion that I wanted to end up with, and then fleshed things out from there bit by bit. I did occasionally look at some pictures for reference, but I didn't copy anything, so this one is completely original work. It also took forever, partly because the originality of the picture was difficult for me, and partly because I just haven't had as much time to work on drawing in the last month.

The feet, hands, cheeks and ears all took an agonizingly long time to do, and I'm still not entirely happy with them. (You've no idea how hard it is to get those giant feet to bend!) However, this drawing took so long that I finally started getting tired of it, and decided to go with what I had, rather than get frustrated and give up. Besides, the paper was starting to wear out from all the erasing.

Babs is supposed to be leaping from one place to another. At least, that's what I had in mind. I imagined that she was dodging something coming at her, or perhaps just leaping from stone to stone across a stream. It's not supposed to look like a move a ballerina might do, although I admit it sort of turned out that way. I say sort of because if I'd been going for a classic ballet pose then I'd have probably tried to make the form a bit more perfected and stylized. Instead, I was going for some kind of realism, which may or may not have been a good idea.

I also decided to draw her from the back because I didn't want to have to deal with her front, since it's a lot more complicated. But now that this one is done, I may have to try the same pose from the opposite point of view, just to see if I can do it.

Comments

Squirrelly's picture

Hey! Very nicely done! I'm

Hey! Very nicely done! I'm rather impressed, as she looks very on model. So all that hard work appears to have paid off. Actually, I sometimes have a hard time getting the back of her head right, and find the face easier. Maybe just because they show that a lot more in the show, so I pay more attention to the details. And of course hands are always a pain.

When I looked at it, I imagined she was playing a game of Dodge Ball or something like that. :-)

If going to draw the front, try mirroring the image and print it out, then make the new image outline line up with the online of this one, so they're a perfect front/back combo (like I did for my Amazing Babs images I used for a t-shirt print). It's kinda fun, once you're done, knowing they line up that way.

Nice job! I'm gonna bump this to the front page!

Framwinkle's picture

Golly! The front page?

Golly! The front page? Thanks! I wasn't expecting that. And thank you for your comments!

As for drawing the front view, I have started on it, but progress is slow. I actually already did a reverse of the picture, where I traced the outline to get a general idea of where things should go, just so they'll all be the same proportions. However, I don't think it's going to be as simple as just flipping it and drawing a face. The head is tilted up slightly, so when I copied it as is it didn't look right from the front. I'm going to have to figure out the propper angle, and it's proving more difficult than I first thought it would be.

The hands and outstretched foot are the same way, since now I'll have to figure out how to draw the palm side of the hands, (Ick!), and the foot will have to be drawn more edge on than it is now, since the bottom of the foot isn't parallel with the ground, but the point of view is above waist height. I think the POV is about level with where her eyes would be, but honestly I wasn't thinking about that when I drew it.

I'd recognize this place anywhere!

Squirrelly's picture

Yeah! It suppose to let you

Yeah! It suppose to let you promote things to the front page yourself (with newer things pushing older ones down the page), but seems something in the system won't allow it, so I'm gonna try bumping some stuff from others up there too, so it's not just all me there all the time, and this seemed like a good start. :-)

And yeah, it can be a little tricky, but if you work it out, it's pretty nice. Maybe it's easier starting with the front then doing the back, not sure. But I'm sure ya' can do it. From looking over this image, I don't off hand see anything that shouldn't be possible. Of course that's without sitting down and trying to actually draw it. :-)

If you need help finding references or some screen shots or such, just let me know!