Rodney Weaver redesigned

Guess who's coming back to Quahog in the next part of my epic (as in really, really long ) story of Meg Griffin coming into her own? Yes, the poetry teacher that started the whole deal, Rodney Weaver. Of course, now that he's no longer teaching (killing one student and banging another kinda ruins your chances at ever becoming one again ), he's decided to let himself become more bohemian, more relaxed, more casual; trading the jacket and tie in for earthy sweaters and letting his hair get long and messy. Oh, and ear jewelry. *swoon* Now that's what I'm talking about!

If you're wondering exactly what purpose this serves plot-wise, well, it doesn't really; but I didn't think it would makes sense for him to keep looking like John Keating (Dead Poets Society) forever, so my mind went "Well, if the first story takes place in 2009 and he's based on a RW character from 1989, then him a year later = 90s Robin Williams. Sweeeeet. ". And anyway, long hair is easier to draw. With short hair I always keep worrying about making it too short or too long or too flat or too messy... here, freedom at last (I'M AS FREE AS HIS HAAAAIIIIR Sorry). Now if only I could write fast enough... the next story's supposed to take place in 2010 and I'm already a year behind!

Here's the picture I used as reference: [link] As you can see, I couldn't quite get the pose exact, but then again you try reconciling drawing a realistic pose with the FG style where everyone has a huge-ass head (And in RW's case, a gigantic nose to boot). Well, anyway, I think you can guess how Meg's gonna feel when she sees him like this. Giggity!

Also, I've been experimenting with using different brushes for the outlines of my digital art, because while the default hard round 1px brush certainly ensures there won't be any "leaks" when I color stuff in, I've also found the outlines a bit too harsh and jagged looking for things like, say, romantic scenes (which I want to do more of), so I've started using "softer" brushes, and this is the first one I've finished with that method. I hope it looks okay enough.

Family Guy © 20th Century Fox/Seth Macfarlane
Rodney Weaver is mine, although the characters he's inspired by are not. He gets a bit more divergent from his roots as a parody later on, trust me.