L is for Luna Lovegood

I was on the fence about whether to “use up” my Harry Potter character on “L” since I had another good choice in Lee Scoresby from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and because it would knock out Xenophilius Lovegood for the difficult-to-fill “X” spot. My list, as it now stands, is fairly short on women, though, so I went ahead and drew Luna:

L is for Luna Lovegood — From the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling

Luna is mentioned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but first appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I’ve read all of the Harry Potter books, but I’ve not yet seen the last few films, so it wasn’t too much of a struggle to work up this image just from the description of her in the books. It’s also helpful that J.K. Rowling writes such vivid visual descriptions of her her character, usually giving you a lot of physical details that add up to a pretty definite “vibe”:

She had straggly, waist-length, dirty blonde hair, very pale eyebrows, and protuberant eyes that gave her a permanently surprised look. Harry knew at once why Neville had chosen to pass this compartment by. The girl gave off an aura of distinct dottiness. Perhaps it was the fact that she had stuck her wand behind her left ear for safekeeping, or that she had chosen to wear a necklace of Butterbeer caps, or that she was reading a magazine upside down

There seems to be some debate in the Harry Potter community as to whether Butterbeer has corks or caps, but it seems to be pretty clear here that they’re caps–presumably metal. I kept seeing stuff like this–I’m assuming this is what she wears in the movies:

People, those are clearly corks, not caps.

Luna is the daughter of Xenophilius Lovegood, who publishes The Quibbler–sort of the Harry Potter equivalent of the U.K.’s celebrity news tabloid, The Sun–so I drew her here reading that (right side up). She’s also wearing some Spectrespecs, which are big, colourful glasses that were given away with an issue of The Quibbler. They make their wearer look like a “demented, multicoloured owl.” I’ve also got her wearing her Dirigible plum earrings, which the book says look like radishes.

I started the drawing for this one in my sketchbook, but foolishly didn’t give myself enough room to work with, so the top 3/4 of the drawing was done in colored pencil and the bottom quarter completed in Sketchbook Pro:I then inked it with Digital Manga Studio and colored it in Photoshop.

Special bonus! Check out this hilarious Sears Photography Studio-type image I stumbled on:

Next week: “M”…

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