Prestidigitation

For Amarath! Who, with possible Minecraft construction in mind(!), wanted to see blueprints for the Dusk to Dusk nightclub. Well, given this year’s color scheme, what we have here are more like sepiaprints:

(Larger version here.)

Have I mentioned that I have no idea how blueprints work?

So, this probably needs some exposition explanation because I made this place needlessly complicated for my own amusement! As you probably know, the club is inside an underground cavern. There are four tall buildings in the corners, acting as support pillars with their highest floors lodged in the stone ceiling. On Page 125, Jim takes our heroes into the top of one; that’s an “employee entrance.” Most of the interior is in poor shape, so if you go in that way, you’ll have to climb down the gazillion flights of emergency stairs on the outside of the building. (Customers get a much better deal — they just ride a lift down to the customer entrance.)

The lowest floors of the buildings have been renovated and used for extra entertainment facilities, storage/maintenance rooms, employee quarters, etc. The main club (everything we’ve seen in the comic so far) is set up in the cross-shaped space between buildings. There’s a wide red stripe along the floor/carpet, running down the stairs at the customer entrance and all the way up the center of the club to the stage. (The better for tipsy customers to find their way out.) The buildings are largely hidden back in the cavern wall, with only two faces visible: one with an emergency staircase (on whichever side faces the red stripe), and one with a door leading in to the lowest floor. Lastly, the path to the Pit curves around to the left and slopes downward as it goes.

I hope that mostly makes sense! The details are mostly for interest — naturally, for Minecrafting purposes, feel free to simplify the heck out of it. (“Four giant square pillars with some tables and chairs in the intersection” is pretty much the gist of it, anyway.)

More in-comic views of the club are on pages 133 (view from the ceiling), 134 (ground level), 150 (emergency stairs and path to the Pit) and 151 (more of the path behind the curtains).

All my recent drawings have been: a) comic spoilers, b) spoilers for something else, or c) too small and/or sketchy to be worth posting on their own.

So, since I’ve been wanting to post something, here are several sketches from Category C! Possibly more interesting together than they are separately!

The jumping/floating guy was pose practice.

The big blue head was the first thing I drew after an ElfQuest reading marathon last month. (I’d just found out that the comics are being posted online. My delight was so profound that it could only be expressed as SQUEE. ♥) I think my art style was affected a bit…

Aaand Kiku and The Don were my facial-proportion practice sketches after reading Drawing the Human Head by Burne Hogarth. (Have I mentioned that I love that guy?)

No idea what the Gauth avatar was about. XD

So, for some reason, I had never heard of Burne Hogarth until about two weeks ago! Astounding, I know. But I stumbled across Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery and, soon after, Dynamic Figure Drawing, whereupon the thought occurred: “ZOMG I think I have a new hero.”

Anyway, I just tried one of the simpler exercises from the figure drawing book: sketching a face with consistent proportions from several angles. The results?

It has some… peculiarities, but I’m happy with it as a first attempt, and I definitely learned some things from the process of drawing it.

And now! I’m off to renew my library checkouts. I want to keep these books for a while. ♥

Sketch Guidelines!