Merry Christmas from the Illegal Tender Crew!!! I’ve been trying to draw this pic for so long it didn’t even start out as a Christmas picture. But since I finished it today I put in a digital hologram tree that Darkly designed. Kind of proud of the perspective on this – I did it on my own without help from the tools in CSP (mostly just to prove I could).
One Nite Alone is a Prince song
See Sonya and Darkly in Illegal Tender 1-5 on sale now!
“Forever and ever in love”
Taking a selfie with the 7+ is a two hand job. I found that when posing with someone else they actually have to hit the shutter button and that’s what’s happening here. The live photo feature caught Luc pulling back from pushing the button 🙂 Haven’t drawn these two in a while and they’re just so damn cute I thought this up when I was going through the pages of issue #6.
Oh these precious babies. All the stuff I have planned for them in the comic – I really hope their relationship lasts but… JK I just haven’t written what happened to them after everything yet. Cause issue #7 is crazy. It’s scheduled for next year spring time – I promise. And as far as sad and shocking events these two get off relatively easy compared to everyone else.
This Could Be Us is a Prince song
See Erol and Luc in Illegal Tender
‘Eternity is just one kiss’
Oh my precious baby redheads. They’re so freakin cute when they get all lovey. I always find their stand alone pictures to be a very funny difference between how they act in the comic. I imagine this takes place a few years after the comic. They’ve both grown on each other 🙂 Emil loves Kiddo so much he even finds clothes that sport her jersey number. After some years Kiddo becomes Sonya’s model for her clothing line. Emil continued to wear fatigues like they’re still cool. Poor baby. I had imagined this is the back entrance of the church Emil attends. He attends mass and she meets him there so they can walk to work/home together. But today they are in no particular hurry so they sit and enjoy the over grown garden. Since Emil is the whitest man ever and his powers make him sensitive to temperature he turns red in the nippy air. Kiddo is blushing because he’s touching her butt. I rarely draw her with her hair up in stand alone pics but the girl in the ref had a high bun I just had to pay homage. After some thought I decided to just make him standard Christian. At first I was going to make him follow Catholicism seeing how he’s French-Creole but he’s a former addict and the religion they turn to is usually just basic Christianity.
So glad I finally got to finish this! The first day I tried PS kept crashing whenever I loaded a new brush. Second day was wasted waiting for a system update. Third day was more updates that slowed my tablets productivity to a crawl but I buckled down and got this done. Wanted to draw them in a more serious romance than their halloween picture – I love that this couple can do both. This scene was heavily reference from a couple pic I found on pinterest: https://pin.it/wa1qGXM. I was going to make another tutorial video on how to ‘search for and work from references’ but honestly all I do if go to Pinterest and search ‘couple ref’ and keep it moving. Yes, that’s legit what I do for a ref. Pinterest has better images than Google. Google uses stock photos. Stock photos tend to be stiff because they are staged and that can come across in your drawings. The couple I ref’ed are more than likely a real couple or they are incredibly comfortable with each other to put this cozy pose off.
4Ever is of course a Prince song
Emil and Kiddo star in Illegal Tender – get issues 1-4 today!!
Sonya’s sale is over but theres still tons to look forward to. Like the beautifully remastered Issue #5: Hell of a Season. Coming soon to digital download!!
In the mean time in between time get the first four issues in the I.T. store now!!
It’s what she had for breakfast. LOL
After that Kiddo picture nearly killed me I wanted to do something simpler and Del was next in the rotation. Haven’t drawn a portrait of the boss lady in a minute and she has such pretty eyes. Del’s appearance is based off of Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy from House) and she has an amazing smile. Check it out in the ref I used for this: pin.it/hxkiHWT Even tho I kept this simple it still took me 8 hours. Mostly fiddling with that lace and the coffee mug design – it originally had words on it but since her hand blocked most of it I went with cracked ceramic design but it seemed too gloomy and I imagine Del’s coffee mugs are very cutesy because Zen buys them for her so I landed on pink and hearts 🙂
My precious little Della Rae… she can toss a car with her pinky. I love her ❤
Starfish and Coffee is a Prince song
Del stars in Illegal Tender – get issue 1-4 here!!
‘A brand new story in the making’
Just in case you forgot that Kiddo is a morning person. She’s basically a ball of energy so as soon as the sun starts to come up she’s there to see it. I’m stinking this is still the view from her grandfather’s penthouse. Unlike Emil – she actually enjoys being up high and getting a good view of what’s below. She doesn’t fear falling cause she can fly. Now, who do you think she’s looking back at with such a cute smile?
