Toon Me & Dolly Parton Challenge

Hopping on that #toonme bandwagon! The purpose of this challenge is to choose your selfie and draw half of your face in your style (you can also add a white line between the photo and the drawing or use any other effect). I'm not sure who the author is, it was suddenly all over my news feed.

I'm not comfortable with revealing my face on any social media, so this was an interesting way to cheat on that "rule". In fact, by doing this and seeing some other examples, I concluded I look similar to any other plus size hobbyist/artist with beard and glasses. Apparently, there's quite a number of us here. 😁

These days there's another meme or challenge on social media, so-called #dollypartonchallenge, so I used some of my avatars to create my own meme.

Arsus (SeptemBear Challenge)

The SeptemBear challenge is behind us, but as usual, it won't stop me from participating with - again, as usual - only one illustration! I mean, one mermaid for MerMay, one dragon for Smaugust and now SeptemBear - see the pattern here? Anyway, until drawing becomes my only full-time job (yeah, right 🙄), you'll have to settle for rare posts and partial art challenges, sorry.

Since I already drew my favourite bear last year - that mutant zombie bear from the movie Annihilation - for this year I chose Arsus, a Hulk-like character, from the Russian movie Guardians (Защитники). It was the Russian answer to Avengers and other similar team-up superhero movies, and although it was a box office bomb with "a derivative plot, bad acting and direction, cheap CGI, plot holes and overall low quality", I thought it was entertaining enough.

Smaugust & Shape Challenge 2019

I know the point of the Smaugust challenge is to draw one dragon for every day of August (it's named after the dragon Smaug from J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology), but I'm aware I wouldn't be able to keep up with the schedule, so I drew only one and I believe it's the first one I've ever drawn!

If it looks somehow familiar, it's because I actually combined it with another challenge - the shape challenge! Namely, many people think that the shape of my country looks like a silhouette of a dragon, so I decided to give my best to maintain Croatia's general shape (minus the islands and some peninsulas) and create a believable dragon. Well, it's actually a wyvern, but I think it's acceptable.

As for the colours, I used red, white and blue like our national flag. I decided that flames should be blue, because they kind of represent the sea here and I also believe it's an interesting change from usual dragons/wyverns. I know the wings/arms don't look functional, but it was a real challenge to incorporate them into the task. Maybe I should explore the possibilities and draw it again in some other, usual dragon-like poses.

I guess there are others who tried to draw similar versions, but I hope I made a very good job! Here's my work in progress:

Greedy Caterpillar

Here's my illustration of "Greedy Caterpillar" for this week's drawing prompt by @jimbobdrawingshow.