A couple of weeks ago I decided to try and draw something a bit different. I had an idea in my head for ages of drawing Nathan Drake and Lara Croft cuddling together. In my head it looked really cool, so I thought I’d give it a go and see what happens.

It was the fist time I had tried to draw something with multiple references, as so far I’ve only really been drawing portraits. So I spent an hour or so trying to find a nice pose, and then trying to get a nice photo of Lara Croft and Nathan Drake.

I then started to draw the pose, starting with a gesture drawing, and I liked the way the pose was turning out. I then brought up a photo of Lara Croft on my iPhone and tried to put her outfit onto the girl in the pose. I really enjoyed this part and I think I did ok for my first try. I tried to get the lighting right by viewing the original reference image of the pose and trying to map that onto Lara. I then moved onto Nathan Drake and again, via an image on my iPhone tried to get his clothes on the male in the drawing. I even had a massive close up reference photo of his belt buckle :)

I was happy with this, but then I moved onto the faces! Dun dun dunnnn lol I found this so hard to do, the truth is, I think at this point I began to realise I was trying to do something way before I was really ready for it. I just couldn’t for the life of me find a nice reference photo of Lara Crofts face at this particular angle, and so had to try and make it up.

It was so hard, I must have tried to draw her face a dozen times, same thing with Nathan Drake. I’ve noticed over the past few months when randomly sketching in my sketchbook, that I struggle if I try to draw a face smaller then about 3 inches, so that is an area I need to work on.

The truth is, once I finished it, I was so dissatisfied with it that I stuck it in the cupboard and tried to forget about it. I just couldn’t though, for the next 2 days it was really playing on my mind. I’d be up watching TV, or reading my how to book, and start feeling this massive urge to go and have a peak at the drawing to see if it had somehow become a masterpiece while I was gone.

Over and over again I’d find myself just getting it back out and trying to fix it! It was so odd, cos one minute I’d look at it and think, it’s actually ok, then the next I’d literally hate it lol In the end, on the 8th October I said to myself, stop it, you’ve done as best you can, move on and put this one down to experience.

I’ll be honest and say, after finishing the drawing, I spent the next few days a little bit grr that it didn’t turned out as good as it looked in my head. However, I really really learnt so much from doing this drawing, so it was totally worth trying. I really began to understand the importance of good references and it got me excited for the future when I’ll start trying to draw my own original things.

It was totally different to what I’m used to, I found it exciting trying to bring an image in my head to life. It is really strange this drawing to me though, on the one hand I’m really proud of myself for trying something different and at least having a drawing to show for all my hard work. On the other hand, I just wasn’t able to capture their likenesses and so the whole thing kinda falls apart.

I have a way out though…instead of this being Lara Croft and Nathan Drake cuddling, I’ve decided it’s actually 2 random people doing cosplay as Nathan Drake and Lara Croft lol So this drawing wasn’t a failure, but a success lol That’s my story anyway, and I’m sticking to it :) – Drawn on the 8th October 2013