Weekly Art Practice - Week 42

Time for a casual WAP week with axolotls. Partially inspired by the axolotl I drew during Root week, I thought it might be a good time to really look at them and see what features I might have missed in my quick cartoonification.

Day 1 - Drawing from imagination

I really couldn’t remember what their feet looked like.

Day 2 - Figure sketching

A little better but they still seem a little wonky. But possibly realizing these guys might just naturally be a little wonky.

Day 3 - Reference studies

Something I hadn’t really paid too much attention to before was the intense rib cage thing going on. They almost look like a row of gills.

Day 4 - Style studies

Reference: Axolotls by Naniiebim on Cara

Reference: By Yura Inaho on X

Reference: This seems to come from the deactivated Tumblr account of @micahdillustrations

Day 5 - Drawing from imagination

In the end these guys aren’t that complicated, just a little weird. Their hands are more simple then I originally thought, their heads on the overly large side. Just got a slight alien vibe to them.

Conclusion

It was fun to spend time browsing axolotl art, there's a lot of really cute and cool takes on them out there. Beyond figuring out what they look like I should go learn some facts about them like what they eat, where they live, what are they up to in the water?

I'm keeping WAP posts short as they are kind of my "rest" weeks and I've been needed my rest weeks while my body goes through some sort of internal guts overhaul. But I'm now gearing up for a new reference image week and those end up feeling more intense. But it's time to roll the dice and see what I'm working with.

Pinterest board of axolotls