Third Rail Thrills 49 – Velma Pin-Up
TRDL 2011 Illustration Series No. 11

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. The subject this time: Scooby-Doo

For this week’s Scooby-Doo jam, I HAD to do Velma. I’ve drawn Daphne twice now, on account of her mod style, but never Velma, who was always my favorite. What can i say, the smart brunette in glasses? That tools my leather right there. This is the 11th pic in my 2011 series, and number 49 in the Third Rail Thrills series, which are contemporary characters in poses inspired by vintage pin-up art.

Please enjoy, hell yes!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can also see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

References:

Of course, here’s the classic cartoon Velma, complete with bowl cut and blue saucer-lenses.

However, I’m a fan of Linda Cardellini, and her thankless portrayal of Velma in the Scooby-Doo films was my primary inspiration, including the longer hair and smooth skirt.

Process:

This time, instead of late-night pencils, I had early morning pencils. I posted the topic to the jam, and then was hit with my concept quickly and just took advantage of distracted toddlers and sleeping mothers and hit the sketchbook.

The digital tweaks to these inks aren’t immediately noticable, but I brought her face into a more cute, rounder proportion, I moved the right leg higher and more tucked under her left and extended the knee (this is a mistake I continue to make for some reason) and a few small corrections.

Here are the flats. I did the entire piece flatted right away instead of doing fleshtones first, because the tenuous balance between skin, orange and red needed to be just right.

Now, the sack of Scooby-Snacks was intended to be full, but sagging a bit under the weight of the meal and her body, not so much that she left a dent, but enough that it wasn’t a balloon. I didn’t want to get into rendering the deformation of a loose sack of little kibbles or whatever, and wanted it to have more of that rounded, cartoonish appearance. But this meant the same amount of work as if I had just piled it full of granola clusters or weed or whatever a scooby-snack is.

Here’s the completed sack.

This is the original color for the burlap. I actually initially wanted to go blue, but that it was an unnatural color for it to be despite working harmoniously with her outfit. But when I brought it into the Third Rail Thrills sepia background format, I saw I needed to punch it up, so i ended up going back to the blue tones after all…

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills No. 54 – Wasp [And Ant-Man]
2. Third Rail Thrills 38 – Brandy Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 43 – Dr. Girlfriend Pin-Up