Bjørn 2008 by @Thorvald (El Thorvaldo)

Old, old sketch of Bjørn from July 2008. This would've been my fifth hand-drawn submission to DYOS, and the first I'd sketched of my right-hand man.

I think I did this at least partly in the bath, if one can imagine; not a comfortable setup by any stretch, but I found even if my arm went numb from the posture, I had a little more control over the pencil. It was a practice I kept up for a couple of months until I started worrying the moisture would distort the paper.

This turned out exceptionally well, considering I wouldn't have had the reference material on hand. In fact, while it shares many of the general flaws of my breakout sketches, it still looks better than some of the stuff I was putting out by 2010, and I still use it for reference even now. Bjørn is one of the few characters I seem to get right without trying.

[Originally submitted to DeviantArt January 2012.]