VINTAGE CON SKETCHES: Dirty Pair, pt. 1

Behold, some vintage Dirty Pair con sketches from, I think, the mid-90s through 2002 or so. I drew dozens upon dozens—if not possibly hundreds—of Kei and Yuri commissions during this era, so you can expect to see many more such "vintage sketch dumps" down the road.

A few words:

Gotta say that Yuri looks pretty cute in this Evil Dead-based commission from 1999, but I have to admit that her butt is nowhere near as curvy as I would draw in later years.

I did so many Dirty Pair sketches in this time period that I frequently  redesigned Kei and Yuri just to keep myself interested; the example above is one of the more extreme variations, both in terms of facial design and costume.

The random Spanish, here, came in part from (I think) the Spanish edition of Bubblegum Crisis: Grand Mal; the Lovely Angels part, I'm not so sure about. My apologies, of course, to Spanish speakers—but then again, this sketch wasn't intended to be seen by anyone but the original commissioner. 

This isn't the only time I drew a group shot of all these characters, BTW, but at present I haven't yet dug up photocopies of the other sketch.

Kei's body and shading, here, represents a rare example of photoreference-based drawing from this era, fully 17 years before I took up life drawing on a more regular basis.

The more of the figure you show in a 8.5" X 11" space, folks, the less acreage that takes up on the page, hence the Yuri heads I tacked on to this piece. The reason my con sketches (or covers!) often cut off at mid-thigh is not so I can avoid drawing feet, but so I can fill up more of the available space with artwork. 

Very rare that my initial rough for a con sketch is preserved, as with the scribble above.  Note that the idea was that the Dirty Pair's morphing "smartsuits" from the Run from the Future era could take on any form, including that of a cheongsam-like dress.

Monday on this here Patreon: More life drawings, as usual!