A.K.A. "Oh, yeah... I have another character besides Sharon! I should draw him more!"

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A lot of my recent uploads have revolved around Sharon in some way, showing off her adult life. I haven't forgotten about Melee, however! He's still a character and one I love very much, I've just been so focused on developing Sharon's character since she goes through a lot of changes on her path to adulthood. And while Melee's personality hasn't changed a great deal on the path to squiredom, he still deserves some attention!

It's getting dark out. There's a chill in the air as winter approaches and the first snow of the season begins to fall. Alas, poor Melee has gotten himself separated from his compatriots while wandering the woodlands of Ashleaf. Not good - while Sharon and Levvick have the skills needed to survive on their own in the wilderness, Melee's capabilities lie in other departments. Sure, he can start a fire and cook a meal, but he doesn't know how to hunt, and he has even less of an idea of how to gather. He can't survive out here for long on his own - he tried one time, years ago when he first came to Ashleaf... it nearly killed him and he only survived through sheer luck. He has to find his friends before it gets too dark. He shouts out their names, hoping for a response. He can see his breath as he shouts... it's getting cold fast. If he doesn't get a response soon, he'll have to set up camp alone and hope they find him. I wonder if someone shouts back...?

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So interesting story with this one. I originally sketched this idea while I was the 2018 Arizona Fur Con a few weeks ago (link below), but the final product came up especially lacking and I felt I didn't do the idea proper justice. So, I decided to dedicate my quiet time at work to giving it another go. After all, I really liked the idea, I wanted to draw more Melee, and it seemed simple enough...

It seemed simple enough, I thought, but drawing it properly proved to make my already stressful days at work all the more stressful as I went through cardboard scrap after cardboard scrap after cardboard scrap trying to get it to look even this good. I must've made at least a dozen attempts at this thing, and only three of those attempts managed to go beyond the head. I don't know why I struggled to get the head and face to look good, but it was a major reason why I kept finding myself having to re-do this drawing so much. The third time I got a decent head down, I decided I was going to be really careful about how I did everything else and... well, here we are. I'm just glad I finally got the idea down and it doesn't look completely terrible, because I was honestly really close to giving up on this thing. But I kept at it! So, um... g-good for me?

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Much like Sharon, I'm still toying with Melee'aged-up design and figuring out what I feel works best. I think I'm going to ditch the rerebraces he had and instead give the gambeson short sleeves so his arms still have a little black on them. Pondered the idea of altering his tunic design by adding a gray section that goes over the lilac sleeve, but as I looked at it I had mixed thoughts about the design and I felt it took too much of the lilac color away. I figured I could instead repurpose it as a sort of overshirt and make it part of his "winter" getup - it gets plenty cold where Melee and Sharon live, after all.

Speaking of winter, the background! The original idea was that Melee was just going to be wandering by himself in the woods at night, but when I decided to make this design his winter outfit coupled with winter drawing near IRL, I decided to instead make the sketch winter-themed. I found a cyan ink pen awhile back (not blue... cyan. I already have a blue ink pen that's seen plenty of use), and this seemed like the perfect chance to use it. I probably could've drawn more snowflakes, but the cool colors and what is shown does the job to show that it is indeed getting cold out.

Despite how careful I was trying to be with coloring this, I still managed to mess up. When shading the wrinkles on the frontal section of Melee's gambeson, I wasn't paying attention and shaded the crease lines all crookedly. I tried to fix it as best I could, but... well, you can only fix so much with just pens. I likely could've stood to be a bit more aggressive with the shading, but I didn't want to botch it and start over again after so many attempts. Probably could've also applied a bit more red to his hair so it looks more brown... drawing brown is tricky when your canvas is also brown, but you need the canvas to also act as white when you lack any white ink pens. I may just go back and do just that next time I get the chance.

I do like how Melee's face came out here - shows just the right amount of fear and unease, I think. But what do you all think? Let me know!

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Melee is property of  silvermelee, A.K.A. myself.

Part of my "Trash Drawing" series, in which I use the quieter moments of my day job to make sketches using whatever materials I have available to me (that being cardboard scraps and whatever pens I can get ahold of). Due to the rough nature of the drawings and the canvas being a literal piece of garbage, I have taken to calling these rough sketches "Trash Drawings," though that name may change as these sketches grow increasingly elaborate and colorful.



BONUS
The first attempt, done at AZFC.
Looks pretty horrible, doesn't it? There's a reason I didn't post that one here. Worth noting that unlike the Sharon drawing I did at this same convention, I didn't have any colored pencils available this time and had to make do with crayons instead. Not like the pencils would've helped, given how ugly the drawing as a whole looks. I still cannot get over how a sketch I did with pens on cardboard while at work somehow looks way better than a drawing I did at an art convention with "proper" art supplies and a sketchpad.

EDIT 11/14/2018
Did some extra shading work on Melee to help give him a little more depth - most of what I added is very faint, but it's most noticeable with his right arm and ear. I also added some wrinkles to the tunic's right sleeve(s), gave his hair a bit more red, and tweaked the crossguard on his sword slightly.