NCIS: Second try

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This description is probably going to be a TL;DR and full of TVTropes with links, for the uninformed.

I'd been a fan of NCIS for years before I did this:

And now it's two years later and I'm one of the 20 million-ish viewers every week that pops it into the #1 drama ratings slot.

I came down with a bad cold recently and was marathoning season 3 while I was bedridden and realized how many episodes I'd missed that were brilliant. Yeah, I ship things. But the main inspiration was Ziva's Crowning Moment of Awesome from TVTropes:

"Ziva's first scene. She walks into the NCIS bullpen to find Tony fantasizing about their recently departed teammate, Kate. She sizes up the situation, and with a few well-placed questions manages to knock Tony completely off his game. He never quite recovers." ([link])

And I was like... y'know, they're right! She knows how to get him all disheveled. So tried to draw that. But then while I was drawing them out, I got asked if I could do caricatures. Naturally, I said no because I'm not trained for it at all. ..Then I was like, OH CRAP, I can't do caricatures! I need to learn how to draw faces that actually look like people! So I tried to get facial structure, eyebrow shape and angle, hairline, etc. more accurate than last time. That also meant less focus on expressions, but at least Ziva and Ducky sorta look like their actors. I can't nail Tony's essence. He's tough.

I drew this out character by character as I zipped through the seasons, so their hairstyles are totally inconsistent timeline-wise. Whatever, they all had those hairstyles at some point.

I tried my hand at the classic Gibbs Death Glare ([link]). Tony calls him a functional mute, lmao. In fact, his summaries of the cast are pretty exaggerated but spot-on. He referred to McGee as "big brain, tiny muscles, heart of a lion." Ducky's "mouth works faster than his brain" and he talks to his autopsy victims ([link]). Abby's "the perkiest goth ([link]) you'll ever meet." He didn't get a chance to talk about Ziva, but she's pretty much a Badass Israeli ([link]) Malaproper ([link]). Tony himself is sort of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold ([link]) and the Movie Buff ([link]), which is just what it sounds like ([link]). But naturally, if you watch the show, you already know all this.

The biggest draw for me (besides the to-be-expected UST ([link]) between Tony and Ziva ([link]), ([link])) is their dynamic as a surrogate family ([link]), since every character has at some point had really bad fallings out with a close family member or members. Seriously. Tony's dad was abusive to some degree, Ziva's dad sent her to Somalia TO DIE, McGee's dad was neglectful and critical, Gibbs has pent up anger against his dad for .. making his mother leave or something in addition to his wife and daughter being murdered, Ducky lost his mom to Alzheimer's, and ..well, Abby's pretty okay except with the fact that she recently found out she's adopted.

I could write essays on this, but I'ma stop here. TL;DR: I really like this show. Opening credits homage.

All characters belong to Donald Bellisario/CBS/Paramount. Artwork is ©.