This. Took. FOREVER!! If you follow my twitter or intagram you can see I’ve been working on this since for four days! Today I had to just let it be the way it was. Everything I kept added didn’t look right so I was like “Well, it must be done then.” – AND I EFFING LOVE IT!!! Normally I don’t brag but look at this! Look at this shit here! This is everything I am capable of at the moment. I used everything I know about drawing to make this and I am in love with it. I originally had clouds but they were too busy so I switched to a clear sky. I might add her little potted lily to this.
Kiddo stars in Illegal Tender – get issues 1-4 today!!
“There’s never a minute that eye find , That you don’t ever cross my mind”
—–
Man I haven’t drawn Darkly by himself in a minute. It’s difficult finding poses for him. He’s not an action guy like Emil. Darkly is plenty sexy but in a different way. His vocabulary is bigger than his muscles. And he spends most of his time behind a computer keeping his fellow supers off the Agency radar. It a stressful job but luckily he has Sonya to… relax him. This pose was easy enough – I didn’t realize all the angles it had tho when I found the ref. And then all of his objects had to fit into it. Luckily CSP had content paradise and it save my life with it’s posable 3D objects. I haven’t done 3D in years so figuring out the controls was fun.
I love how this came out. I just wish you could see the message on his phone clearer. It’s from a contact that he’s labeled: ‘Amor de Mi Vida’ which translates to ‘Love of my Life’. And all the message says is “I miss you. Come to bed.” Needless to say Darkly calls it a night after getting this message 😀 I say this every time but I absolutely love that Darkly wears a necklace with Sonya’s name on it. They’re my favorite couple cause they do cute stuff like that. There is actually a major spoiler in this pic and it’s very much in plain sight.
The words on the wall behind him are the lyrics to ‘U’re gonna C Me’ by Prince (he wrote his lyrics in short hand all the time, he was so precious)
Darkly was made by me and you can buy his comic here!!
Sonya loves to fly. And she loves fall weather. I’ve stated before that she has a vast collection of cute socks and leggins and the fall is the perfect time to wear them. I’m very much like her in that respect – I actually have a purple pair of socks with little pom-poms on them but my animal print leggins are tiger striped, not leopard print 🙂 I liked her socks so much I left off her shoes! Just pretend she left them somewhere on that path below her. So if you see a random pair of boots in an Arboretum look up! There might be a psychic girl flying over head.
I’ve recently been told that my art is boring… Anons on tumblr are such helpful critics ain’t they? I assumed it was just some immature tool trolling me or some disgruntled novice. Either way, I accepted it as a challenge to be more dynamic with my work. Looking back I had fallen into a ‘portrait’ rut (everything was from the waist up, gradient background, 3/4 view, etc) and from now on I’m gonna flex to my abilities to the fullest extent. I looked up a ref for the background and doing simple things like added reflections on the water, diversity of the tree foliage, use of the blur etc – vastly improved the look.
See more of Sonya in her comic: Illegal Tender so here!
“In a light too bright to behold.”
I can’t remember if I promised Emil eye candy or if I just did this out the blue. Either way here’s Emil in his favorite lake
He learned to love nature due to his childhood. He’d rather spend the night under the stars rather than spend it on the floor of his father’s trailer. He and Dominic built a cabin together as part of his rehab and it sits on a huge lake. Emil still goes there to relax and skinny dip. For someone who does Emil is still super pale – I know. He’s one shade whiter than the clouds. I thought about giving him a tan in this but I was more concerned with the nude version… I might also do a night version – there’s something skinny dipping at night that’s just great 🙂
Into the Light is indeed a Prince song
I checked the facts and it’s been 10 years since I first created Sonya. The sweetheart telepath we all know and love! She’s come so far and changed so much. Back when she had long hair she was a romance writer with no powers dating a sullen, dark horror writer we all know as Darkly. Needless to say a story about writers was NOT exciting. Years later I would revamp the two love birds as part of the super powered crew of Illegal Tender. According to the time stamps Sonya first got her signature asymmetric bob haircut in 2010 (incidentally that’s when I had that haircut too). And she’s been getting progressively more ‘wind-swept’ ever since LOL
You can literally see her go from meek to chic 🙂 That’s how you tighten-up a drawing style, I was still very anime-esque during her creation. The second pic you can see where I started thick, western comic lines. Eventually I learned to color the lines and make them not so stark in her fair hair. My new shading technique evens out the tones. In a few years I’m probably evolve again and hopefully Sonya will still be around.
Get Illegal Tender issues 1-4 now and see this woman in action!!
Illegal Tender 