As was said in my RevPub Partner’s Christmas Post creative presents are the best presents.  I decided not to buy random, useless stuff for people this year and do some artwork.

I’m normally a black and white pencil illustrator, but ever since my experience with chalk pastels on Halloween I’ve been eager to try more.  I’ve had random images pop into my head since Halloween and a “classical” portrait of Medi-Evil’s Sir Daniel Fortesque was remarkably vivid and I knew I had to draw this one right away.  Since my friend Mike and I are a huge fan of the series, I knew this was going to be his present:

Roughing out images for chalk pastels is super fast.  I don’t know why it so different from pencils, but for some reason I can get a rough outline done in chalk in a matter of minutes and have it be relatively accurate.

During nearly every chalk pastel I’ve done there is a point where I think “Oh blessed Omnissiah, I’ve ruined it…”  This was the point in this one.  I didn’t have a brown pastel, so I was mixing my own.  At this stage to me everything looked wrong.  I learned on previous images that continuing and correcting as you go works very well.  I don’t erase as much in chalk as the medium is easier to cover with subsequent layers.

At this point the corrections started to make me feel better…  I always draw the eyes in last but I was pretty happy it was all going to work out.  As an aside, I’ve had a clip on drawing board for years.  It’s worn and damaged but it’s served me well.  Especially for medium-sized pieces.

Final Sir Dan.  I decided not to overly detail his leg armor so it didn’t draw away from his upper body.  I was incredibly happy with this one, and it made for a great Christmas to a fellow Medi-Evil fan.  Just shy of a NEW installment in the series.