Many times, I will sketch a whole bunch of tessellations. Some look okay, others somehow keep my interest, but have flaws or unresolved areas. I usually leave them aside for a while and return with a fresh eye. One such tessellation was the Jewel Thief. I had sketched it three years ago and fixed him up just recently. Raunchy scratchy.

Original Jewel Thief tessellation sketch from 2013

Jewel Thief tessellation by Francine Champagne, ©2013 — Symétruc de cambrioleur

If you compare the two images, it’s easy to see where I fixed some issues. The index and middle finger of the hand holding the diamond, has made way for the newly redrawn left hand holding the velvet bag. The right hand which was exaggerated in size, was swept forward in the new version. Other than this issue, everything else was simply cleaned up. Same leery look and grin. Did add the stethoscope though, a final touch.

There is a certain amount of trepidation regarding the rescue of a design. Need to keep the feel and interpretation, not loose the strength.

The Darwin Award Nominee is another such project. Absolutely loved the concept and the feel of the tessellation. Didn’t know if I would skew it up by trying to fix it. I’m not convinced I did a better job with the feet. Parallel shoes vs. pigeon toed!

Original Darwin Award Nominee sketch

Darwin Award Nominee tessellation by Francine Champagne, ©2014

And one more example, my Bird Brainiac tessellation. The original character looks like a teenager, but the redrawn sketch looks more like an adult. Here, I probably like the original scratchy sketch better than the redrawn version. Oh well, you win some, you loose some.

Original Bird Brainiac tessellation

Bird Brainiac tessellation by Francine Champagne, ©2014