Nikita - A new project

So today's post is a bit of a retrospective one. For the past few months I've dipped in and out of a personal project, probably only spending 4 or 5 days on it so far. I thought of this project when I started watching the second season of the CW show Nikita. I have been watching this show since it premiered and although CW shows have a rep of being for teens/young women and essentially being fan service for them (yes I'm talking about The Vampire Diaries), Nikita is one of the few that really stands alone. This show has come at a time that I began showing far more interest in how movies and TV shows are made, from cinematography to screenwriting and it excels in many of these aspects of film. The screenwriting is great, with interesting plots and twists planned well ahead and executed precisely. The acting is great with a cast that compliments each other and from what I've seen from the little behind the scenes footage, seem to be genuinely nice and improve each other's performances. But more than this the thing that strikes you when watching Nikita is the look of it. The action sequences are directed as perfectly as the intense dialogue and the use of visual effects and other post-production is subtle and aesthetically pleasing. As you can see, I've become a bit of a fanboy and this is only helped by the face that the bluray release is one of the nicest looking TV blurays in my collection. Anyway, rather than going on about it, here's the trailer and I recommend you watch the pilot episode and you'll see for yourself. And for anyone wondering, I've seen La Femme Nikita and it's plenty different, it is more of a complete reimagining than a remake.

Well now I'll actually get to the project I was talking about. I decided that, as I'm looking to improve my drawing skills and really push past where I currently am I decided to draw the cast. They're all very different and I've noticed that they all have very different facial structures so it'll give me some good all-round practice. First of all I drew Shane West. He's Michael, the main love interest of the titular character. More than this he works for the Initiative, the origanisation Nikita worked for. He's apparently also known for being in ER but I've only ever seen him in a couple of movies when he was a kid along with an early episode of Buffy. This drawing is not one of my favourites as I was out of practice with my old tablet and I do plan on going over it again soon:

After this character, I'd gotten a new graphics tablet and it was so more responsive so I decided to draw my next character (and my Twitter followers will probably already have seen this), actress Lyndsy Fonseca. She plays the young assassin Alex in the show and is also well known for playing Katie in Kickass and Ted's daughter in How I Met Your Mother among other roles:

This, I feel, was a great success and it only pushed me to do more drawings. I have found a nice digital painting style finally and so I started my next one; Devon Sawa. He was actually a secondary character in the first and second seasons but is being moved up to the main cast in the new season, plus he's a great guy who's tweeted me regarding the drawing and says he likes it (:D). He plays Owen, another division agent and has just recently got back into acting after a great career as a child/young adult actor. He played the human (well living) version of Casper in the 1995 film and has had other roles in many films I watched growing up, one of which was the first Final Destination film where her played the main character, Alex. This drawing proved a real issue as the only good reference image I could find had him staring off into the distance and I (clearly) had some trouble changing his eyes to look more forward. Although it's a lot better than the original.

well, other than this there's not much else to update on this project. I've started my next drawing, Dillon Casey who plays Sean in the show. I started it a while ago but I keep jumping between projects. I do want to get it finished by the end of the newest season at least as it premieres very soon. As you can see it's only just started but I'll upload it when it's all done